Explore the Critical analysis of this artwork, Dangers of the Mail.
In 1982 art historian Marling pointed out that the women in the bottom right of the painting were the only figures in the painting without faces or clothing and that they "(existed) solely to be preyed upon and maimed".: 256 In 2015, the Colorado Springs Business Journal called it possibly "the nation's most dangerous painting". In 2010 Sandra Starr, writing in Smithsonian's American Indian magazine, called it "easily the most controversial of all these (images of Native Americans in New Deal commissioned post office art)".Ohl, in 2019, wrote, "Far from reflecting an impartial or even faintly recorded 'History of the Post', Dangers of the Mail instead condenses titillating imagery of Western expansion epitomized in early American literature, film, television, and theatrical performance."
New Deal Colorado Springs Business Journal Native Americans