Focus on this artwork and explore the Objections.
In March 1937, before it had been unveiled, images appeared in a two-page spread in Time, which drew "thousands of letters of protest" of the nudity and criticism for historical inaccuracies. Other critics objected to the portrayal of nude female figures being scalped or strangled; some to government-funded portrayals of female nudity and "lewd content". The controversy over the nude female figures eventually required Rowan and Mechau to defend the work, with Rowan making arguments that the nude figures were small and merely "symbolic motifs" and Mechau arguing that the women were being only "roughly handled". Rowan instructed Mechau to finish the work and get it installed as quickly as possible on the expectation that once the mural was in effect a fait accompli, the objections would eventually blow over. He dismissed suggestions that the figures be painted in clothing as likely to result in renewed negative publicity. He recommended Mechau look for historical evidence that Native Americans "actually tore the clothes from their victims" and told him to avoid the press, postal leadership, and legislators.Mechau arrived for the installation with documentation about scalping techniques and, according to art historian Marling, "Indian preferences in the matter of costuming appropriate for victims". The painting was installed in September 1937, after which Bureau of Indian Affairs commissioner John Collier ridiculed Rowan's and Mechau's earlier statements defending the depictions, calling the painting "a slaughter against pioneer women". Washington's Evening Star, without mentioning the nude women, immediately called the mural "Art at its Worst", said it had "shocked all who have seen it", accused "government doles" of "foster[ing]...radicalism in art", and accompanied its review with a recounting of Phoebe Atwood Taylor's Octagon House, a story of a town so scandalized by an offensive post office mural that members of the community broke in after hours and painted over it.After the early objections to the mural, the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts developed a new review policy for mural designs that might be controversial.New objections to the mural arose after 2000 when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) made the building its headquarters. This time, several EPA employees argued that the mural, along with five others in the building, conveyed stereotypical portrayals of women and Native Americans and contributed to a hostile work environment.A 2005 complaint, filed on behalf of EPA employees regarding six murals in what was then called the Ariel Rios Federal Building, asserted that the various murals depicted Native Americans in a racist manner. As the controversy wore on, Dangers of the Mail became the primary issue (most of the original complaints were about the Dangers of the Mail, another Mechau mural entitled Pony Express,  and Ward Lockwood's Opening of the Southwest and Consolidation of the West).
In 2007, the General Services Administration, which is responsible for the management of federal buildings in the United States, agreed to install a movable screen in front of Dangers of the Mail and to "incorporate revised interpretative materials to address the history of the art and the controversy associated with the mural". A "comprehensive interpretive program" was developed for all 22 murals in the building, including Mechau's Dangers of the Mail and Pony Express, Lockwood's Opening of the Southwest and Consolidation of the West, William C. Palmer's Covered Wagon Attacked by Indians, and Karl R. Free's French Huguenots in Florida, which were the ones named in the filing.
Octagon House Karl R. Free Native Americans John Collier Phoebe Atwood Taylor U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Bureau of Indian Affairs Section of Fine Arts Time federal buildings in the United States stereotypical mural Treasury Department William C. Palmer General Services Administration Ward Lockwood