The extraordinary and unexamined history of a radical group of women artists funded by Roosevelt’s New Deal, who challenged racism and inequality and created enduring works of public art.
"Lauren Arrington expertly uncovers the vibrant and overlooked stories of women artists who worked, struggled, and created under the auspices of the New Deal arts programs and beyond. This is a meticulous and timely portrait of a remarkable group of undaunted women... This necessary, original, and richly detailed work of feminist history will change the way we understand American art of the 1930s."
"Beautifully researched and conceived, Bohemians on the Breadline is a timely, compelling reminder of how the arts flourished and sustained a nation when championed by public leadership and investment."
"An essential, history-shifting story of women artists working in the United States during the New Deal. Arrington’s agile prose and deep archival research (No FBI file goes unturned) reveals the conflicting but necessary role of art in national crisis and personal identity—and feels freshly relevant today. Long after I’d finished reading, many of its details lingered like lanterns strung across the shadows of history."
"A moving, powerful and beautifully written account of a fascinating historical moment, through the eyes of a brilliant array of women artists whose works speaks as much to our time as their own."
Lauren Arrington is the recipient of the Robert & Ina Caro Award from Biographers International Organization, a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Award, and visiting research fellowships to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library; Cambridge University; Boston College; and Trinity College Dublin.
Her writing has appeared in LitHub, the Times Literary Supplement, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Public Books, and elsewhere.
Born and raised in Florida, Lauren lived in the U.K. and Ireland for twenty years. She earned her doctorate at Oxford University and now lives with her family in St. Petersburg.