English: Photograph of mural "Writing the family letter" by Alexander Brook at the Ariel Rios Federal Building in Washington, D.C.
Notes:

• Date: 1939; dimensions: 11' 2" x 6' 3".
• Photographed as part of an assignment for the General Services Administration.
• Title, date and keywords from information provided by the photographer.
• Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.
• Gift; Carol M. Highsmith; 2009; (DLC/PP-2009:083).
• Forms part of: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.

Mural information from the General Services Administration
Quiet and spare, like the easel paintings for which Brook was known, Writing the Family Letter depicts a woman and three children at home. Each figure looks away from the others, creating a sense of separation that belies their close quarters. The girl at the table writes a letter, presumably meant for the young man, shown seated in the mural on the right, who has left the family to join the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Men in the CCC were required to be unmarried and between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, so the girl at the table likely writes to her brother. CCC members came from families already taking advantage of local relief efforts through the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA); therefore, the patriarch of the family was probably also out working to support his wife and children. Concern for the family's father and brother, compounded by the stresses of economic hardship, may explain the somber tone of the scene. In one of Brook's drawings for this mural, the mother appears calm, her back to the viewer and her eyes gazing lovingly at the baby. The final composition, with the mother appearing worn and distant, conveys the sacrifices and hard work that were essential to recovering from the Great Depression. On the wall above the girl at her desk is a copy of The Angelus, a famous nineteenth-century painting by French artist Jean-François Millet, which shows a farm couple pausing from their work for evening prayers.
Alexander Brook is one of eleven artists whose murals are featured in the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building. Brook's murals, located in the lobby of the Benjamin Franklin U.S. Post Office, are the only pair that is completely accessible to the public.