English: Photograph of mural "Reading 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
In Reading the Family Letter, Brook depicts the mail's role in helping to alleviate the loneliness and homesickness experienced by young men working far from home during the Depression. The picture shows five CCC men, who would have lived together in military-style camps and worked in teams planting trees, maintaining roads, and preserving wildlife. The bare chest of one worker signals the strength and fortitude required to perform eight hours of manual labor each day, and reinforces the heroic image of CCC workers. The man featured in the right half of the composition, however, retreats from his companions to read a letter from his family. His intense focus on the letter shows an eagerness for any news from his family. As CCC worker Belden Lewis described in his 1934–35 diary, receiving a letter from home was often the highlight of a worker's day.
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.