File:General store and post office 24943v.jpg

• Date: 1938; dimensions: 6' x 13' 6".
• 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:

Until the turn of the twentieth century, the general store often functioned as a post office for rural communities. Even after the Post Office Department instituted Rural Free Delivery, the general store remained a cornerstone of the community and a hub of communication. In General Store and Post Office, Lee shows the store's behind-the-scenes workings on the left, while on the right she depicts the front of the store bustling with activity: a woman arrives at the postal window with her young daughter, who gestures towards a reward notice for the capture of a wanted criminal; behind them, a young woman waits to mail a letter; the aproned man at the counter sells various sundries; and to the right, a young farmer reads aloud to his neighbors from a newspaper sporting the headline "Farmers Organize." The open door at the far right reveals a gasoline pump, which at the time was still a fairly recent invention, just thirty years old, and alludes to the increased mobility of rural Americans during the 1930s.