Vintage “See America” Posters & Free Printable Bookmarks

I do LOVE these vintage “See America” posters! I’ve already voiced my love of vintage travel posters and of course, American destinations are some of the coolest. The depression era art style of these posters below is beautiful. The originals are worth a small fortune if you can find them, but you can buy reprints from several places on the internet. One of those places gave this little snippet of background info on the pieces:

WPA Posters ( Works Progress Administration) were made during the WWII Era between 1936 and 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. They were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts.

I liked these images so much that I made them into a set of four bookmarks that I printed out from my computer. I’ve posted them below for anyone else who would like to make them as well. Right click and save the image to your computer for future printing. All you’ll need is a color printer, scissors, a whole punch and some baker’s twine. Once they are printed out, cut along the edges to separate them. Punch out the hole where it is shown at the top. I laminated mine, which I would recommend, especially if you have an ink jet printer and not a laser printer because if it were to get wet the ink would run. Once they are laminated, you can loop the twine around once and tie it or you could tie on a tassel or something decorative. For step by step instructions for making a tassel, visit this page at Martha Stewart Crafts. If you would like to use ribbon instead of twine you can. I preferred the look of the unbleached cotton twine for this project, but please feel free to make it your own. The image is larger than it displays here and will print as a full page.