While working for the Omaha Public Works of Art Project, Elizabeth Olds learned the process of lithography—from grinding the stones to cranking the printing press. She joined the New York City WPA Federal Art Project in 1935.

She later expressed the artistic aims of her generation in writing: "American artists have lately chosen to portray our own life. We find our subject on the streets, in the factory, the machines and workers of industry and on the farm. We aim to picture truly the life about us as the people we are in reference to the forces that make us. We choose all sides of life, searching for the vital and significant."

The lines on a lithograph often resemble a drawing because, in the print process, the artist draws the image directly onto a lithography stone using a greasy medium, giving a soft feel to printed lines. 1/15

“American artists have lately chosen to portray our own life. We find our subject on the streets, in the factory, the machines and workers of industry and on the farm. We aim to picture truly the life about us as the people we are, in reference to the forces that make us. We choose all sides of life, searching for the vital and significant.” —Elizabeth Olds