Between 1934 and 1938, he worked as an instructor at the Studio House in Washington, D.C.[5] During this period, he won multiple commissions from the U.S. Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts, as part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program.
[5] He installed his first post office mural, entitled Montgomery County Farm Women's Market in Bethesda, Maryland, in 1939.
He created Old Time Camp Meeting for the Lewisburg, West Virginia, and Buckwheat Harvest for the Oakland, Maryland, post offices in 1940 and 1942, respectively.
[6] While completing his Treasury Department commissions between 1937 and 1942, Gates also served as an instructor at the University of Florida, Hood College in Frederick, Maryland; the Washington County Museum of Art in Hagerstown, Maryland; and the Phillips Gallery Art School in Washington, D.C., where his wife Margaret worked as a secretary.
[5][7][8] Robert Gates met his first wife, Margaret Casey, at the Phillips Gallery Art School in Washington, D.C.[4] They were married on January 7, 1933, and divorced in the mid-1950s.