Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class
In the American mind, state subsidization of writers and artists was long associated with monarchies and, in later years, socialist states. The support these regimes gave to intellectuals was understood to come with a cost, yet, beginning with the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects, a new policy consensus asserted that by offering financial support to the arts, the federal government was affirming their importance to the nation.

Subsidizing Culture examines the development of and controversies surrounding federal programs that directly benefit writers, artists, and intellectuals. James T. Bennett examines four cases of such support: the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects; the vigorous promotion, in the post-World War II and early Cold War eras, of abstract expressionism and other forms of modern art by the US government; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which has fortified its position as the preeminent arts bureaucracy; and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEA's less embattled twin, which funnels monies to scholars.

Bennett concentrates on the creation of and the debate over these government programs, and he gives special attention to the critics, who are usually ignored. He reminds us that the chorus of anti-subsidy voices over the years has included such disparate figures as writers William Faulkner and John Updike; artists John Sloan and Wheeler Williams; and social critics Jacques Barzun and H.L. Mencken.

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Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class
In the American mind, state subsidization of writers and artists was long associated with monarchies and, in later years, socialist states. The support these regimes gave to intellectuals was understood to come with a cost, yet, beginning with the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects, a new policy consensus asserted that by offering financial support to the arts, the federal government was affirming their importance to the nation.

Subsidizing Culture examines the development of and controversies surrounding federal programs that directly benefit writers, artists, and intellectuals. James T. Bennett examines four cases of such support: the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects; the vigorous promotion, in the post-World War II and early Cold War eras, of abstract expressionism and other forms of modern art by the US government; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which has fortified its position as the preeminent arts bureaucracy; and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEA's less embattled twin, which funnels monies to scholars.

Bennett concentrates on the creation of and the debate over these government programs, and he gives special attention to the critics, who are usually ignored. He reminds us that the chorus of anti-subsidy voices over the years has included such disparate figures as writers William Faulkner and John Updike; artists John Sloan and Wheeler Williams; and social critics Jacques Barzun and H.L. Mencken.

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Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class

Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class

by James T. Bennett
Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class

Subsidizing Culture: Taxpayer Enrichment of the Creative Class

by James T. Bennett

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Overview

In the American mind, state subsidization of writers and artists was long associated with monarchies and, in later years, socialist states. The support these regimes gave to intellectuals was understood to come with a cost, yet, beginning with the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects, a new policy consensus asserted that by offering financial support to the arts, the federal government was affirming their importance to the nation.

Subsidizing Culture examines the development of and controversies surrounding federal programs that directly benefit writers, artists, and intellectuals. James T. Bennett examines four cases of such support: the New Deal's Federal Writers', Art, and Theater Projects; the vigorous promotion, in the post-World War II and early Cold War eras, of abstract expressionism and other forms of modern art by the US government; the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which has fortified its position as the preeminent arts bureaucracy; and the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEA's less embattled twin, which funnels monies to scholars.

Bennett concentrates on the creation of and the debate over these government programs, and he gives special attention to the critics, who are usually ignored. He reminds us that the chorus of anti-subsidy voices over the years has included such disparate figures as writers William Faulkner and John Updike; artists John Sloan and Wheeler Williams; and social critics Jacques Barzun and H.L. Mencken.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781412863353
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Publication date: 01/30/2009
Pages: 286
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Introduction xi

Part 1 A New Deal or a New Dole?: Artists, Writers, and Federal One 1

A New Dealer, A New Deck 3

The Federal Writers' Project 10

Art, Music, and Historical Records 25

Federal Theatre Project 29

Reds Under Beds, or Trodding Boards? 44

A Bureau of Fine Arts? 51

All Things Must End 63

Part 2 Weaponizing Art-and Intellectuals 79

Abstract Expressionism: It's the Bomb 82

The Perfect Villain 87

The Congress for Cultural Freedom 93

The Curtain Falls: The CCF Meets the 1960s 112

Part 3 Lyndon B. Johnson Does Culture: The National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities 129

Enter LBJ 141

LBJ's Garden Party 154

Up and Running 161

Hanks for the Memories 162

The Art of Backscratching 171

The Reagan Age Cometh 175

Who Really Benefits from the NEA? 177

And Now, Back to the Reagan Threat 179

The Culture Wars 182

The Gingrich Panic 189

An Irrelevancy 194

The Great Afterthought: The National Endowment for the Humanities 199

Once Again: The Reagan Threat 218

Government-Approved History and Culture 220

Conclusion 243

Index 247

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