Epictetus long ago wrote, “Wisdom is a large and spacious thing. It needs plenty of free room. One must learn about things…the past and the future…one must learn about Time.” Through the passage of time and a reflection on history we can glean a level of wisdom or understanding regarding cultural policy according to Carole Rosenstein. Cultural policies are the actions taken by government to solve specific problems that are measurable in nature and where the goals are attainable. These policies are specific to culture and are influenced by stakeholders of culture: institutions, people, government, and more. Yet, when did cultural policy begin in the United States?

The American National Theater and Academy (ANTA) is the beginning of cultural policy that experienced an attempted revival by returning G.I.’s Robert Breem and Robert Porterfield in 1945. This pursuit fell through but spawned another conversation of how implementing a national arts and cultural program could serve the government’s Cold War agenda. It was then that ANTA partnered with the United Nations (UN) and Mary Stewart French to provide international cultural programs. ANTA went on to represent American theater, doing dozens of tours abroad each year through the 1960s at festivals such as the Berlin Cultural Festival while sharing the talents folks like Louis Armstrong and Bennie Goodman. During their tours, ANTA was amply funded by the International Cultural Exchange Services (ICES) and under the table by the CIA who leveraged these efforts to strengthen U.S. culture abroad and anti-communism.

If it were not for ANTA, the inspired actions of elite society’s philanthropy of the arts may or may not have furthered the cause for arts policy. Between the 1940s to 1960s, three wealthy and notorious foundations stepped up and set the tone for cultural policy: Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation. Their philanthropy shaped not only government but public life, other institutions, their founders, and general supporters. Carnegie’s contribution to culture was pivotal in building 1,679 libraries—seeing them as “universities of the people.” Then, when Frederick Keppel took over Carnegie, funding rose up to eighty percent in giving toward the visual arts and art history. Around this time Ford also participated in these efforts with the beginning of the national education broadcasting network in 1951 which later became PBS. Yet, it was Ford’s W. McNeil Lowry who would go on to promote the development and further enrichment of arts in higher education. With Rockefeller, we see Nelson become involved in government and appointed by Roosevelt in 1940 to “start cultural exchanges to combat Nazi propaganda.” He would continue in politics, becoming the governor of New York and the first to create the first state’s art council. These elites would go on to insert themselves increasing into government and create actionable change.

Although elite society may have had noble reasons to promote and further the arts, government had its own agenda. During the Cold War, it became a governmental imperative to combat communism with cultural programs that possessed an icing of anti-communist messaging. The agenda paired with arts policy can seem to be an ulterior motive and yet it had a positive side effect in affecting change. In 1950, President Eisenhower formed the American Assembly where academics and government officials, elite society, and corporations could convene to review public issues and priorities surrounding art and culture. Cultural policy would also permeate the Kennedy administration through Jackie Kennedy who acted as liaison between the White House and congressmen to develop arts legislation. Eventually, the United States saw cultural policies passed such as The National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities Act (1965) and The Historic Preservation Act (1966).

The history of cultural policy has changed us as a society and there’s wisdom to be gained by reviewing what’s brought us here to the present. It was the elites’ nurturing of the arts that helped art matter to government and how it benefits the wellbeing of the people it governs. Yet, cultural policy was shaped by elite taste—tastemakers—and the civil rights movement as well as modern day focuses on diversity are now what’s shaping our cultural policies. Our past has molded how we view cultural policy and the values we carry around it. It continues to evolve, even now, as we’re presented with new technological advances that affect the arts. Here is where wisdom and understanding can help us help shape our future in policy.

Sources

Rosenstein, C. (2024). Understanding cultural policy: Government and the Arts and Culture in the United States. Routledge.