A Boost for the Arts
Brattleboro Reformer Editorial, August 12, 2009
The $179,000 in federal grant money that eight Windham County arts organizations received last week may not sound like a lot of money.
But when you consider that those eight nonprofits received nearly one-third of the money alloted to the state of Vermont under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), for boosting the arts economy, it becomes an enormous vote of confidence in our region. Some may question why ARRA gave $50 million to the National Endowment for the Arts. As Harry Hopkins, who headed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Works Progress Administration once said about writers and artists, "Hell, they've got to eat just like other people!"
Hopkins' philosophy was simple: "Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit." That's what drove the WPA. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, the WPA put more than 8 million Americans to work building highways, airports, public buildings and parks.
But the WPA also put money into the arts. Some of the alumni of the Federal Writers Project included Nelson Algren, Saul Bellow, John Cheever, Ralph Ellison, Martha Gellhorn, Zora Neale Thurston, Studs Terkel and Richard Wright.
The work that they, and others, produced included the American Guide Series, the state guide books that remain to this day essential reading for historians. They assembled oral histories, preserved and recorded public records and unearthed folklore and history from every corner of the nation. In its brief life, the FWP produced more than 12 million words that eventually found their way to print.
In the field of visual arts, the likes of young Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock were supported by the Federal Arts Project. The murals and paintings that were created still grace our public buildings today. The Federal Music Project brought music and instruction from rural areas to urban neighborhoods. Orson Welles, John Houseman, Burt Lancaster, Joseph Cotten, E.G. Marshall and Sidney Lumet were just some of the actors and directors who went on to greater fame after working in the Federal Theater Project, which produced more than 1,200 plays.
The WPA's arts spending amounted to only 1 percent of its total budget, but the contributions to American culture through its programs were immeasurable. Today, the thought of spending public money on art is a controversial notion. Ever since the 1990s, when conservatives turned the NEA in one of its main targets in their culture war, every dollar has been contested.
But the arts are an important part of Vermont's economy. According to state data, there are currently more than 2,150 arts-related businesses here employing nearly 7,000 people. In Windham County, the arts generate more than $11 million a year for the greater Brattleboro economy.
And, like every sector of the economy in this current recession, the arts have suffered. When people are hunkered down and afraid to spend, it's tough to sustain galleries, theaters and museums -- especially when private donors have pulled back and there's less philanthropic money to go around.
That's why we think it's a good idea to include the arts in the Obama administration's stimulus plan. In a recession, government has a responsibility to step in and support sectors of the economy that are struggling.
So, the $29,750 grants that the Brattleboro Museum and Arts Center, River Valley School, Rockingham Arts and Museum Project and Great River Arts Institute will share helps each institution maintain positions that would have been scaled back or eliminated.
Sandglass Theater in Putney will be able to put on more performances with its $25,000 grant. New England Youth Theater can expand its arts education program with its $25,000. The $50,000 that Yellow Barn Music School and Marlboro College will each receive will also expand those institutions' educational outreach.
All the local organizations are worthy recipients and all will make good use of the funding. It's a good start, and we hope that more can be done to not only preserve, but to expand, one of Windham County's most important economic forces -- the arts.