Introduction
This chapter introduces the book’s sociocultural history of expertise as analyzed in arts and music grantmaking during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, It explains the origins of the Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as grantmaking institutions, the individuals involved, and how the missions of the two foundations eventually came to include arts funding. The 1960s and 1970s were a period of “cultural explosion,” as characterized by the popular press. During the early part of the Cold War, both foundations were also subject to congressional investigations which impacted their grantmaking. Finally, the introduction includes a chapter overview of the book, as well as its division into two parts: “Who Were the Experts?” and “Experts in Action.”