Epilogue

The epilogue discusses recent developments in arts funding and philanthropy. The divergent paths of Rockefeller and Ford—where the former discontinued its arts program and the latter rebranded its cultural work in terms of addressing “inequality”—is a revealing outcome of the increasing social and economic legitimation of arts funding. The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) experienced its first budget cut under President Reagan and then, amidst the culture wars, Congress slashed its budget further. Private contributions have increasingly taken up the slack, but not without their own challenges. New philanthropists are exploring limited liability corporations, donor-advised funds, and metrics and outcomes-based funding. With increasing economic and political inequality and decreasing civic engagement, the government funds foregone because of tax-deductible charitable contributions might be re-evaluated, as well as the ways the federal government may be better suited to provide resources more equitably. An ethics of expertise is now more critical.

The Ford Foundation, Matching Grants, and Endowment Building

This chapter examines the Ford Foundation’s predominantly economics- and finance-based expertise, and the way it sustained the country’s largest and most expensive performing arts institutions: orchestras, operas, and conservatories. Ford accomplished its goals primarily through matching grants and endowments, hoping with matching requirements to diversify organizations’ funding sources and expand the public’s commitment to local arts. Based on the expert advice of economists and administrators, Ford intended endowments to be a permanent source of income for orchestras and conservatories, if they managed the invested principal properly. In practice, however, wealthy individuals on boards of trustees for institutions such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Juilliard School solidified their personal, social connections to elicit five-, six-, and sometimes seven-figure gifts. In general, ordinary citizens and the local community did not participate, and as a result, broad-based support never materialized. Orchestras and conservatories came back knocking on the foundation’s door again and again.

The Rockefeller Foundation, the University New Music Center, and “Foundation Music”

This chapter focuses on the Rockefeller Foundation’s support of university new music centers and contemporary chamber ensembles, offering new insights into a commonly understood historiography of U.S. twentieth-century music: the dominance and prestige of experimental music and serialism at universities. Most notably, composers at Columbia, Princeton, the University of Chicago, and Mills College served dually as outside experts and commissioned artists and performers. Milton Babbitt, Otto Luening, and Vladimir Ussachevsky benefited greatly from their involvement at Rockefeller and the Columbia–Princeton Electronic Music Center. The composers and performers justified their work initially through the Soviet threat and rivalries with European studios, and later with innovation and creativity. The new music ensembles solidified a musical circuit that crisscrossed the country, making stops at many Rockefeller-funded centers. The foundation revealed ways it was both an advertent and inadvertent patron of what New Yorker critic Winthrop Sargeant pejoratively referred to as “foundation music.”

Pluralism and Public-Private Relationships in the Field of Cultural Production

This chapter explores the coordination, cooperation, and competition between the federal government and private philanthropic organizations. As a federal agency, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) was mandated to serve broadly the interests of all citizens, groups, and communities. Private foundations, on the other hand, could decide to uniquely tailor their chosen missions. Regardless of differences in institutional practices and operation, however, the NEA, Ford Foundation, and Rockefeller Foundation collectively served as weathervanes in the field. Their “seals of approval” guided the decision making of individual patrons, smaller foundations, state art agencies, and corporations. Furthermore, their matching requirements concentrated winners and excluded losers because most often, grantees already possessed other sources of social and economic capital. After the Tax Reform Act of 1969, foundations and the federal government found even more reasons to communicate and cooperate with one another, including at high-powered gatherings like Rockefeller’s “How Can Foundations Help the Arts?” meeting in 1974.

Gatekeeping from Within

This chapter elucidates the previously opaque and little-understood roles of foundation and National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) staff and officers, or “philanthropoids” as famous American writer Dwight Macdonald referred to them in his famous New Yorker article. These officers included program directors Walter Anderson (NEA) and Norman Lloyd (Rockefeller); vice president W. McNeil Lowry (Ford); and chairmen Roger Stevens (NEA) and Nancy Hanks (NEA). Foundation and NEA officers, as well as board of trustee members, were “interactional experts”—experts knowledgeable about a field, even if not actively contributing to new knowledge or self-identifying as experts—with tremendous influence in the operation of the system. They decided the kinds of outside voices that were heard in the decision-making process. They were gatekeepers, interlocutors, and translators between the outside consultants they recruited and grant applicants. They wielded the almighty red and black pens and their Rolodexes were a who’s who of asked experts.

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.”

The National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Bicentennial, and the Expansion Arts and Jazz/Folk/Ethnic Programs

This chapter investigates the National Endowment for the Arts’s (NEA’s) jazz program, Expansion Arts division, Bicentennial fellowships for “jazz/folk/ethnic” artists, and Folk Arts division. While the NEA mirrored a policy of matching requirements in its Treasury grants—which supported predominantly symphony orchestras—it also provided several millions of dollars to otherwise underrepresented and undersupported artists and communities. Not only were the NEA’s officers keenly committed to helping jazz and folk music, but also they brought in experts from urban, suburban, and rural communities to work as program directors. Vantile Whitfield and A. B. Spellman—key figures in the black arts movement of the 1970s—became directors. These experts recruited panelists of a broader geographical, racial, and gender representation, and similarly funded more diverse musicians and artists. Compared to the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, which rarely provided funding to jazz or the music of minority communities, the government agency was a lifeline to otherwise unseen and unheard cultural practices.

Defining Excellence, Quality, and Style

This chapter analyzes several definitions and understandings of expertise, as well as its relational and social aspects. It investigates the role of artists and arts managers as “contributory experts.” Grantmaking institutions invited consultants and panelists to help them make cultural policy. One Rockefeller vice president referred to his music advisory committee as his “wise men” who guided the foundation in “the most creative and promising direction.” These experts, in turn, determined and defined artistic excellence and quality, deciding the fate of hundreds of millions of dollars in music. They chose which kinds of music and which composers and performers received foundation and government money. Experts evaluated criteria they believed to be objective, such as budgets and project feasibility, while also expressing their own subjective tastes and preferences. Peer and expert review provided a system of legitimization and authority while concentrating power in a remarkably small and overlapping network of artists.