Death by a thousand cuts
90 years ago there was a Federal Music Project
If you’re a lover of classical music, and especially a maker of classical music, the best way to raise your blood pressure right now is to talk about its funding.
Sorry. Take a deep breath and then read on.
If you’ve been distracted by all of the other things happening in the news, that’s totally understandable. But the arts are really in the thick of it right now, and it is alarming. Not only are projects being cancelled due to NEA funding cuts, but some projects that are already complete have lost their promised funds after the fact. There was no single announcement of all canceled grants, but organizations have had to immediately turn to the public to bridge the gap. If your inbox is anything like mine, it’s flooded with a series of donation requests that make Giving Tuesday look like a walk in the park.
Considering the budgetary bluster the arts has endured fiscal year after fiscal year, threats to cut the NEA have become white noise. Now that it seems to be slipping away, it’s fair to wonder how we got here. How did organizations even come to rely on the government for funding in the first place? It started with the New Deal.
My original plan here was to refer you to the Library of Congress page about the Federal Music Project. But… speaking of government cuts, that page says "404 Not Found” as of my Monday writing session.
After World War I, composers and artists in the United States had made strides toward a global identity as a musical powerhouse. But once the stock market crashed, all of the patrons who were paying for big projects, operas, and major orchestras couldn’t afford to keep the budgets in the black. It was the New Deal that saved the arts in the USA.
“The American dream offers the promise not only of economic and social justice but also of cultural enrichment.” - F.D. Roosevelt
The Works Progress Administration held all kinds of ambitious projects. Infrastructure would be the key word. Both literally in roads, libraries, schools, skyscrapers, museums, zoos; and figuratively, with a cultural infrastructure being outlined by Federal Project Number One.
"Hell, they’ve got to eat, too" - Secretary of Commerce Harry Hopkins, referring to artists and musicians benefitting from the WPA
Federal Project One had two stated principles:
In time of need the artist, no less than the manual worker, is entitled to employment as an artist at the public expense.
The arts, no less than business, agriculture, and labor, are and should be the immediate concern of the ideal commonwealth.
The state of the classical music at the time was dire. Private teachers lost all of their students at once. Sales of instruments - especially pianos - crashed. Radio stations that had previously hired live orchestras switched to using recordings.
Federal Project One was an umbrella that housed five divisions, one of which was the Federal Music Project. All five were immediately met with skepticism though, from all over the political map. Would this mean government oversight of the arts? Meddling? Censorship? And as the House Un-American Activities Committee suspected, would it lead to the government being infiltrated with communists?
This was the first time federal dollars were being spent on culture, so the stakes were high. In its first year the Federal Music Project:
Launched 34 new orchestras
Employed 16,000 musicians
Funded and organized hundreds of free concerts
Paid for 1,600 FMP-funded teachers to provide music lessons to 140,000 students
All while commissioning a plethora of new works - a total of well over 5,000 before the project ended in 1939
How much money did that cost? In 1935 it was $9.6 million - about $220 million adjusted to today’s inflated dollars. For comparison - today’s NEA, facing such rigorous cuts exactly 90 years later, has a budget of $210 million.
Let me repeat that. The Federal Music Project, adjusted for inflation, had a budget of $10 million more than the entire NEA today. Those 1936 dollars were for just music!
By 1939 support and funding had waned. The Federal Music Project was pulled into the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a program that wrapped up in 1942 as the USA entered World War II. In 1965 the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities was formed as an independent organization - one subsidiary being the National Endowment for the Arts.
The independence of the organization should have alleviated the concerns about government influence that plagued Federal Project One. But it didn’t stop the NEA from being a political pawn. Ronald Regan tried to eliminate it in 1981.
1989 saw attacks from conservative organizations over “indecency” of funded projects. And realistically, every few years it’s on a punch list for cuts from the Republican side of the budget process, usually ending in compromise. Seemingly until now.
I’ve discussed the economic benefit of arts funding before in this newsletter. A 2023 study by Americans for the Arts showed that the millions governments may spend on nonprofit arts and culture organizations generates billions in economic activity.
Let’s break it down via the year 2022:
NEA budget: $201 million
Economic activity generated by nonprofit arts: $151.7 billion
For comparison, also in 2022:
One city (Buffalo)’s spend on its NFL stadium: $850 million
Economic activity generated by the NFL: $12 billion
I’m not saying to stop spending on the NFL! But this is an excellent moment to remind ourselves that economies are not vacuums, they are ecosystems. Money doesn’t go into a void when it’s spent on the arts. Eliminating that spending has a ripple effect. It’s worth taking a moment to consider the bang for our buck.
I think it’s an exaggeration to say that nonprofit arts as a whole relies on the government for its budget. Never in my decades at nonprofits has one source funded the whole organization. It’s more like individual projects are able to launch thanks to these NEA funds. Will some projects flop? Yes. Will some win Pulitzer prizes, draw in audiences, or make people think more deeply about the world? You bet.
Budgeting is prioritizing. Your money may or may not go where your mouth is, but either way it will speak volumes about what you value. What are we, as Americans, showing that we value right now?
Let’s take a look at where those dollars back in the 1930s got spent.
To create a playlist of American works supported by the NEA, WPA, and FMP, I would be able to include pretty much anything by an American from the last 90 years or so - it’s all benefitted either directly or indirectly. But specifically looking back at those four years of the Federal Music Project, here’s a selection of works that had some form of support. Enjoy.
-Colleen