THE ART OF POLITICS
Depending on how you think of the word ‘art,’ the subject of today’s blog can be viewed two different ways. ‘Art’ makes me think of beauty, music, dance, theater and creativity, meant to appeal to the senses and mind. However, with the addition of the word ‘politics;’ especially this country’s political climate for the past eight years, ‘art’ is synonymous with crafty, sly and secretive. The Bush administration craftily, cut federal funding for education, health care, veterans, infrastructure, medical research and the arts, while slyly allocating more of our tax dollars for a duplicitous war in Iraq. Secretive deals and loop holes led to economic chaos on Wall Street, along with the mortgage disaster, and massive unemployment.
The last time the United States faced an economic crises of this magnitude was in 1929, with the collapse of the stock market. By the time Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, there were over 13, 000,000 people out of work, and almost every bank in the country was closed. Roosevelt was intent on uplifting the American spirit by creating cultural democracy along with political and economic democracy. In his first “hundred days,” Roosevelt proposed, and Congress enacted the New Deal, a series of agency programs which brought relief to the unemployed. More than just economic recovery, the New Deal was designed to energize American ideals by bringing cultural programs and art to citizens.
The largest agency created by the New Deal was the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which headed several smaller agencies. The WPA affected almost every locality in the United States by creating over 8,000,000 jobs. Americans were put to work building new roads, schools, libraries, hospitals, hydro-electrical plants, farming, and industrial manufacturing. Under the WPA, the Federal Art Project (FAP), Federal Music Project (FMP), Federal Dance Project (FDP), and Federal Theater Project (FTP), provided work as well as creative outlets for unemployed actors, musicians, dancers, composers, playwrights and theater technicians. The funding of these agencies allowed the arts to flourish, in spite of the hard economic conditions caused by the Great Depression. Active in rural areas and cities throughout the U.S., the FAP, FDP, FMP, and FTP, brought about an artistic Renaissance in this country.
The scope of these cultural projects seemed limitless. All aspects of theater, movies, radio and fine art thrived. Productions were done in and for African Americans, Yiddish, Italian, Spanish, French, German and English. Outstanding artists of this era included, Saul Bellow, John Steinbeck, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Berenice Abbott, Woody Guthrie, Thomas Hart Benton, Ralph Ellison, Orson Welles, Burt Lancaster, Elia Kazan, Sidney Lumet, and Arthur Miller.
The enduring legacy of public art, theater, music, dance, photography and literature, brought about by the New Deal is priceless. Treasured paintings, photographs, novels, choreography, classic movies and musical compositions from that era still enrich our lives today.
On January 20, 2009, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our country’s 44th President. With his confidence, optimism and political savvy, Mr. Obama can move our country back on the road to recovery and greatness reminiscent of the Roosevelt Era. Like our 32nd President, he recognizes that it is crucial to uplift the American spirit by creating cultural democracy along with political and economic democracy.
