The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent government agency that provides funding for the creation, dissemination, and performance of the arts.
Congress created the agency in 1965 along with the National Endowment for the Humanities. Both were part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s domestic agenda called the Great Society.
The birth of the NEA owes much to the particular historical context of post-World War II America. Economic growth, greater leisure time, and an increase in educational levels of Americans all contributed to a growing demand for the arts. The cold war between the United States and Soviet Union played an important part as well. Excellence in the arts became a key component in convincing the world’s people of American superiority. Without a national endowment, however, funding at the state and local levels remained low. As president, John F. Kennedy tried unsuccessfully to use his influence to create a national arts program. Johnson, as he did with other legislation, framed the need for national arts and humanities organizations as part of Kennedy’s unfulfilled legacy. An alliance of both arts and humanities served a political purpose. Pairing arts with the less controversial humanities gave the act greater support, and Johnson signed the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act on September 29, 1965.
Art forms funded by the NEA include crafts, dance, film, fine arts, literature, music, sculpture, and theater. Most grants go to nonprofit organizations such as orchestras, theaters, museums, and schools, or to support arts festivals. Some grants go to individual artists and these have been among the most controversial. Through the encouragement and financial support of the NEA, symphony orchestras, theaters, and dance companies experienced a tremendous growth and resurgence in popularity in the late 1960s.
The chair of each organization is a presidential appointee who serves a four-year term upon confirmation by the Senate. Advising the NEA chair is a 26-member National Council on the Arts, composed of private citizens also appointed by the president. The NEA has fostered the growth of local, state, and regional arts agencies that usually match NEA funds for a project. Originally, only five state arts agencies existed; in later years, other states, too, developed their own agencies.
While public demand for federal support of the arts was high, a weak congressional consensus on federal support kept funding for the NEA relatively low during the agency’s early years. With a budget of only $2.5 million in 1966, the NEA was able to offer little assistance to many nonprofit dance, opera, and theater companies, and symphony orchestras. In later years, the NEA’s budget grew to over $123 million, although controversy over issues of funding and contention between supporters and opponents within the government threatened the existence of the agency.
Further reading: Joseph Wesley Zeigler, Arts in Crisis: The National Endowment for the Arts versus America (Chicago: A Cappella Books, 1994).
—Gregory S. Wilson
World History
