Arts organizations throughout the U.S.A. will join together in a RED ALERT on Tuesday night, September 1. The purpose is to draw attention to the value of arts and entertainment and the deep impact COVID-19 is having on organizations and people in this critical sector. Some cities, Chicago being one, have targeted funding to help organizations during the pandemic shut down but much more help and support is needed. Perhaps advocates should look back at strategies from the recovery period following the Great Depression.
The Works Progression Administration (WPA) was FDR's primary strategy to restart the U.S. economy during the Great Depression that began in 1929 and persisted through the 1930s. The WPA put people back to work in constructing parks, dams, and other infrastructure that benefitted the public. Along with these physical public benefits, it also supported the arts with many writers, musicians, painters and others contributing to the richness of American life during that period. This was leadership at a very difficult time and the WPA will forever be remembered, and Roosevelt lauded, for the vision of offering employment that rebuilt the country.
The Public Works of Art initiative alone hired 4,000 people in 1933 who created 16,000 murals and paintings for governmental buildings. The Writers Project hired 7,500 writers and the Federal Theatre Project hired 15,000 playwrights. Chicago was one of the primary cities to benefit from the WPA and the portion targeting the arts. Chicago's concert halls and ballrooms were abuzz with great classical and popular musicians celebrating the unique character of America.
The WPA launched in the 1930s when unemployment was 20%, a level quite similar to the unemployment rate that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the governmental investment has been very significant in 2020 and the period of intense unemployment will hopefully be shorter, it was implemented in across-the-board payments to citizens and through making funds available for loan to keep employees on the payroll of faltering businesses.
The July 15, 2020, Chicago Tribune article, "How will Chicago artists make it through coronavirus?" proposes that a WPA for the arts is one way to put the 37% (per Bureau of Labor Statistics) of artists and entertainers back to work across the country. If for-profit businesses and churches can obtain help in 2020, then why not artists? Surely, some artists have benefitted from the funding that has already been made available but, due to the greater proportion who are out of work in the arts, funding specifically to help them would be huge.
Like the WPA of the 1930s, public support for the arts could create a renaissance of American culture that would celebrate who we really are, a nation primarily of immigrants who get things done. And perhaps some of the new art could replace the art and statuary that has become the center of many demonstrations throughout the weeks that followed the killing of George Floyd but police in Minneapolis. The arts help us find common ground, they symbolize both difficult and good times, they critique in thought-provoking ways, and the arts could employ many people who are struggling today.
The Public Works of Art initiative alone hired 4,000 people in 1933 who created 16,000 murals and paintings for governmental buildings. The Writers Project hired 7,500 writers and the Federal Theatre Project hired 15,000 playwrights. Chicago was one of the primary cities to benefit from the WPA and the portion targeting the arts. Chicago's concert halls and ballrooms were abuzz with great classical and popular musicians celebrating the unique character of America.
The WPA launched in the 1930s when unemployment was 20%, a level quite similar to the unemployment rate that resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the governmental investment has been very significant in 2020 and the period of intense unemployment will hopefully be shorter, it was implemented in across-the-board payments to citizens and through making funds available for loan to keep employees on the payroll of faltering businesses.
The July 15, 2020, Chicago Tribune article, "How will Chicago artists make it through coronavirus?" proposes that a WPA for the arts is one way to put the 37% (per Bureau of Labor Statistics) of artists and entertainers back to work across the country. If for-profit businesses and churches can obtain help in 2020, then why not artists? Surely, some artists have benefitted from the funding that has already been made available but, due to the greater proportion who are out of work in the arts, funding specifically to help them would be huge.
Like the WPA of the 1930s, public support for the arts could create a renaissance of American culture that would celebrate who we really are, a nation primarily of immigrants who get things done. And perhaps some of the new art could replace the art and statuary that has become the center of many demonstrations throughout the weeks that followed the killing of George Floyd but police in Minneapolis. The arts help us find common ground, they symbolize both difficult and good times, they critique in thought-provoking ways, and the arts could employ many people who are struggling today.
