Government and the Arts: Voices from the New Deal Era Author(S): Roy Rosenzweig and Barbara Melosh Reviewed Work(S): Source: the Journal of American History, Vol

Home , Charles Alston

Government and the Arts: Voices from the New Deal Era Author(s): Roy Rosenzweig and Barbara Melosh Reviewed work(s): Source: The Journal of American History, Vol. 77, No. 2 (Sep., 1990), pp. 596-608 Published by: Organization of American Historians Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2079193 . Accessed: 31/01/2012 15:12

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Organization of American Historians is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of American History.

http://www.jstor.org Governmentand the Arts: Voicesfrom the New Deal Era

RoyRosenzweig and BarbaraMelosh

In December1938 Hallie Flanagan, director of the Federal Theatre Project (FTP), facedhostile questioning from Congressman Joseph Starnes of theHouse Com- mitteeon Un-AmericanActivities. The congressmanand hiscolleagues sought to uncoverpernicious Communist influences on thegovernment-funded artsprojects. WhenFlanagan read a passagethat referred toworkers' theaters being imbued "with a certainMarlowesque madness," the congressman thought that he had his opening: "Youare quoting from this Marlowe. Is he a Communist?"A puzzled Flanagan re- pliedthat she "was quoting from Christopher Marlowe." The impatientcongress- maninsisted that Flanagan "tell us whoMarlowe is, so wecan get the proper reference.""Put in therecord," the FTP director replied dryly, "that he wasthe greatest dramatistin theperiod of Shakespeare,immediately preceding Shakespeare."' This unintentionallycomic exchange between arts administrator and con- gressmanis onesmall part of a vastbody of oral testimony on thecultural politics of New Deal fundingof the arts.Contemporary voices are capturedin the proceedingsofthe Dies committee,and historians have retrospectively located participantsin theNew Deal artsprojects and recordedtheir stories. These past and presentvoices are joined in an ongoingconversation. In many interviews, subjects andhistorians replay the political conflicts ofthe late 1930s. In counterpointtothe suspiciouscongressman whom Flanagan faced, most former participants celebrate theNew Deal projects.A fewvoices echo congressmen's concerns about political subversion.Still others ponder how to reconcileartistic freedom with the impera- tivesof bureaucratic control and public accountability. These voices from the New Deal thusraise complex and enduring issues about the meaning of a nationalcul- tureand the role of government in shaping it. TodayJesse Helms and a castof sup- portingplayers are rehearsing the same questions, with sex replacing communism as thesubject of outrage. In theface of these controversies, voices from the 1930s acquirenew resonances and meanings -ways of adding historical context to a debate thathas beenframed without much reference to thepast. Thisessay offers an introductiontothose voices. First we place them within their

RoyRosenzweig and BarbaraMelosh both teachat GeorgeMason University. I JohnO'Connor and LorraineBrown, Free, Adult, Uncensored: A LivingHistory of the Federal Theatre Project (Washington,1978), 33. OralHistory 597 historiographiccontext, and thenwe considertheir uses and limitationsfor future historians.A recentlypublished research guide, Government and theArts in Thir- tiesAmerica, documents the specificlocations of theseinterviews; therefore, we havefocused here on the characteristicthemes and shapingbiases of the oral histories.2 The New Deal era artsprojects constituted the most ambitious, innovative, and intensiveeffort that the federalgovernment had undertakento fosterartistic and culturalactivity. Under their aegis, artists painted murals on thewalls of small-town post offices,interviewers collected the lifestories of formerslaves, symphony or- chestrasperformed in medium-sizedindustrial communities, photographers cap- turedthe faces and landscapesof rural America, and theatercompanies dramatized social problemsin "LivingNewspapers." The largestand best-knownof those projectswere the foursponsored by the WorksProgress Administration (WPA) as partof its relief efforts in thesecond half of the 1930s:the Federal Art Project (FAP), the FederalMusic Project (FMP), theFederal Writers' Project (FWP), and the Fed- eralTheatre Project. These, along withthe HistoricalRecords Survey, were collec- tivelyknown as "FederalOne" or moreformally as FederalProject No. 1 of the WPA. Withthe exceptionof the politicallycontroversial FTP, which was closed by an act of Congressin 1939, the projectslasted from 1935 until 1943. But the government-sponsoredarts projects of the New Deal era began before and wentwell beyondFederal One. The PublicWorks of ArtProject (PWAP), the firstlarge-scale federal art project, was established in theTreasury Department with fundsfrom the CivilWorks Administration in December1933; it providedartists and sculptorsneeding relief with jobs decoratingpublic buildings and parks.Simi- larlythe Treasury Relief Art Project (TRAP) employedout-of-work artists to decorate twenty-fivehundred federal buildings; in 1938it was absorbed into the FAP. By contrast,the Sectionof Paintingand Sculptureof the TreasuryDepartment (later re- namedthe Sectionof Fine Arts and generallyknown as "theSection") did not im- pose a means test on its artists.Begun in 1934, it commissionedmurals and sculpturefor newly constructed federal buildings including eleven hundred post offices.Another non-relief-based cultural effort was the historicalsection of the ResettlementAdministration (RA), laterthe FarmSecurity Administration (FSA), whichemployed professional photographers to documentthe lives of the rural poor and New Deal reliefefforts. This programproduced more than 250,000 photo- graphsthat are valuable sourcesfor the studyof the Great Depressionand of documentaryphotography. The RA/FSAalso sponsoredfolk music projects and two famousdocumentary films by Pare Lorentz, The Plow ThatBroke the Plains (1935) and The River(1937).3 In assessingthe artsprojects, most historians applaud the financialand moral

2 RoyRosenzweig et al., eds., Governmentand the Artsin ThirtiesAmerica: A Guide to Oral Historiesand OtherResearch Materials (Fairfax, 1986). 3 Foroverviews of the New Deal eraprojects, see WilliamF. McDonald,Federal Relief Administration and the Arts (Columbus, 1969); MiltonMeltzer, Violins and Shovels: The WPA ArtsProjects (New York,1976); and Rosenzweiget al., eds., Governmentand the Arts. 598 TheJournal of American History September1990 supportoffered to artistsduring the GreatDepression. Historians of the Federal Writers'and theFederal Theatre projects, for example, have generally endorsed the workof the programs.Jerre Mangione, who was himselfa coordinatingeditor for theFWP, emphasizes its impressive research accomplishments and laudsthe Amer- icanGuide Seriesas a significantcontribution to Americanliterature. Monty Noam Penkoweralso returnsa favorableverdict on the AmericanGuides and praisesthe FWP'ssupport for writers. He rejectsthe criticism of the guides as "make-work"de- meaningfor creative writers: "Those who complainedabout writing for the guides assumedthat an opportunityfor creativity did not existin thesevolumes and the projectshould alwaysaccommodate them, rather than vice versa."4 But otherhistorians find that art and bureaucracymade strangebedfellows; their accountsregister concern about bureaucraticinterference with art and raisedoubts about governmentsponsorship as the engineof a nationalculture. In herhistory ofthe Federal Theatre, Jane DeHart Mathewsrecognizes that government sponsor- ship entailed accountabilityto a broad public, but she argues that art and bureaucracywere inherentlyincompatible. Flanagan's fiery leadership was the sourceof the FTP's brightest accomplishments, but the same qualities that inspired dramaticinnovation also ensuredthe demiseof the projectsat the hands of con- gressmenattuned to an audienceof voters. Similarly, Richard D. McKinzie,writing on thevisual arts projects, registers doubt about "thecompatibility of bureaucracy withthe creativespirit." The judgmentof one participantin the FAP,interviewed in 1965, capturesthe mixedverdict that many historians have rendered:"It just sprawled,and so it made a lot ofmistakes, but I thinkit was a good thing.I don't thinkI'd like to see it repeated."Less skeptical,however, are John O'Connor and LorraineBrown, who portray the Federal Theatre as a modelthat demonstrated the richpotential of a nationaltheater, its promise stunted by political interventions and thenforeclosed by a shortsightedCongress.5 Assessmentsof theNew Deal's visualarts projects have been complicatedby art historians'repudiation of the dominant aesthetic of the 1930s.Champions of mod- ernism,art historianshave seen regionalismas pedestrianin its commitmentto representationalart and reactionaryin itscultural politics. Barbara Rose's influential survey,American Art since 1900, for example, notes the importance of theFederal ArtProject in givingartists a senseof themselves as professionals- a pointthat many

4 JerreMangione, The Dream and theDeal: TheFederal W/riters' Project, 1935-1943 (New York,1972); Monty Noam Penkower,The Federal W'riters'Project: A Study in GovernmentPatronage of the Arts (Urbana, 1977), 166. This essaydoes not attemptto providea completediscussion of the substantialsecondary literature on the arts projects.For a comprehensivelisting of sources,see Rosenzweiget al., eds., Governmentand theArts, 293-325. FederalOne, a newsletterof the Instituteon the FederalTheatre Project and New Deal Cultureat GeorgeMason University,Fairfax, Virginia, publishes a regularbibliography of new workson 1930sculture. 5 JaneDeHart Mathews,The Federal Theatre, 1935-1939: Plays, Relief, and Politics(Princeton, 1967), 313-14; RichardD. McKinzie,The New DealforArtists(Princeton, 1973), 188; Charles Alston interview by Harlan Phillips, Sept. 28, 1965,transcript, p. 25 (Archivesof American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington); O'Connor and Brown,Free, Adult, Uncensored, vii, 6-7. Thereis no book-lengthstudy of the Federal Music Project, but seeJan- nelleWarren-Findley, "Of Tearsand Need: The FederalMusic Project 1935-1943" (Ph.D. diss.,George Washington University,1973); and KennethJ. Bindas,"'All of This MusicBelongs to the Nation':The FederalMusic Project and AmericanCultural Nationalism, 1935-1939" (Ph.D. diss.,University of Toledo, 1988). Oral History 599

*~~ ~~~~~~ .:...... ; ~ ~ .~~ ~ ...... ~ ~ ...,,,~ ... . ~ ~ ~ ~ j ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~ ii' ~ a ,b~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~1 hwl'h.It -

Tsaob iiam Gop ap

Mattew Bigel, Fancs V.O'Conor Virini Meclenbrgand eliarioCon

treras are hus ionoclsts een fo confrringattenion o art ecisiely eclude from the modernist canon.6~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~.....

MhsartthewBaigllab F pracsV OaConnreVirgni a99pmeckletnburgd1 CandonBelisarioCn- treasare thubesionocleAmrcnAtsts evnfrConerngrs attentoYonk art9)decisively excluded

fromntequmodernistcanonrvve."6 r itraswowie n1 sraim uha

6 BarbaraRose, American Art since 1900 (New York,1975), 105; MatthewBaigell, The American Scene: Amer- ican Paintingof the 1930's(New York,1974); FrancisV. O'Connor,Federal Support for the VisualArts: The New Deal and Now; A Reporton the New Deal ArtProjects in New YorkCity and State withRecommendations for 600 TheJournal of AmericanHistory September1990

Mostbroad synthetic cultural histories of the 1930shave littleto sayabout the roleof government programs for the arts. Warren I. Susman'sprovocative essays are richwith suggestive comments about the New Deal's abilityto manipulatecultural symbols,but hisexpansive surveys of the literature, nonfiction, and popularculture of the depressionera pay limiteddirect attention to the artsprojects. Historians RichardH. Pells,Alice G. Marquis,and David P. Peeleralso surveya broadcultural terrain,but theyhave done strikinglylittle to locate government-sponsoredart withinit. Interpretationsof New Deal photographyare perhapsthe singleexcep- tion:historians such as WilliamStott, James Curtis, and MarenStange have reached beyondthe framework of government patronage to assessFSA documentaryphoto- graphyas art and culturalhistory.7 Threerecent books on New Deal publicart suggest a newhistoriographical direc- tion. All use the evidenceof New Deal programsto pose questionsinformed by a revisionistart historyand social history.In Wall-to-WallAmerica, Karal Ann Marlingexamines negotiations over public art as evidenceof public taste. Sue Brid- well Beckhamprobes the conflict-riddenactivities of the Sectionin the South to understandthe oftentense relationships among artists,administrators, and au- diences.Marlene Park and GeraldMarkowitz's Democratic Vistas, the collaboration ofan arthistorian and a socialhistorian, advances new claims for the aesthetic merit of Section-sponsoredpublic artand at the same timereads its iconography as the culturalexpression of 1930sliberalism. Thus, this newer work moves beyond the po- liticaland artistichistory of the New Deal artsprograms to a social and cultural historythat interprets the culturalproducts of thoseprograms as evidenceof the values,beliefs, and traditionsof theircreators and consumers.8 Collectionsof oral testimony bear the marks of the preoccupation with the limits and possibilitiesof government arts partronage that dominated the secondary litera- tureuntil recently. Motivated by positive assessments of government funding of the arts,oral historyprojects have generallysupplied a counterpointto congressional

Present-DayFederal Support for the VisualArts to the NationalEndowment for the Humanities(Greenwich, 1969); FrancisV. O'Connor,Federal Art Patronage: 1933 to 1943 (College Park,1966); FrancisV. O'Connor,ed., Artforthe Millions: Essays from the 1930sby Artists andAdministrators of the WPAFederalArt Project (Green- wich,1973); Francis V. O'Connor,ed., TheNew DealArt Projects:An AnthologyofMemoirs (Washington, 1972); VirginiaMecklenburg, The Public as Patron:A Historyof the Treasury Department Mural Program Illustrated with Paintingsfrom the Collectionof the Universityof MarylandArt Gallery(College Park,1979); BelisarioR. Con- treras,Tradition and Innovationin New Deal Art (Lewisburg,1983). 7Warren I. Susman,Culture as History:The Transformationof American Society in the TwentiethCentury (New York,1984); WarrenI. Susman,Culture and Commitment,1929-1945 (New York,1973); RichardH. Pells, Radical Visionsand AmericanDreams: Cultureand Social Thoughtin the DepressionYears (New York,1973); Alice G. Marquis,Hope and Ashes: TheBirth of ModernTimes, 1929-1939 (New York,1986); David P. Peeler, Hope amongUs Yet:Social Criticismand SocialSolace in DepressionAmerica (Athens, Ga., 1987);William Stott, DocumentaryExpression and ThirtiesAmerica (New York,1973); James Curtis, Mind's Eye, Mind's Truth:FSA PhotographyReconsidered(Philadelphia, 1989); Maren Stange, Symbols ofIdealLife: SocialDocumentary Photog- raphyin America,1890-1950 (New York,1989). 8 KaralAnn Marling,Wall-to-WaIIAmerica: A Cultural History of Post-Office Murals in the GreatDepression (Minneapolis,1982); Sue BridwellBeckham, Depression Post OfficeMurals and SouthernCulture: A Gentle Reconstruction(Baton Rouge, 1989); MarlenePark and GeraldE. Markowitz,Democratic Vistas: Post Officesand Public Art in the New Deal (Philadelphia,1984). OralHistory 601 criticslike Starnes. Oral historianshave summoned voices that attest collectively to theaccomplishments ofthe New Deal and haveused theirwords to encouragemore publicinvestment in culture.This "countertestimony" provides an enormouslyvalu- able resourcefor historians interested in thepolitics of art and culture.In addition, oralhistory helps document the broader social history of American art and culture thatthe mostrecent historiography calls for. Morethan 1000 interviews - totaling about fourteen hundred hours of tape - are availablein abouttwo dozen publicarchives and at leastfive private collections. In- terviewsdone byprojects rather than individuals constitute the bulk of the available oral recordon the New Deal artsprojects. The Archivesof AmericanArt (AAA) ofthe Smithsonian Institution in Washington,D.C., housethe largest group of interviews.Most of these468 interviewswere done in 1964 and 1965 undera grant fromthe Ford Foundation. Although most of these interviews are with visual artists, theAAA collectionalso includesinterviews with participants in theFMP, the FWP, and otherprojects. It also holds the mostcomplete set of interviewswith veterans of the photographyunit of the FarmSecurity Administration's historical section. The othermajor repository for oral histories on governmentand the artsin the 1930sis Special Collections,George Mason UniversityLibrary, Fairfax, Virginia, whichholds 319 interviews,mostly gathered with support from the NationalEn- dowmentfor the Humanities (NEH). The universityis also thehome of the produc- tionmaterials (including plays, production notebooks, and posters)from the FTP, whichthe Libraryof Congressplaced on permanentloan therein 1974. Before GeorgeMason professorsLorraine Brown and JohnO'Connor "rediscovered"the FTP materials,they had been largelyforgotten in a Libraryof Congresswarehouse. Interviewswith FTP veteransdominate the George Mason collection, but it also in- cludesoral historiesof participantsin the musicand visualarts projects. Individualscholars have also gatheredinterviews as theyworked on dissertations, books,and exhibits.The 17 interviewsthat Mangione did forhis memoirand historyof theFWP, TheDream and theDeal, forexample, are withhis papersat the Universityof Rochester,Rochester, New York.Marion Knoblauch-Franc, who had planneda bookon theFMP, has depositedher interviews in theSpecial Collections departmentat GeorgeMason University Library. So has arthistorian Helen Har- rison,who wrotea master'sthesis and a numberof articleson New Deal art. Unfortunately,however, many interviews done as partof individualscholars' re- searchhave been lostor havenever been depositedin publicarchives. For example, the 65 interviewsthat Penkower did forhis book on the FWP no longerexist. An effort-undertakenby the Instituteon the FederalTheatre Project and New Deal Cultureat GeorgeMason University and supportedby NEH -to locateand acces- sion interviewsdone as partof thesisand book researchproved only partially suc- cessfulin rescuingoral history interviews from oblivion. At least 200 interviewswith artsprojects participants have eitherbeen destroyedor havenot been made available to scholars.Perhaps the newly adopted addendum to theAmerican Historical AssociationStatement on Standardsof Professional Conduct, which maintains that 602 TheJournal of AmericanHistory September1990 researchershave the obligation "to deposittheir interviews in an archivalrepository," will help preservesuch resourcesin the future.9 Despite thevast quantity of oral evidencecollected, these interviews reflect the experienceof onlya small fractionof the participantsin projectsthat employed morethan forty-five thousand people at theirpeak. Moreover,the interviewees are farfrom a representativesample of theproject participants. A briefsurvey of some ofthe characteristics ofthe available interviews reveals some of the possibilities and limitationsof reconstructingthe artsprojects' experience from the oral record.10 The mostimportant bias in the oralevidence is thevery uneven coverage of the artsprojects -a resultof the particular origins of the largest oral history collections on thesubject. The fourprojects that supported work in thevisual arts - theFederal ArtProject of the WPA, the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts, the Treasury ReliefArt Project, and the Public Worksof ArtProject -are the subjectof more thanhalf of all availableinterviews. Another third reflect on theFTP's work. By contrast,only 33 interviewsdocument the FMP,even thoughit receivedthe largest amountof governmentfunding in the earlydays of the WPA. The FWP is only slightlybetter represented. Withinthe differentprojects, the selectionof participantsis farfrom random. Overwhelmingly,interviews have concentratedon administratorsand creative people. Thereare dozens of interviews with actors, muralists, painters, playwrights, sculptors,directors, composers, and dancers.By contrast, only eight researchers, five secretaries,one accountant,and a handfulof technical workers have had theirstories recorded-even thoughthe projectsemployed thousands of people in thesecate- gories. Justunder a quarterof the interviewsare with women, a good representationof theirparticipation on theprojects; they constituted almost one-quarter of FAP artistsin New YorkCity, for example, and morethan one-sixthof Sectionartists." Yetwhile women's voices are well represented in theseoral history collections, those voicesspeak onlyrarely about theirspecific experiences as womenon theprojects. Thisis particularlytrue of the interviews done in the 1960s,before the rising of the secondwave of feminism. By contrast, interviews with black participants often con- siderthe particular opportunities and constraintsfaced by African-American crea- tivepeople in thegovernment projects. The largenumbers of interviews with black

9 "AHA AdoptsStatement on Interviewingfor Historical Documentation," Oral HistoryAssociation News- letter,33 (Fall 1989), 3. Twohundred is a conservativefigure based on a checkof mostbooks and dissertations on the New Deal artsprojects. 10 WilliamF. McDonald notesthat the Works Progress Administration projects alone employed44,797 people at theirpeak. See McDonald,Federal ReliefAdministration and the Arts,215. The followingsurvey is based on data collectedunder a grantfrom the NationalEndowment for the Humanities(NEH) to the Instituteon the FederalTheatre Project and New Deal Cultureat GeorgeMason University.The projectwas codirectedby Roy Rosenzweigand LorraineBrown. For a fulllisting of the oral histories, indexed by project, location, and theproject positionsof the interviewees,see Rosenzweiget al., eds., Governmentand the Arts. 11Marlene Park and GeraldMarkowitz, New Dealfor Art: GovernmentArt Projects of the 1930s(Hamilton, 1977), 20. Oral History 603 theaterworkers (including, for example, actress Osceola Archerand playwright AbramHill) are particularlyrich in thisregard.12 The geographicdistribution of the interviewsis also skewed,although that, in part,reflects the employment patterns of the visual arts and theaterprojects, which are overrepresentedin the collections.More than a thirdof the interviewsdiscuss New York (mostlyNew York City), and anotherfifth talk about projectsin California.No otherstates come close,but thereare significantnumbers of inter- viewscovering the District of Columbia(where the projects were administered), Il- linois,Washington State, Colorado, New Mexico,Minnesota, and Massachusetts. The Southis particularlyunderrepresented; only Florida is discussedin morethan a handfulof interviews. A lessobvious but ultimatelyquite significantbias is the age cohortof the par- ticipantsinterviewed. The medianage ofthe interviewees at thetime of their inter- viewswas about sixty-five;thus, they were about thirty years old in themid-1930s.13 Missingfrom the oral evidence, then, are the recollections of people whojoined the artsprojects in middleor old age. Fewerthan one-fifth of the interviewees are people whowere over forty when they started on thearts projects. Since most of the people wereinterviewed at closeto retirementage, we also missthe perspective of subjects recallingtheir youth from the vantagepoint of midcareer. Theseinterviews, then, are the recollections of people at or nearthe end oftheir careerstalking about the experiencesof theiryouth. Such a combinationoften producesinterviews tinged with nostalgia for the excitement and freedomof youth. These life-cycleperceptions no doubt color the interviewees'evaluation of the projectexperience. Brown, who has interviewedmore than eighty veterans of the FTP,notes that, in part,the "positive" and "nostalgic"views of the project expressed in theinterviews have "to do withthe camaraderie they felt ... withbeing young, youngand penniless,but terriblyinspired." Betty Lochrie Hoag (McGlynn),who interviewedartists in southernCalifornia for the Archivesof AmericanArt collection,also commentson the rosyglow of memory.As participantsremembered a momentof youth,energy, and dreams,"they became very nostalgic," she recallsof the interviewsshe did twenty-fiveyears ago.14 As withalmost any oral historyproject, the intervieweesare in some sensesur- vivors.Not onlydid theyliterally survive to theirsixties, when the interviewers showedup, theyalso generallysurvived in theircareers. Their persistence as cultural workersmade them visible enough for oral history project organizers to locatethem. Of course,the interviewsare not all withpeople who experiencedgreat success in laterlife such as John Houseman, Ben Shahn,or ArthurMiller. Indeed, sometimes

12 The Hatch-BillopsCollection, Inc. (491 Broadway,New York, NY 10012)has takena leadingrole in collecting interviewswith African-American artists. 13 Data on birthdateswas onlyavailable for about one-halfof the interviewees. 14 BarbaraMelosh, "Interview with Lorraine Brown and RoyRosenzweig, George Mason University,Aug. 3, 1987,' OHMAR Newsletter(Fall 1987),n.p.; BettyLochrie Hoag McGlynntelephone interview by Barbara Melosh, Feb. 28, 1990 (in BarbaraMelosh's possession). 604 TheJournal of AmericanHistory September1990 verysuccessful people werereluctant to spend timein an interview,Hoag notes. The refusalof Orson Welles to sitdown with historical interviewers leaves a notable gap in the oral historyof the FTP, forexample. But generallythe bias is toward people who continuedto workin the artsand who werethus likely to agreethat governmentsponsorship helped artists. It is muchharder to describethe common themes and interpretationsin the in- terviewsthan to offera socialprofile of the interviewees. No one has readmore than a smallsampling of the interviews; any generalizations must rest on ourown limited readingand listening.Nevertheless, the issue of governmentsupport of the arts seemsto shapemost of these interviews. Implicitly or explicitly, one questionlooms: Was governmentsupport of the artsa good thing?And theanswer most often ap- pearsto be yes.The interviewsare overwhelmingly positive in theirview of the New Deal artsprojects -a reflectionnot onlyof the perspectiveof projectparticipants but also ofthe people chosenfor interviews and theperiods in whichthey were interviewed.For example,George Mason University'sinterviews with FTP participants,which were mostly done in thelate 1970s,reflect in partthe enthusiasm generatedby the rediscovery both of the archival materials and ofthe theatrical ex- perimentationof the FTP. Brownnotes that the interviewsare "forthe mostpart incrediblypositive.... when the publicitycame that afterall theirmaterials had been saved . . . that just created an emotional response."15 Yetwhile the interviews provide a strongdefense of "public" patronage of artists, theyecho historians'doubts about the roleof governmentbureaucrats in shaping Americanart and culture.In partthe doubtsreflect the highly individualistic vantagepoint of many artists, who often cherish a romanticimage of the artist as a soli- tarycreative individual. Since these interviews mostly give us the voicesof artists, governmentsupport of the artsis evaluatedaccording to whetherit aided or hin- deredindividual creativity rather than some largersocial goals. The doubtsabout the accomplishments ofNew Deal artalso reflectthe particular momentin thehistory of art when many of the interviews were done. In the 1960s, therealist aesthetic that had dominatedNew Deal artwas under heavy assault from a dominantabstract expressionism. Interviews from the 1960soften present dia- loguesthat are as muchabout the value of a particularkind of art as aboutthe value of governmentsupport of artin general.Thus, when Harlan Phillips interviewed thepainter Charles Alston in 1965,their conversation revealed the doubtsof both interviewerand intervieweeabout the aestheticeffects of the sociallyconscious art of the 1930s.Both men sharedthe tacitassumption of formalistart criticism, the notionof artas separatefrom society and thereforeinevitably compromised or de- based whenin theservice of politics. Asked by Phillips how the project affected his work,Alston was ambivalent.

15 Melosh,."Interview with LorraineBrown and RoyRosenzweig," n.p. Special Collections,George Mason UniversityLibrary, has also continuedto collectoral historiesafter the initialflush of excitement.In the 1980s, anotherNEH grantallowed the university to add interviewswith participants in themusic project and thevarious artsprojects to its collection. OralHistory 605

Alston:Blunting it perhapsfor a while?In the sensethat, you know, an artist has thisset of blinders, but hereyou had thissocial view, and youwere talking with otherpeople and you wereabsorbing ideas and thinking-? Phillips:So thatmight have sidetrackedyou? Alston:Yes, possibly.

In contrast,artist Edward Biberman repudiated the implicit opposition between art and politics.He challengedhis interviewerwhen she suggestedthat government sponsorshiphad constrainedartistic freedom. "I thinkwe have to be carefulwith wordsbecause absolute freedom for the artistnever exists. It seemsto me thatit just dependson whatthe areasof freedomare and whatareas are restricted,and to whoseconformity."'16 Thesedialogues on governmentpatronage and creativitysuggest that the greatest valueof these interviews is thatthey offer insight into the relationship of individual participantsto the federalarts projects. The oraltestimony offers a mediatedview ofthe experienceof artists in the 1930sand moredirect insights into their later assessmentsof it. Listenedto withcare, then, these interviews illuminate contem- poraryand retrospectiveassumptions about the relationshipof artand social life. Historiansmore interested in theinstitutional history of the projects will, of course, wantto startwith the vast written record (mostly collected in theNational Archives) ratherthan with interviews. Still, the interviews tell us aboutunderlying personality and politicalconflicts on theprojects that were not always candidly noted in writing. Giventhe political pressures that the projects faced, the important influence of left- winggroups (particularly the Communistparty) was not alwayscandidly noted at the time.FTP directorFlanagan's Arena, a historyof the projectwritten just after itsdemise, is understandablyreticent about the European and Russianroots of some ofthe project's dramatic experiments and emphasizestheir native heritage instead. Justas theDies committeehearings document the anticommunist culture that ulti- matelyclosed down the FTP,the oralhistory interviews provide vital insights into the PopularFront culture that the projectsdrew upon and fostered.17 The interviewsdone in more recent years are particularlyvaluable in documentingthe political context of the projects. The shadowof McCarthyism still loomsover the interviewsdone beforethe late 1960s.In 1957,an interviewercon- frontedartist Rockwell Kent with his membership in "Communist-front"organiza- tions.Kent refusedto confirmor denyhis partymembership but insistedthat "a good percentageof all theorganizations in Americadevoted to makingDemocracy work . . . were called Communist fronts."By the late 1970s, McCarthyismstill cast itsshadow but notquite so darkly.When FTP veteranEarl Robinson (the composer of "Ballad forAmericans" and otherfamous works) spoke to interviewerJohn

16 Aistoninterview, 22; EdwardBiberman interview by Betty Lochrie Hoag, April15, 1964,transcript, p. 43 (Archivesof AmericanArt). 17 On the basic archivalcollections, see Rosenzweiget al., eds., Governmentand the Arts,269-91. Hallie Flanagan,Arena: The Historyof the FederalTheatre (New York,1940), 70. 606 The Journalof AmericanHistory September1990

"< ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~-~~07

"LooJ,Sen

Iftheintrviewshepie undeyrsadtenow omingtotic, instigatioryl scnde oltca"cn Rextsrndwhcdfromjedtwreral Theare, tedn, 1937yare Coresy LibrrynhelpngresostFdructof ph arty.erwouild' adclua untlrerisoyothat r recentl.Ivadittedritanow, hae told attemptingto write.In a sense,the great strength of these interviews is also a weak- ness.They so emphasizethe novelty of New Deal fundingof the arts that they some-

18 RockwellKent radio interview byJohn Wingate, Sept. 12, 1957,transcript, p. 2 (Archivesof AmericanArt); Earl Robinsoninterview by John O'Connor,Aug. 1978, transcript,p. 45 (Libraryof CongressFederal Theatre ProjectCollection, George Mason UniversityLibrary, Fairfax, Va). OralHistory 607 timesneglect issues of artisticproduction and consumptionthat transcendthe depressiondecade. Thus, questionsabout artisticproduction tend to focuson the specificissue of governmentsponsorship and to ignorethe generaleconomic and professionalcontext in whichart, theater, music, and writingwere generated in the firsthalf of thetwentieth century. Moreover, the romantic notion of the artistthat permeatesthe interviews leads to an emphasison personalcreativity rather than on the day-to-daylife and problemsof the culturalworker. Yetalthough these interviews do nottake a directinterest in theprocess by which artand cultureare created, they do providesubstantial material for those concerned withthe historyof artisticproduction. Anyone interested in compilinga collective biographyof artists and theaterpeople in thetwentieth century would find the in- terviewsan unparalleledresource. Moreover, despite the bias toward the famous and successful,the interviewsinclude large numbers of storiesof "ordinary"cultural workers-the sortof people whosestories are notrepresented in paperarchival collections.In addition,the interviews often include surprising incidental details that revealsome of the conditionsunder which artists worked. Lucienne Bloch, for example,talks about how she fither pregnancy into the WPA's procedures, which did not includematernity leave. She hid her"condition" with her portfolio and then listedher son's name as the titleof the "nine month"project that she had com- pleted. "I thoughtthat now theywill throwme out,"she recalled."But insteadI gotthe most beautiful bunch of flowers from the WPA project,"and hersupervisor encouragedher to keep working.19 Interviewslike that one offerbrief glimpses into the social historyof artistic production.Further interviews with remaining project veterans should emphasize suchissues, expanding the range of available documentation. It is probablytoo late, however,to use oralhistory to documentthe other concern of the new cultural history:how art and cultureare consumed.In the 1960sit mightstill have been pos- sible to interviewresidents of smalltowns on theirreactions to the newpost office muralsor New Yorkerson theiropinions of FTP plays.But fiftyyears after the fact, theeffort seems somewhat quixotic. Historians concerned with the crucial question of audiencereception will have to devotetheir attention to the audiencesurveys gatheredby the FTP staffat some playsand the lettersof complaintand praise writtento the Sectionof Fine Arts.20 One finalgap in the oral historyrecord is particularlydisappointing-the ab- sence of any substantialdocumentation of one of the mostmassive oral history projectsever undertaken, the thousands of life histories and slavenarratives gathered by the FederalWriters' Project. Although these sources are now widelyused by historians(particularly historians of slavery)and althoughsome have questioned

19 LucienneBloch interviewby MaryFuller McChesney, Aug. 11, 1964,transcript, p. 68 (Archivesof Ameri- can Art). 20 Forstudies that use materialsshowing audience reactions, see Marling,WYall-to-WlallAmerica; Parkand Mar- kowitz,Democratic Vistas; Beckham, Depression Post OfficeMurals; and BarbaraMelosh, Engendering Culture: Manhood and Womanhoodin New Deal Public Art and Drama (forthcoming,Washington, 1991). 608 TheJournal of AmericanHistory September1990 their"authenticity," we knowrelatively little about themethods used in gathering thismassive body of oral testimony.21Ironically, then, the mostglaring silence in the vastbody of oral historytestimony on the New Deal culturalprograms might be said to be theoral history of oral history itself. Thus, the two most pressing tasks facing futureoral historiansof the government-sponsoredarts projectsare documentingthe modes of productionof artistsin generaland oral historiansin particular.It wouldbe a fittingtribute to the culturalexperimentation of theNew Deal eraas wellas to theenduring values (and limitations)of oral testimony to find outwhat the oral historians of a halfcentury past have to sayto oralhistorians today.

21 For the disputeover this material, see LeonardRapport, "How Valid Are the FederalWriters' Project Life Stories:An Iconoclastamong the True Believers'" Oral History Review (1979), 6-17; and TomE. TerrillandJerrold Hirsch,"Replies to LeonardRapport's 'How ValidAre the Federal Writers' Project Life Stories: An Iconoclastamong the TrueBelievers,' " ibid. (1980), 81-92.