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Blog Post 1 - Peter

One key sticking point from this week's reading are the parallels between the Great Depression and the Covid-19 pandemic's effect on the art industry, but despite the parallels the difference in federal support for the industry between the two periods is striking. The Great Depression decimated the art industry as people struggled to cover the necessities and had little to no discretionary money left for entertainment. The Federal Theatre Project was a program in FDR's New Deal that employed 15,000 men and women within a year to run performances at little to no cost to the audience. This was one of the first programs that went directly to preserving the skills of a worker to prevent these artists from having to shift the industry they worked in. It was a huge success with nearly 30 million people attending a performance in the 4 years of its existence. Covid-19 devastated the arts industry with 99% of arts organizations experiencing financial loss of a combined $17.3 billion dollars, with theaters being the hardest (Osborne 12). As many as 63% of artists experienced unemployment with BIPOC organizations being hit the hardest. 


While there was unprecedented relief funds for Covid-19, these artistic organizations were often left out of the equation: "the majority of available funds go to the wealthiest, whitest, least experimental institutions, thus reinforcing a hierarchy in which some individuals receive high-paying, high-profile jobs while the minority struggle" (Osborne 12). This picture is from a protest of hundreds of art workers in NYC looking for relief. Many of them brought their art with them to the demonstration to help bring the protest to life. My key takeaway from these readings is that industries like the art industry may be viewed as discretionary or non-essential from outsiders, leading them to be ignored in public relief, but the preservation of art and artistic skills help preserve our culture and expression and thus our identity, which is extremely undervalued.  

Comments

  1. Lindsay Adamson LivingstonFebruary 7, 2023 at 10:58 AM

    Great point, Peter--I appreciate your attention to the ways that public funding can influence what kinds of artistic production are preserved in times of crisis and what kinds are left to wither. Why do you think we didn't see the kind of concerted investment in the arts as part of, say, the PPP loan program (these funds WERE available to some artists--but only if they employed other people) that we did during the New Deal? Does it reflect something about the position of the arts in today's society? The type of arts we value? The immediate goals of COVID-19 relief? Or is it something more like historical hindsight (e.g., the FTP received relatively paltry funding compared to other WPA programs; maybe it is only our ability to see the effects of that funding play out over a century that makes it seem substantial by comparison)?

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