“Build on what we have done”: The South Side Community Arts Center’s Survival Amid the Changing Landscape of Federal Funding
Date
2024-05
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
Two significant moments in federal arts patronage in the United States in the twentieth
century, the New Deal arts programs and the National Endowment for the Arts had the
potential to democratize access to the arts across the country. Community arts
movements emerged in conjunction with the rise in national interest in the arts,
presenting new opportunities to distribute cultural capital outside of major arts
institutions, to previously underserved communities. By considering the unique case
of the survival of the South Side Community Arts Center, first created under the New
Deal arts programs, this thesis provides an examination of the impacts of federal arts
funding at the community level and evaluating its success at revolutionizing access to
the arts. This thesis presents an analysis of the impact of federal arts funding from the
neighborhood level by synthesizing scholarship, Chicago’s historic newspapers,
government reports, speeches, and essays from community leaders. Ultimately, this
perspective indicates that although federal arts funding increased access to the arts
around the country, its political and institutional limitations did not radically transform
access to the arts at the local level or provide significant support for the survival of
community arts centers. However, this perspective revealed the potential federal arts
funding holds to democratize the arts, if properly distributed at the community level.