NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES. A federal role in culture received early endorsement with the creation of the Library of Congress in 1800 and with Congress's acceptance in 1836 of the Smithson bequest that eventually became the Smithsonian Institution. In the twentieth century New Deal–era legislation creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA) provided support for artists, writers, dramatists, and musicians. In so doing the federal government stamped cultural activity with a public purpose.

In 1954 Health Education and Welfare Undersecretary Nelson Rockefeller crafted a bill with the support of the Eisenhower administration that would create a national arts council. Modeled after the national arts council of Great Britain, the bill failed but established the concept of a national foundation. President John Kennedy marked the arts as a priority early in his administration, while private foundations had begun advocating for a national arts foundation. In 1964 a blue-ribbon commission organized by the American Council of Learned Societies, Phi Beta Kappa, and the Council of Graduate Schools in the United States issued a report calling for the creation of a national humanities foundation. This momentum culminated with the passage in 1965 of the National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities Act. Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island introduced the bill in Congress for the administration. While the first appropriation for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) was modest ($2.9 million and $5.9 million, respectively), of real importance was the public recognition of a linkage among the vitality of civilization, the health of democracy, and a federal role. President Lyndon Johnson's choice to head the NEH was Barnaby Keeney, president of Brown University.

From its inception the National Endowment for the Humanities functioned as a competitive grant-making foundation with programmatic funding categories (these change periodically), funding levels, and application guidelines. The NEH definition of the humanities is congressionally mandated and includes the core disciplines of history, literature, and philosophy and the humanistic aspects of other forms of knowledge. The legislation asserts a "relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life." The agency early adopted an outside review process made up of rotating panels of professionals and experts who review each submitted application. The final award of funds is subject to preliminary approval of the National Council on the Humanities with ultimate authority resting in the chairperson of the agency. The chairperson and membership of the national council are presidential appointees subject to the confirmation of the Senate, and they serve for a set term of years or until replaced. The NEH is by far the most significant humanities funding source in the United States. It supports major research projects, centers for advanced study, research fellowships, and grants-in-aid of scholarship. The American Council for Learned Societies was the first recipient in 1972.

Federal funding fills a critical gap in cultural resources in the United States. The true value of NEH, beyond the numbers of projects it funds or the audience figures it can point to, is its role in nurturing scholarship and public learning. The state humanities councils are an indispensable complement to the agency. At the instigation of Congress, between 1971 and 1979 NEH organized state-based programs in each of the fifty states. Begun as an experiment, the councils soon evolved into independent nonprofit grant-making organizations that function as partners of the NEH at the state and local levels. They rank as the most remarkable and far-reaching of the NEH–sponsored endeavors. While Congress specifically authorizes and earmarks funds in the NEH appropriation process for award to the councils, the NEH chairperson has final authority in devising standards and conditions for the award of funds.

Humanities councils are boards made up of scholars, members of the public, and gubernatorial appointees. Councils are charged with developing plans that serve the people of their states. Great innovators, the councils have pioneered programs that successfully engage grassroots audiences, including library-based reading and discussion programs, exhibitions, oral histories, lecture series, family reading programs, a modern Chautauqua movement, book festivals, cultural tourism, community symposia, and the electronic state encyclopedia. They have also stimulated significant levels of public involvement by college and university humanities faculty, who serve as project scholars in council-funded programs. One noticeable byproduct of the councils' work has been the creation of a substantial base of public support for, and involvement in, the humanities.

NEH has acquired a reputation for excellence, and for the most part it has remained above the political fray. Still, its fortunes have been subject to some political wildfires. In the first year of President Ronald Reagan's administration, the Office of Management and Budget targeted both NEH and NEA for 50 percent reductions (they were cut 14 percent) amidst charges of "politicization." Later that same year the Senate confirmed the president's nomination of William Bennett, a critic of NEH and current trends in humanities scholarship, as chairperson.

The off-year election of 1994 swept the Republicans into power in the House and the Senate. When the 104th Congress convened in January, the new Republican House leadership slated both agencies, along with public television and radio, for elimination. Strengthened, opponents pointed to some of the controversial grants made by NEA as a rationale for elimination. Two former NEH chairs, William Bennett and Lynne Cheney, testified that NEH had become politically tainted. Other opponents included some members of Congress who resisted any federal role at all in the funding of culture.

That neither agency was eliminated (after some dramatic up-or-down votes in the House) reflected the presence of bipartisan support for NEH and the state humanities councils. Key was the public outcry against elimination at the grassroots level and NEH's record of accomplishment that held it in good stead with congressional leaders. The cost was staggering, however. NEH sustained a cut of 34 percent and NEA 40 percent, among the most severe reductions of any federal agency in the 1996 budget year. In 1981 NEH funding was $151.3 million, and NEA funding was $158.8 or __BODY__.35 per capita. In 1996 funding for both endowments dropped to $110 million and $99.5 million, respectively, or about $.80 per capita—a cost even greater when the dollar's valuation since 1981 is factored.

Subsequent developments signal that a corner may have been turned. Consecutive budget increases in 1999 and 2000—and these in the Republican-dominated House and Senate—followed President Clinton's nomination of William Ferris as NEH chairperson in 1997. In 2001 President George W. Bush nominated Bruce Cole for NEH chairperson. A professor of art history and a former member of the National Council, Cole was a knowledgeable advocate of the endowment and the humanities councils.

In their histories NEH and NEA have traced the tension between public funding and private vision. Joined at the legislative hip by the original authorizing legislation, the agencies have experienced conflicts that reflect political and intellectual currents in society and Congress and issues surrounding the appropriateness of federal sponsorship, especially in the arts. While these tensions are not likely to end, the maturation of the agencies and the continuing education of the publics they serve would seem to have placed the necessity of a federal role beyond question. Proponents who rank NEH with the National Science Foundation advocate funding for NEH and NEA equal to the need.

NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

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