The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway
musical, probably America's most durable music form. Starting in the 1960s,
rock music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair
(1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such
as Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996), which used African
American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock
version of the classic opera La Bohиme. This updating of the musical opened the
theater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows,
as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music.
Performances of all kinds have
become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer
increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in
transportation. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of major
American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased
fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold. At the same
time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies
regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as
performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical
groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin
Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first
presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United States, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance,
has become a flourishing center for the performing arts.
Libraries and Museums
Libraries, museums, and other
collections of historical artifacts have been a primary means of organizing and
preserving America’s legacy. In the 20th century, these institutions became an
important vehicle for educating the public about the past and for providing
knowledge about the society of which all Americans are a part.
Libraries
Private book collections go
back to the early European settlement of the New World, beginning with the
founding of the Harvard University library in 1638. Colleges and universities
acquire books because they are a necessary component of higher education.
University libraries have many of the most significant and extensive book
collections. In addition to Harvard’s library, the libraries at Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Urbana, and the University of California in Berkeley and Los Angeles are among the most
prominent, both in scope and in number of holdings. Many of these libraries
also contain important collections of journals, newspapers, pamphlets, and
government documents, as well as private papers, letters, pictures, and
photographs. These libraries are essential for preserving America’s history and for maintaining the records of individuals, families, institutions,
and other groups.
Books in early America were scarce and expensive. Although some Americans owned books, Benjamin Franklin
made a much wider range of books and other printed materials available to many
more people when he created the first generally recognized public library in
1731. Although Franklin’s Library Company of Philadelphia loaned books only to
paying subscribers, the library became the first one in the nation to make
books available to people who did not own them. During the colonial period Franklin’s idea was adopted by cities such as Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Charleston, South Carolina.
These libraries set the
precedent for the free public libraries that began to spread through the United States in the 1830s. Public libraries were seen as a way to encourage literacy among
the citizens of the young republic as well as a means to provide education in
conjunction with the public schools that were being set up at the same time. In
1848 Boston founded the first major public library in the nation. By the late
19th century, libraries were considered so essential to the nation's well-being
that industrialist Andrew Carnegie donated part of his enormous fortune to the
construction of library buildings. Because Carnegie believed that libraries
were a public obligation, he expected the books to be contributed through
public expenditure. Since the 19th century, locally funded public libraries
have become part of the American landscape, often occupying some of the most
imposing public buildings in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Philadelphia. The belief that the knowledge and enjoyment that books provide
should be accessible to all Americans also resulted in bookmobiles that serve
in inner cities and in rural counties.
In addition to the numerous
public libraries and university collections, the United States boasts two major
libraries with worldwide stature: the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the New York Public Library. In 1800 Congress passed legislation founding the
Library of Congress, which was initially established to serve the needs of the
members of Congress. Since then, this extraordinary collection has become one
of the world's great libraries and a depository for every work copyrighted in
the United States. Housed in three monumental buildings named after Presidents
John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, the library is open to the
public and maintains major collections of papers, photographs, films, maps, and
music in addition to more than 17 million books.
The New York Public Library was
founded in 1895. The spectacular and enormous building that today houses the
library in the heart of the city opened in 1911 with more than a million
volumes. The library is guarded by a famous set of lion statues, features a
world-famous reading room, and contains more than 40 million catalogued items.
Although partly funded through public dollars, the library also actively seeks
funds from private sources for its operations.
Institutions such as these
libraries are fundamental to the work of scholars, who rely on the great
breadth of library collections. Scholars also rely on many specialized library
collections throughout the country. These collections vary greatly in the
nature of their holdings and their affiliations. The Schmulowitz Collection of
Wit and Humor at the San Francisco Public Library contains more than 20,000
volumes in 35 languages. The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem, part of the New York Public Library, specializes in the history of Africans around
the world. The Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America, located at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study in Massachusetts, houses the
papers of prominent American women such as Susan B. Anthony and Amelia Earhart.
The Bancroft Collection of Western Americana and Latin Americana is connected
with the University of California at Berkeley. The Huntington Library in San Marino, California, was established by American railroad executive Henry Huntington
and contains a collection of rare and ancient books and manuscripts. The
Newberry Library in Chicago, one of the most prestigious research libraries in
the nation, contains numerous collections of rare books, maps, and manuscripts.
Scholars of American history
and culture also use the vast repository of the National Archives and Records
Administration in Washington, D.C., and its local branches. As the repository
and publisher of federal documents, the National Archives contain an
extraordinary array of printed material, ranging from presidential papers and
historical maps to original government documents such as the Declaration of
Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. It houses hundreds of
millions of books, journals, photos, and other government papers that document
the life of the American people and its government. The library system is
deeply entrenched in the cultural life of the American people, who have from
their earliest days insisted on the importance of literacy and education, not
just for the elite but for all Americans.
Museums
The variety of print resources
available in libraries is enormously augmented by the collections housed in
museums. Although people often think of museums as places to view art, in fact
museums house a great variety of collections, from rocks to baseball
memorabilia. In the 20th century, the number of museums exploded. And by the
late 20th century, as institutions became increasingly aware of their important
role as interpreters of culture, they attempted to bring their collections to
the general public. Major universities have historically also gathered various
kinds of collections in museums, sometimes as a result of gifts. The Yale University Art Gallery, for example, contains an important collection of American
arts, including paintings, silver, and furniture, while the Phoebe Hearst
Museum of Anthropology at the University of California at Berkeley specializes
in archaeological objects and Native American artifacts.
The earliest museums in the United States grew out of private collections, and throughout the 19th century they
reflected the tastes and interests of a small group. Often these groups
included individuals who cultivated a taste for the arts and for natural
history, so that art museums and natural history museums often grew up side by
side. American artist Charles Willson Peale established the first museum of
this kind in Philadelphia in the late 18th century.
The largest and most varied
collection in the United States is contained in the separate branches of the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian, founded in 1846 as
a research institution, developed its first museums in the 1880s. It now
encompasses 16 museums devoted to various aspects of American history, as well
as to artifacts of everyday life and technology, aeronautics and space, gems
and geology, and natural history.
The serious public display of
art began when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, founded in
1870, moved to its present location in Central Park in 1880. At its
installation, the keynote speaker announced that the museum’s goal was
education, connecting the museum to other institutions with a public mission.
The civic leaders, industrialists, and artists who supported the Metropolitan Museum, and their counterparts who established the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, were also
collectors of fine art. Their collections featured mainly works by European
masters, but also Asian and American art. They often bequeathed their
collections to these museums, thus shaping the museum’s policies and holdings.
Their taste in art helped define and develop the great collections of art in
major metropolitan centers such as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Boston. In several museums, such as the Metropolitan and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., collectors created institutions whose holdings challenged the cultural
treasures of the great museums of Europe.
Funding
Museums continued to be largely
elite institutions through the first half of the 20th century, supported by
wealthy patrons eager to preserve collections and to assert their own
definitions of culture and taste. Audiences for most art museums remained an
educated minority of the population through the end of the 19th century and
into the 20th century. By the second decade of the 20th century, the tastes of
this elite became more varied. In many cases, women within the families of the
original art patrons (such as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Abby Aldrich
Rockefeller, and Peggy Guggenheim) encouraged the more avant-garde artists of
the modern period. Women founded new institutions to showcase modern art, such
as the Museum of Modern Art (established by three women in 1929) and the
Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Although these museums still
catered to small, educated, cosmopolitan groups, they expanded the definition
of refined taste to include more nontraditional art. They also encouraged
others to become patrons for new artists, such as the abstract expressionists
in the mid-20th century, and helped establish the United States as a
significant place for art and innovation after World War II.
Although individual patronage
remained the most significant source of funding for the arts throughout the
20th century, private foundations began to support various arts institutions by
the middle of the century. Among these, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation were especially important in the 1920s and 1930s,
and the Ford Foundation in the 1960s. The federal government also became an
active sponsor of the arts during the 20th century. Its involvement had
important consequences for expanding museums and for creating a larger
audience.
The federal government first
began supporting the arts during the Great Depression of the 1930s through New
Deal agencies, which provided monetary assistance to artists, musicians,
photographers, actors, and directors. The Work Projects Administration also
helped museums to survive the depression by providing jobs to restorers, cataloguers,
clerical workers, carpenters, and guards. At the same time, innovative
arrangements between wealthy individuals and the government created a new kind
of joint patronage for museums. In the most notable of these, American
financier, industrialist, and statesman Andrew W. Mellon donated his extensive
art collection and a gallery to the federal government in 1937 to serve as the
nucleus for the National Gallery of Art. The federal government provides funds
for the maintenance and operation of the National Gallery, while private
donations from foundations and corporations pay for additions to the collection
as well as for educational and research programs.
Government assistance during
the Great Depression set a precedent for the federal government to start
funding the arts during the 1960s, when Congress appropriated money for the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) as part of the National Foundation on the
Arts and the Humanities. The NEA provides grants to individuals and nonprofit
organizations for the cultivation of the arts, although grants to institutions
require private matching funds. The need for matching funds increased private
and state support of all kinds, including large donations from newer arts
patrons such as the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund and the Pew Charitable
Trusts. Large corporations such as the DuPont Company, International Business
Machines Corporation (IBM), and the Exxon Corporation also donated to the arts.
Expansion
The increased importance placed
on art throughout the 20th century helped fuel a major expansion in museums. By
the late 1960s and 1970s, art museums were becoming aware of their potential
for popular education and pleasure. Audiences for museums increased as museums
received more funding and became more willing to appeal to the public with
blockbuster shows that traveled across the country. One such show, The
Treasures of Tutankhamun, which featured ancient Egyptian artifacts, toured
the country from 1976 to 1979. Art museums increasingly sought attractions that
would appeal to a wider audience, while at the same time expanding the
definition of art. This effort resulted in museums exhibiting even motorcycles
as art, as did the Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1998.
Museums also began to expand
the kinds of art and cultural traditions they exhibited. By the 1990s, more and
more museums displayed natural and cultural artifacts and historical objects
from non-European societies. These included objects ranging from jade carvings,
baskets, and ceramics to calligraphy, masks, and furniture. Egyptian artifacts
had been conspicuous in the holdings of New York's Metropolitan Museum and the Brooklyn Museum since the early 20th century. The opening in 1989 of two
Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., the National Museum of African Art and
the National Museum of the American Indian, indicated an awareness of a much
broader definition of the American cultural heritage. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Freer Gallery at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., maintain collections of Asian art and cultural objects. The 1987 opening of the
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, a new Smithsonian museum dedicated to Asian and Near
Eastern arts, confirmed the importance of this tradition.
Collectors and museums did not
neglect the long-venerated Western tradition, as was clear from the personal
collection of ancient Roman and Greek art owned by American oil executive and
financier J. Paul Getty. Opened to the public in 1953, the museum named after
him was located in Malibu, California, but grew so large that in 1997 the J.
Paul Getty Museum expanded into a new Getty Center, a complex of six buildings
in Los Angeles. By the end of the 20th century, Western art was but one among
an array of brilliant cultural legacies that together celebrate the human
experience and the creativity of the American past.
Memorials and Monuments
The need to memorialize the
past has a long tradition and is often associated with wars, heroes, and
battles. In the United States, monuments exist throughout the country, from the
Revolutionary site of Bunker Hill to the many Civil War battlefields. The
nation’s capital features a large number of monuments to generals, war heroes,
and leaders. Probably the greatest of all these is Arlington National Cemetery in
Virginia, where there are thousands of graves of veterans of American wars,
including the Tomb of the Unknowns and the gravesite of President John F.
Kennedy. In addition to these traditional monuments to history, millions of
people are drawn to the polished black wall that is the Vietnam Veterans
Memorial, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The memorial is a
stark reminder of the losses suffered in a war in which more than 58,000
Americans died and of a time of turmoil in the nation.
No less important than
monuments to war heroes are memorials to other victims of war. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which opened in 1993 in Washington, D.C., is dedicated to documenting the extermination of millions of Jews and others by the
Nazis during World War II. It contains photographs, films, oral histories, and
artifacts as well as a research institute, and has become an enormous tourist
attraction. It is one example of a new public consciousness about museums as
important sources of information and places in which to come to terms with
important and painful historical events. Less elaborate Holocaust memorials
have been established in cities across the country, including New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
Monuments to national heroes
are an important part of American culture. These range from the memorials to
Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln on the
National Mall in Washington, D.C., to the larger-than-life faces of Washington,
Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt carved into Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Some national memorials also include monuments to ordinary citizens, such as
the laborers, farmers, women, and African Americans who are part of the new
Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Americans also commemorate
popular culture with museums and monuments such as the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in
Cooperstown, New York. These collections of popular culture are as much a
part of American heritage as are fine arts museums and statues of national
heroes. As a result of this wide variety of institutions and monuments, more
people know about the breadth of America’s past and its many cultural
influences. This new awareness has even influenced the presentation of
artifacts in natural history museums. Where these once emphasized the
differences among human beings and their customs by presenting them as discrete
and unrelated cultures, today’s museums and monuments emphasize the flow of
culture among people.
The expansion in types of
museums and the increased attention to audience is due in part to new groups
participating in the arts and in discussions about culture. In the early 20th
century, many museums were supported by wealthy elites. Today’s museums seek to
attract a wider range of people including students from inner cities, families
from the suburbs, and Americans of all backgrounds. The diverse American population
is eager to have its many pasts and talents enshrined. The funding now
available through foundations and federal and state governments provides
assistance. This development has not been without resistance. In the 1980s and
1990s people challenged the role of the federal government in sponsoring
certain controversial art and culture forms, posing threats to the existence of
the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the
Humanities. Nevertheless, even these controversies have made clearer how much
art and cultural institutions express who we are as a people. Americans possess
many different views and pasts, and they constantly change what they create,
how they communicate, and what they appreciate about their past.