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WPA Federal Theatre Project, c.1930s
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Chicago's traditions of arts funding have roots in the
business
community and civic leadership of the mid-nineteenth century. In the 1860s and '70s, early antecedents of cultural institutions grew from arts programs organized by members of elite
clubs.
During the same period,
theater
and music organizations gained strength in ethnic neighborhoods with more grassroots support. The swell of civic support to build the
Auditorium
Theater in 1886 began a tradition of broad-based backing in addition to bringing together wealthy
philanthropists
who went on to found other major Chicago cultural institutions. The
World's Columbian Exposition
in 1893 was pivotal in establishing Chicago as a cosmopolitan, cultural city and brought local, national, and international attention. The virtually concurrent establishment of the
Chicago Symphony,
Art Institute,
and
Field Museum
went hand in hand with the ambitions of the city's aggressive business developers. More specifically community-based arts efforts included programs in music, literature, and visual arts for immigrants at
Hull House,
founded in 1889. The establishment of the Chicago
Community Trust
in 1915 encouraged individual philanthropy, and a Trust survey in the early 1920s showed that culture and education received the largest share.
The mix of corporate, individual, and private foundation grants remained the mainstay of arts funding into the 1960s. During that decade, the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois Arts Council seeded growth in small and midsize arts organizations. These agencies also encouraged greater community participation and funding of arts programs, commonly awarding matching grants and focusing on community-based and culturally specific organizations. Support for the arts by Chicago city government strengthened in the 1980s and 1990s, spurring corporate and foundation leadership in the funding of arts resources, a development reminiscent of the industrialist backing of the previous century. Chicago became, at the end of the twentieth century, a national model for public-private partnerships in support of the arts.
Jane Preston
Bibliography
Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz.
Culture and the City: Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917.
1976.
McCarthy, Kathleen D.
Noblesse Oblige: Charity and Cultural Philanthropy in Chicago, 1849–1929.
1982.
McCarthy, Kathleen D.
Women's Culture: American Philanthropy and Art, 1830–1930.
1991.
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