Collecting area: Arts management

With roots extending back to 1965, Americans for the Arts is one of the first and most influential arts advocacy organizations in the United States. Founded as the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (NALAA), the organization has collaborated with arts organizations at the local, state, and federal level; with government agencies; private individuals; and funders to represent and serve local communities and to raise awareness of the value of the arts in American lives. NAFTA plays a key role in sustaining creative communities and generating public and private sector policies, leadership, and resources for the arts and arts education. AFTA assumed its current name in 1996 after the merger of NALAA and the American Council for the Arts.

The records are focused on AFTA’s early years and include minutes of meetings and other organizational records, selected publications, and promotional materials.

The Association of American Cultures (TAAC) was founded in 1985, following the success of the first Open Dialogue conference in which cultural workers from an array of arts disciplines gathered to discuss issues confronting arts organizations and artists in communities of color. As a national arts service agency, TAAC advocates for racial equity in the arts and arts organizations and provides support for those concerned with the preservation of their culturally specific identities through the arts.

The TAAC collection consists primarily of materials distributed to participants at several of the Open Dialogues conferences, along with a handful of promotional materials. A videotape in the collection is one of several produced by TAAC in the 1980s on aspects of cultural diversity in the American arts.

Since its founding 1991, the Center for the Study of Art and Community has been devoted to arts-based community development: the philosophy that human creativity is essential to the development of caring and capable communities. Founded by Bill Cleveland, the CSAC is an association of creative leaders from several cultural sectors, including business, government, and the arts, that seeks new cultural partnerships to integrate arts and creative expression into community life. Their projects have played out in schools, symphony halls, and neighborhood associations, but also in factories, jails, senior centers, unemployment offices.

The records of the CSAC offer extensive documentation of the movement to facilitate the role of arts and creativity in community development and an organization dedicated to fostering cultural partnerships that touch on sectors of the community from education and human services to public safety, faith groups.

A pioneer in geriatric psychiatry with a polymathic imagination, Gene D. Cohen was born in Brockton, Mass., in 1944, and educated at Harvard, Georgetown University School of Medicine (1970), and the Union Institute (PhD, Gerontology). Cohen began his career with the U.S. Public Health Service out of medical school, and from the outset, set a novel course in his research, becoming one of the first psychiatrists to specialize in study of the impact of aging on the brain and Alzheimer’s disease. Recognized for administrative prowess as well as the originality of his scholarship, he was selected as the first chief of the Center on Aging at the National Institute of Mental Health (1975-1988), and went on to leadership positions at the National Institute on Aging (NIH) and in the profession more generally. In 1994, he left government employment to found the Center on Aging, Health, and Humanities at George Washington University. The impact of Cohen’s research was felt widely and catalyzed a change in the field from viewing aging as a disease to recognizing the creative potential of the older mind. His demonstration of the health benefits to older people of engagement in the arts made him one of the intellectual architects of the field of Creative Aging. The author of more than 150 articles and monographs, he earned numerous awards for his work, including the highest award bestowed by the U.S. Public Health Service, the Distinguished Service Medal. Cohen died of metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 65 in Nov. 2009, leaving his wife, Wendy Miller, two children, and four grandchildren.

A significant collection for study of the growth of geriatric psychiatry and the field of creative aging, the collection includes materials from throughout Gene Cohen’s pathbreaking career. The collection offers insight into the development of gerontological research particularly during Cohen’s years at the NIMH and NIH. In addition to an extensive set of publications by and about Cohen, the collection includes background materials for Cohen’s books The Creative Age, The Mature Mind, and Sky Above Clouds, and a significant corpus relating to some of his major research projects. Finally, the collection includes a selection of videotapes of interviews with Cohen, including several presentations and talks.

A pioneer in arts programs in community development, Maryo Gard Ewell is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College with masters degrees from Yale (1972) and the University of Colorado Denver (1992). Beginning her career with arts councils in Connecticut, Ewell went on to become leadership positions wih the Illinois Arts Council and the Colorado Council on the Arts (1982-2003). A co-author of the influential The Arts in the Small Community (2006), she is a sought-after speaker and collaborator, serving as a board member and consultant for arts agencies across the country. Among other awards, she has been recognized with the “Arts Are The Heart Award” in Colorado; an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Goucher College; and the Selina Roberts Ottum Award from Americans for the Arts (1995). Since retiring in 2003, Ewell has remained active as a consultant, educator, and speaker.

This collection contains materials relating to two significant developments in the history of of community arts in the United States: records relating to how selected states decentralized arts funding in 1970s, and to early efforts of the National Endowment for the Arts to create a program to serve local arts agencies from the mid-1970s through the mid-1990s. In addition, there are records documenting a project, commissioned by Americans for the Arts in 2007, to trace the history of community arts councils from the first in 1948 through the 1960s when the National Endowment for the Humanities was formed.

The National Arts Policy Archive and Library is a collaborative project initiated by SCUA, the UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service, and several partners in arts agencies intended to document the history of arts administration in America. Collecting the records of state-level and national arts agencies, NAPAAL will provide a foundation for research into the evolution of arts policy, strategies for supporting the arts, and the economic and cultural impact of the arts on our communities.

Constituent collections include:

• Americans for the Arts Records
• Center for the Study of Art and Community Records
• National Endowment for the Arts Collection
• National Assembly of States Arts Agencies Records
• Thomas L. Turk papers
• UMass Amherst Arts Extension Service Records

A not for profit membership organization, the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) provides representation for state and jurisdictional arts agencies at the national level. Incorporated in 1974, NASAA has been an important forum for directors, chairs, and staff of its member organizations, supporting their collective efforts to advance the arts as an essential public benefit. Working with the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies, NASAA also helps to strengthen state arts agencies by supporting excellence in and access to the arts.

The NASAA collection includes important documentation of the founding and early operations of the organization, priorities and controversies over the years in arts management, and records of its annual meetings.

Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded more than $4 billion to support artistic excellence, creativity, and innovation for the benefit of individuals and communities. The NEA extends its work through partnerships with state arts agencies, local leaders, other federal agencies, and the philanthropic sector.

In contributing to the National Arts Policy Archive and Library (NAPAAL), the NEA allowed SCUA to digitize publications on the arts and arts management since its inception. The collection reflects the impact of the arts (including music, literature, and the performing arts) on everyday lives of Americans and include materials intended to support individual and classroom education, information on arts management, reports on the status of the arts, histories of the organization, and much more. All items are cataloged in the UMass Amherst Libraries online catalog and are included in the Internet Archive, where they are available for full-text searching.

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Since 1975, Community Development Coordinators for state-level arts agencies in the United States have met annually for the exchange of information, training, and to plan state and national programs for community activity in the arts. Charged with development of both community arts councils and rural arts, CDCs also work to decentralize efforts. In recent years, they have increasingly been engaged in arts and social action programs and in providing a voice on national arts policy.

This small collection documents over thirty years of annual meetings between Community Development Coordinators from state arts agencies across the United States. Organized chronologically, the collection includes agendas, membership lists, communications among organizers, and materials used in workshops and that document the history of CDCs. In 2000, the CDCs began keeping records electronically, though without designating a record keeper. Electronic records have not been included in the collection.

Tom Turk played a significant role in the growth of state and community arts agencies across five decades. Beginning his career as an organizer of community arts agencies in Michigan in the mid-1960s, Turk went on to hold leadership positions with community arts agencies in Texas and Tennessee. Active on the national level, he served as a founding member of the Executive Board of the National Assembly of Community Arts Agencies, later the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (1977-1985), and as president of the United States Urban Arts Federation (1999-2000), the association of local arts council and commission directors in the nation’s fifty largest cities.

Reflecting a long career in community arts, the Turk collection includes rich documentation of three important organizations involved in the development of the field during the late-1970s and early 2000s: the National Assembly of Community Arts Agencies, the National Assembly of Local Arts Agencies, and the U.S. Urban Arts Federation. The records include a nearly complete run of minutes of the Board and Executive Committee for NACAA and NALAA, along with newsletters and some financial reports, as well as materials relating to the organization and name change.