Statistics on the Federal Art Project Accomplishments of the Federal Art Project
Before the Cracking Depression, radio and sound movies had forced thousands of musicians into unemployment; music was being delivered electronically rather than by live musicians. The economic collapse intensified their situation, causing by 1934 a 60 percent displacement (an estimated xx,000 to 70,000 people), compared to a national unemployment rate of 25 percent. Early relief was administered inefficiently under the New Deal'south Ceremonious Works Administration and Federal Emergency Relief Administration, forerunners of the Work Projects Assistants, until, in mid-1935 the Federal Music Project was organized as an bureau of the WPA.
The FMP was directed by Nikolai Sokoloff. It sought to employ professional person musicians, to give gratuitous concerts, and to brainwash the public about music. Soon musicians were taken from manual labor and reassigned to work better suited for their talents. The project'due south relief efforts focused on New York Urban center, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Boston, traditional centers for musical activity. A tertiary of federal relief was divided among the forty-four remaining states. Texas was in Region 8 with Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and received the careful assistants of Lucile M. Lyons of Fort Worth, who was well-known in Texas musical activities. Although she was appointed by and technically under Sokoloff, she was administratively responsible to the state WPA administrator, H. P. Drought, in San Antonio. Under Mrs. Lyons's direction, city councils, school boards, chambers of commerce, universities, locals of the musicians' wedlock, and especially the Texas Federation of Music Clubs coordinated relief programs with the national office.
Employment in the project peaked in spring 1936. During Sokoloff's tenure (1936–39), Texas FMP units gave iv,077 performances attracting 2,784,823 listeners. Though WPA activity occurred statewide, iv centers were San Antonio, Fort Worth, Dallas, and El Paso. The FMP likewise launched the career of the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra'south illustrious future conductor, Victor Alessandro, a native Texan. Although Texas lacked a composer's forum, country copyists and arrangers transcribed vernacular folk songs. San Antonio units recorded examples of Mexican, Spanish, and Cuban music and early Texas plains songs for the Library of Congress, thus saving a wealth of folk music.
Although Texas had no assigned FMP opera units, WPA workers in Fort Worth performed operettas and choruses under the direction of Walker Moore. The highlight of the 1936 flavour was the "Texas nether Six Flags" folk festival at Texas Christian University stadium; a chorus of 1,500 voices sang historic songs in commemoration of the Texas Centennial. The FMP also encouraged music appreciation in the schools. Moore divided the Fort Worth WPA orchestra into teams to teach schoolhouse children all over the metropolis and canton. Similar projects past educational units reached two-thirds of the rural areas having no prior musical instruction.
Not just did WPA orchestras train hundreds of musicians; their programs also emphasized American compositions. Texans too heard works by their own, such as David Wendell Guion and Oscar Julius Fox. Almost of import, the FMP lifted the nation'south morale and awakened pride in native music.
Major reorganization followed Sokoloff'south resignation in May 1939. Partly because of the uneven distribution of funds under Sokoloff, nether Dr. Earl Vincent Moore the FMP lost its charter as a federal agency; this shifted the sponsorship of projects to the state and local level, where it had been in Texas virtually all along. The state thus autonomously preserved the beneficial effects of the FMP. Although the public activities of the project ended in 1941, its effects were notable in Texas musical culture long later.
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Cornelius B. Canon, The Federal Music Project of the Works Progress Administration: Music in a Republic (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1963). Earl Vincent Moore, Terminal Report of the Federal Music Project, October 10, 1939 (Washington, D.C.: Government Press Role, 1939). Nikolai Sokoloff, The Federal Music Project (Washington, D.C.: Regime Printing Part, 1936). Texas Reports, Record Grouping 69, WPA-FMP Files, National Archives, Washington, D.C. Janelle J. Warren, Of Tears and Demand: The Federal Music Project, 1935–1943 (Ph.D. dissertation, George Washington University, 1973).
Categories:
- Music
- Organizations
Time Periods:
- Slap-up Depression
Places:
- North Texas
- Dallas/Fort Worth Region
- Fort Worth
The post-obit, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Manner, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Craig H. Roell, "Federal Music Project," Handbook of Texas Online, accessed April 30, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/federal-music-project.
Published past the Texas State Historical Association.
- January 1, 1995
- October 16, 2020
This entry belongs to the post-obit Handbook Special Projects:
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Source: https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/federal-music-project
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