ABSTRACT
The Commission of Fine Arts, discussed at length in what follows, was regarded by its appointees as embodying all that was best in culture, a position that in their eyes conferred exclusive authority in matters of aesthetic judgment. Galvanizing national politics against Catholicism and immigrants established a point of connection between the federal government and small-town America. Insofar as the Roosevelt administration outlined a popular program, resolving mass unemployment was a key concern. Trends associated with crisis impacted on the changing strategies of Federal Arts patronage. Friction between the president and the commission developed almost immediately. Franklin D. Roosevelt made few explicit endeavors to establish the aesthetic criteria by which the value of the new government-sponsored art could be assessed. The Depression prompted a reorganization of the relationship between the state and the arts. However, cultural patronage for forms of craft production was a relatively peripheral component of state intervention, making it an easier target.
