On the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Richard H. Brodhead argues the New Deal made possible the NEH and the National Endowment for the Arts. For the first time Americans endorsed a federal role in promoting the general welfare and creating public goods. In the 1960s the Great Society expanded that role to include supporting the arts and humanities. Today the very notion of “public goods” has become suspect and federal involvement in creating them is viewed by many as an outdated and even dangerous concept.
