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Arts Management - 50th Anniversary Issue
Alvin H. Reiss, Editor: In February 1962, before there was a National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Management published its first issue, a modest four-pager in small type, all copy and no pictures.
An arts industry was in the formative stage and my perceptive co-founder and first AM editor, the brilliant Alvin Toffler, was quick to see the possibilities. Toffler, who went on to win renown as author of the seminal work, Future Shock, recognized my love of the arts and recruited me as associate editor. He taught me nearly everything I needed to know to function as writer and editor, a position I assumed within two years.
Our first issue featured stories about foundation funding, campus impresarios and community arts councils’ growth. While exploring virtually every area of arts concern in AM, we wrote and published the nation’s first state council newsletter for the New York State Council on the Arts and with support from the New York Board of Trade, sent AM copies to national arts service organizations for free distribution to their members. We won mayoral support for the arts thanks to my Bill of Rights for the Arts in Our Cities, most of which was adopted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. A more personal highlight was the effusive reaction of the NEA’s Nancy Hanks to my editorial “T’Hanks for the Memory,” following her retirement.
Close to a million words later, following excellent co-publishing relationships with Columbia College Chicago and the Association of Arts Administration Educators, Andrew Taylor stepped forward. Since then it’s been the support, enthusiasm and personal involvement of Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for the Arts at the University of Wisconsin, that helped AM reach the half century.
Now, 50 years later while thinking back, we’re still thinking ahead. It’s been a great ride but there’s more words to come. So thank you artists, managers and supporters. You’ve made it all possible.
For further information on the Arts Management newsletter, and other arts and cultural policy newsletters, please see our website: http://www.ifacca.org/links/newsletters/
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