Lost Labor of Love: The CETA Art and Humanities Project

FAIN: GE-278288-21

City Lore: NY Center for Urban Folk Culture (New York, NY 10003-9345)
Steve Zeitlin (Project Director: September 2020 to present)

Planning for a traveling exhibit about the 1970s Federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), that provided work for artists.

From 1974 to 1981, New York City, Wilmington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Birmingham, and nearly 200 other localities across the nation—large and small, urban and rural—took advantage of the Federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) jobs program to create unique public service employment opportunities for artists and cultural workers. City Lore, the Delaware Art Museum, and Artist Alliance Inc (AAI) are together developing an initiative to research, document, and bring to light this remarkable program with a major touring exhibition as well as publications, performances and panel discussions.

Associated Products

CETA Exhibition Walkthrough Script Draft (Exhibition)
Title: CETA Exhibition Walkthrough Script Draft
Curator: Molly Garfinkel
Abstract: From 1974 to 1981, New York City, Wilmington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Washington DC, Atlanta, and nearly 200 other localities across the nation—large and small, urban and rural—took advantage of the Federal Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) jobs program to create unique public service employment opportunities for artists and cultural workers. Although CETA has received far less attention than the arts programs of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), in many respects it rivals the importance of the New Deal-era initiatives. While the WPA focused much of its resources on large-scale national and statewide projects with established artists, CETA was locally managed and focused on public service employment (PSE), sending poets, dancers, actors, photographers, and painters, among many other specialists, into schools, libraries, museums and historical societies, nursing homes, hospitals, transportation hubs, correctional facilities, and community centers. While not directly intended to support artists, CETA nonetheless nurtured a diverse cultural workforce, provided art services and engagement to hundreds of communities, and launched the careers of now-prominent artists and arts administrators, while allowing others to use their skills and experience in arts-adjacent fields or transfer them to other sectors. In so doing, CETA played a key role in encouraging community arts, a movement that defines much of the arts and arts funding to this day. With an NEH Planning Grant, City Lore, the Delaware Art Museum, and Artists Alliance Inc. have together developed the first major touring exhibition and public program series to bring this remarkable history to light. This groundbreaking exhibition will open at the Delaware Art Museum in spring 2026 and travel to additional venues in 2027.
Year: 2024

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