GOVERNOR'S COMMISSION ON THE ARTS:

The Governor's Commission on the Arts was created by Governor Wendell Anderson in November 1975 to evaluate the services provided to the public by arts organizations, the costs of providing such services, and the sources of revenue available to support them. The commission also was to consider the needs of individual artists and arts organizations, citizens' access to the arts, and the operation of arts facilities.

The twenty-five member commission met from November 1975 through December 1976. There were also subcommittees focusing on needs of the artist, public sector, private sector, quality of life, role of the consumer, and education.

The commission employed fifteen full and part time consultants and its operation was funded primarily by private sector donations.

The commission's research staff conducted several studies or surveys: of citizens, regarding attendance levels and attitudes toward public funding; of artists, regarding individual needs; of community organizations which provide arts services but whose primary purposes are not arts-related; of elementary and secondary schools, regarding arts education studies; of nonprofit arts organizations (the commission's major survey); of organizations' endowment funds; of recent facilities fund drives; of finances (Trend Survey); of public sector arts support; and of foundation, corporate, and individual giving in the private sector.

The commission's findings and recommendations were presented in a 278 page report, Minnesota: State of the Arts (March 1977).

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Includes substantial documentation of the operation and finances of arts organizations in the state, as well as documentation of the activities of the commission itself. Includes individual survey responses for the following: elementary and secondary school surveys; community organizations survey; college and university survey; individual giving survey; and business and industry opinion survey.

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Primarily alphabetical by topic, except for minutes (chronological) and survey responses.

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Availability:

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation:

[Indicate the cited item and/or series here]. Minnesota. Governor's Commission on the Arts. Records. Minnesota Historical Society.

See the Chicago Manual of Style for additional examples.

Accession Information:

Accession numbers: none; 977-34; 13,203

Location of Master Files:

Digital masters of the audio reels are maintained on the Society's secure digital collections storage servers and are managed and preserved in accordance with archival best practices.

The original audio reels were disposed after the material was digitally reformatted into wav files.

Processing Information:

Digitization and encoding by April Rodriguez, December 26, 2023.

Digital audio transferred from the master audio reels by the Minnesota Historical Society for preservation purposes (December 2023).

Digitization was made possible by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund through the vote of Minnesotans on November 4, 2008.

Catalog ID number: 990017040520104294

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This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons or places should search the catalog using these headings.

Topics:

Artists -- Minnesota.

Arts -- Minnesota -- Finance.

Arts -- Minnesota -- Management.

Arts -- Minnesota -- Societies, etc.

Persons:

Durenberger, David.

Document Types:

Audio recordings.

Functions:

Surveying.

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