Public libraries are but one of the many kinds of institutions that bring the humanities into Americans’
lives (see Section B. Public Libraries). Others include
state humanities councils, which aim to make history, literature, and other forms of humanistic activity accessible to the general public. Art museums and
historical sites are two other important types of institutions that enhance public understanding and appreciation of the humanities.
Regrettably, data describing such institutions are not as plentiful or as reliable as those on public libraries (which are the
subject of regular data collection by the federal government). This section of the Humanities Indicators is thus limited to
presenting such nationally representative data as do exist—namely, those regarding the kinds of programs state humanities councils
offer the public and those concerning the extent to which Americans visit historic sites and art museums.
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Indicator V-12
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State Humanities Council Programs
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Through its programs and grants, the nation’s 56 state humanities councils seek to involve the general public in the humanities.
The councils are funded in part by the federal government through the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). They also receive funding from private donations, foundations, corporations, and, in
some cases, state governments. (For more on the character and resources of these organizations, see Indicator IV-3,
State Humanities Council Revenues.)
The NEH collects information from the councils about their activities and then classifies the different types of programming
under general headings. Figure V-12 clearly shows that the councils use their resources to engage the public in the humanities
in a wide variety of ways, ranging from the production of local festivals to the support of television programming. Some
council-supported programs have proved to be particularly popular over the years in part because they can be adapted to many
settings and locations from urban centers to small rural towns. These programs include reading and discussion groups,
lecture/discussion programs, and traveling exhibits. The councils’ priorities also include providing resources to teachers,
supporting family literacy, and fostering an appreciation of local history. To accomplish their goals, the councils employ a
variety of media. While virtually all councils generate printed matter, a substantial majority also rely on radio, TV, film,
and the Internet in an effort to reach a broad swath of the American public.
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Indicator V-13
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Historic Site Visits
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Historic site visitation is another important form of public engagement with the
humanities (visitation to history museums will be described in a future edition of the
Humanities Indicators). In an effort to assess rates of such visitation, the
National Endowment for the Arts
asked respondents to its
Survey of Public Participation in the Arts
(SPPA) the following question: "Did
you [in the past year] visit an historic park or monument, or tour buildings or
neighborhoods for their historic or design value?" The data indicate that the percentage of
Americans answering yes to this question declined gradually from 37% in 1982 to 31% in
2002 (Figure V-13a).
This decline was most heavily concentrated in the 25-to-44-year-old population—an age
group that includes the majority of parents of young and adolescent children. However,
because no reliable national data on children's visits to historic sites currently exist,
establishing whether there was a corresponding decline in the percentage of children who
visited historic sites is not possible.
Figure V-13b presents these same data but in a way that illustrates generational
differences in the tendency to visit a historic site. For example, those Americans who
were born between 1938 and 1947 had a 45% likelihood of having visited a historic site
in the previous 12 months when they were ages 35-44, while those who were born
between 1958 and 1967 had only a 35.6% likelihood of having done so when they were
the same age.
Estimating the percentage of people who have visited a historic site in the way that the
SPPA makes possible is one of two possible means of gauging the extent to which
Americans utilize the nation's humanistic institutions. Another approach is to seek
visitation data not from individuals ("Did you visit a historic site last year?") but from the
historic sites ("How many people visited this site last year?"). No organization or
individual researcher has yet produced a reliable estimate of total visitation for U.S.
historic sites, but
information on levels of visitation to National Park Service (NPS) historic sites and monuments
are available for years 1975-present. It is important to remember that these data describe the number of
visits to historic sites, not the number of people who visited. Since a single person can
make multiple visits to national historic parks, institutional visitation levels will always
exceed the number of individuals who visited the parks in any given year. Also, such data
capture visits made by people from other nations. As a result of these two facts, these
data reveal only so much about American's embrace of their historic resources, although
they do reveal important trends in the demands made of such sites' physical infrastructure
and staff.
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Indicator V-14
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Art Museum Attendance
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Two studies of museum-going in 2006,
Institute of Museum and Library Services' National Study of the Use Libraries, Museums and the Internet,
and the
Pew Internet & American Life Project's Exploratorium Survey,
estimate that approximately 30% of all American adults visited an art museum in the previous 12
months. The SPPA data on art museum-going presented here are not as current, having
been collected in 2002, but permit an analysis of change over the last two decades of the
20th century in rates of art museum visitation. These data indicate that in contrast to
historic sites, the appeal of which declined somewhat between 1982 and 2002 (see
Indicator V-13, Historic Site Visits),
art museums and galleries saw increasing rates of
visitation in the course of the two decades. In 2002, 26% of the U.S. adult population
reported visiting a museum or art gallery in the previous year, up 4 percentage points from
1982, though down slightly from 1992 (Figure V-14).
Grouping the data by age of respondent reveals that the increasing popularity of art museums and galleries among older
Americans drove this upward trend. For those 18–44 years old, the net increase in visits between 1982 and 2002 was minimal,
and visits by Americans in this age group actually decreased substantially between 1992 and 2002. In contrast, for those age
45 and older there was a substantial rise in visits over the last two decades of the 20th century. For those 45–54 years old,
for example, the art museum visitation rate rose from 22 out every 100 people in 1982 to 33 out of every hundred in 2002—an increase of 50%.
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