Does Public Access to the Arts Promote Democracy? Evidence from the Federal Theatre Project

Abstract

The Federal Theatre project (FTP), a New Deal initiative to employ out-of-work theater professionals, was the first and only instance in history when the U.S. had a federally funded theater. Over its four-year existence, FTP staged politically resonant theater productions at little to no cost for the American public, reaching an audience totaling nearly one quarter of the U.S. population at the time. I digitize FTP's complete production record to assess the effect of theater access on political participation and civic engagement. Leveraging variation in the timing of FTP premieres, I find receiving an additional FTP premiere on the county-level increased voter turnout in the 1936 presidential election by about 0.5 percentage points or 0.09% relative to the mean. This effect is magnified by the political salience of the production, with exposure one of the most politically charged FTP premieres, the antifascist "It Can't Happen Here," increasing voter turnout by 2.1 percentage points or nearly 4% relative to the mean. Additionally, I find weak evidence that exposure to Federal Theatre increased news mentions of certain political actions and volunteer organizations. With results suggesting more socially relevant FTP productions generated greater local newspaper coverage, this paper presents suggestive evidence that partisan news media served as a mechanism through which the Federal Theater shaped American political consciousness.