The Philanthropic Vision: The Owatonna Art Education Project As an Example of "Private" Interests in Public Schooling

Abstract

Since the Progressive Era, foundation philanthropists have sought to promote progress by funding projects they believed would make people's lives better. However, the industrial capitalism which made foundation philanthropy possible created new social problems, and philanthropy, while solving some problems, promoted others by steering public education toward new forms of social control based on narrow sets of “private” interests. In order to understand how some of the contradictions of foundation philanthropy have been played out, the Owatonna Art Education Project is examined. Like other projects funded by Andrew Carnegie's foundations, the Owatonna Project was to promote the production of new knowledge through science, establish standards of excellence in education, and provide opportunities for self-improvement and visual enhancement. This historical example is used to illustrate the complexities of foundation philanthropy in art education by analyzing how, at one level, the project missions were to enrich people's lives and even confront industrial production, while at another level, they promoted industrial capitalism and made taste appear to be objective and scientific.

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