Exploring the Owatonna Art Education Project

The Owatonna Art Education Project (1933-1938)

“What can teachers of the fine arts do to prepare young people against the day of threatening boredom, depleting play activities, the grinding monotony of a machine-made day? Is the program of art instruction in the school geared to elevate community taste in all those matters that make up the visual aspects of American life? Is the major task of art instruction in the schools to be specialized training of the few or cultivation of the taste in all?� (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 4).

the humble

Beginnings I

n 1933, a five-year experiment began in the very ordinary town of Owatonna, Minnesota. It had a population of about 7,500 and its economy was based on agriculture and industry. The crown jewel of the town was the bank designed by Louis Sullivan. Its citizens were hardworking, thrifty, religious, and self-sufficient. And, utterly unconcerned that for almost a decade, there had been no art program in their schools.

But over the next four years, residents would be asked to think about their connection to art and the art surrounding their daily lives.

The real story begins 1931 with Melvin E. Haggerty, dean of the College of Education at the University of Minnesota. He was asked to speak to an audience of artists and art educators who were meeting in Minneapolis.

As he stood before them, he confessed he was rather ignorant bout art education. “This embarrassing confession comes more easily because I know that most of my generation labor under like limitations, limitations that we are fain to charge not to original deficiencies of mind but to inadequate schooling that the youngsters of our day received� (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 4). He asked three questions of the audience, and the answer to these questions became the Owatonna Art Education Project.

“I recall with great vividness an after-midnight conversation with Henry

Suzzalo [president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching] in the deserted lobby of a Chicago hotel,” Dean Haggerty later wrote, “during which he proposed that the educational implications of this address be tested in a typical community.

His sensitive and imaginative mind foresaw in such an experiment the possibility that through it a way might be found to reestablish art as a basic element in education and thereby enrich both art and life” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 4).

With funding from The Carnegie Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation, the Owatonna Art Education Project was set in motion.

The hypothesis was essentially that the life of every individual will be “richer and more satisfying if he can learn to make his environment more pleasing to the senses” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 5). The community of Owatonna was then chosen based on a set of criteria that identified it as a fairly typical community without an existing art program.

First, the experiment would evaluate the role of art in the Owatonna.

Second, the experiment was to awaken interest in the further use of art in everyday life. Third, an art program would be constructed for the public schools. All of these were interrelated and couldn’t exist independently from one another (Ziegfeld, 1944).

the implications of

Private Funding W

hat are the implications of a privately funded project? Did the Carnegie Foundation and Carnegie Corporation have a hidden agenda? In 1989, Kerry Freedman wrote an article examining philanthropic funding and agendas behind them, using Owatonna as her example. A considerable Andrew Carnegie focus of the article was on Andrew Carnegie, who was not alive during the Owatonna Project.

Freedman’s skepticism is strong: “While presented as politically neutral, the Owatonna Project promoted the mission of certain private interest groups in the United States to steer the public away from a growing socialist movement and to re-instill confidence in industrial capitalism” (Freedman, 1989, p. 24). Lon Dubinsky offered a more balanced reaction to Freedman’s article, writing: “The Owatonna Project may have perpetuated some class and cultural differences but it might also have generated constructive options by its very existence as an alternative. This possibility has to be acknowledged ...” (Dubinsky, 1990, p. 248).

Ultimately, it is always wise to consider funding - whether it is private or government - and understand any motives that may or may not effect the outcomes.

“Children in the first grade learned something about arranging rooms in their homes, something about how to dress properly and to take care of their clothes. In the second grade they learned more about these two areas and in addition studied their own schoolroom, the stores in their community, and the machines they saw every day. In the third grade the newspaper initiated a new area, printing, which was added to the others and so on. At each level the problems and activities became more specialized and more varied� (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 64).

Here is the concept of Printing through several grades, for example (Ziegfeld, 1944):

second grade - newspapers

third grade - make a magazine,

sixth grade - concentration on typography

seventh grade - advertising and commercial design, senior high school - exhaustive survey of print and advertising

the Classroom Art classes were reinstated in the schools during the first year of the experiment. The local school board agreed to the experiment and paying part of the Edwin Ziegfeld’s salary as the Resident Director only if art classes started immediately in grades 1-12. Thus, the first classes were fairly traditional. In the second year, with better organization of class scheduling and the culmination of the first year of research, changes were made.

The Project staff had learned that art becomes most significant and meaningful when it thrives in the places where people spend the majority of their day. For instance, to everyone, “one’s own self and one’s personal problems constitute the most important area of experience” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 62). The survey revealed that next comes the home, and for children, this if followed by the school and lastly the community (Ziegfeld, 1944).

Therefore, the subject matter of art was broken down into 9 areas: Self Home School

Community Commerce Industry

Printing Religion Recreation

One exception was made: basic principles of design and color. Without a basic knowledge of these, it would be difficult for students to gain a broader understanding of the field of art, therefore these units were taught as needed. The Project staff also understood that it must keep pace with a child’s increasing maturity and expanding experiences and perceptions. The Owatonna art program “began to take on a spiral, ever-swelling, ever-increasing in breadth and scope” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 64).

the Community During the first year, the Project staff did an exhaustive survey of every aesthetic detail of Owatonna. They casually visited homes and business, using a 1 to 5 rating system to catalog every item down to the choice of curtains. Simple techniques such as informal conferences and service calls, subjective reports and checklists gathered a great deal of information in the eyes of the Project staff. “They revealed, in other words, what people already knew and what they needed to know to enrich their lives and deepen their satisfaction with their surroundings” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 24).

Besides gathering this data, the second part of the community aspect of the Project was to “awaken an interest in the further use of art in everyday life” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 24). Service calls, which were also important in gathering data, became opportunities to foster awareness of art as well as recognizing opportunities for creating something artful. These service projects began with the appeals from scores of people on an endless variety of problems. At first, it was mostly housewives with questions or problems in the home, from furniture arrangement to selecting wallpaper. In the second year, businessmen realized the advantages gained from consulting. Overall, about 250 of these projects took place, helping shops, medical offices, public and private buildings (Ziegfeld, 1944).

O

nce the problem had been clarified, the staff would ask:

• What effects do you want to achieve?

• What special factors must we consider?

• What materials do you have or have access to?

Often people developed their own solution, the guidance of these questions were all that they needed (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 26).

EVENING CLASSES At the request of the townspeople, evening classes were conducted during the first year. “In every lecture an attempt was made to start with whatever materials were familiar and near at hand and thence to introduce related art forms and ideas from other times and places� (Ziegfeld, p. 31). Lectures to groups and guest speakers continued this outreach in the community.

SUMMER SCHOOL For two summers, six-week art school was held with classes designed fro ages ranging from first grade to adults. There was also a class for teachers.

LIBRARY Although this was spearheaded by the local librarian, the Carnegie Corporation awarded the library with an immense art and music collection.

lasting

I

Lessons

n the end, there is no way to measure fully the results of the experiment nor the impact it made on the lives of the people of Owatonna. However, from the feedback and comments, it is clear that the art education project had a strong impact. Also, as a result, the following Principles were developed by the Project staff:

Stressing the Relation of Art to Life

1. An art program should be available to all students at all stages in their educational development 2. Methods of art instruction should be sufficiently individualized to offer equal benefits to all students 3. As much as feasible, the art program should provide experiences in every art field.

4. To give students experiences closely allied to the problems of daily living, the content of the art program should be organized in terms of areas of life.

5. An art program should place definite emphasis on the forms and expressions of art to be found in the immediate locality.

6. In an effective art program the relationships among the various fields of art and the relationships between art and other fields of human endeavor should be made clear and significant.

7. An art program should be organized to provide students with a series of satisfying experiences.

Developing Attitudes and Interests

1. The centrifugal force of the art program should be engendered by the children’s natural interests in their own environment and their own activities.

2. Starting with the students’ natural interests, then, the art program should provide for the expansion of those interests to include the art of other periods and other places.

Developing Abilities and Gaining Knowledge

1. In an effective art program, students acquire skills through the process of solving problems 2. An effective art program stresses acquisition of useful skills.

3. An effective art program provides for acquisition of pertinent information (Ziegfeld, 1944).

As a young man said who was a student during the Project said:

“I

think the most important thing we learned,” he said at last, “was not just that art is a necessary part of life but that art makes life interesting” (Ziegfeld, 1944, p. 151).

Publications of the Project Art as a Way of Life by Melvin E. Haggerty (No. 1) A City that Art Built by August C. Krey (No. 2) Enrichment of the Common Life by Melvin E. Haggerty (No. 3) Art for Daily Living: The Story of Owatonna Art Education Project by Edwin Ziegfeld and Mary Elinore Smith (No. 4) Art Units for Grades 1 to 3 by the Project Staff (No. 5) Art Units for Grades 4 to 6 by the Project Staff (No. 6) Art Units for High School: The Home by the Project Staff (No. 7) Art Units for High School: The Urban Community by the Project Staff (No. 8) Art Units for High School: Graphic Art by the Project Staff (No. 9)

references: Dubinsky, L. (1990). The philanthropic vision. Studies in Art Education, 31(4), 247-250.

Freedman, K. (1989). The philanthropic vision: the Owatonna Art Education Project as an example of “private�. Studies in Art Education, 31(1), 15-26.

Ziegfeld, E. & M. E. Smith. (1944). Art for daily living. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota.