Throughout the nineteenth century , America 's state and federal governments devoted no public funds to theater or any other art form , in fact spending more energy on censorship than promotion . Congress assed the nation 's first federal anti-obscenity bill in 1842 , partly to curb ``licentious ' entertainments , thirty-five years before the first bill appeared to propose forming a federal arts council the latter was soundly defeated by an uninterested Congress (Zeigler 4 . Not until the Works Progress Administration 's arts programs...











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