Land of Individuality

It's funny how "socialism" seemed to be a key ingredient in moving us from our worst economic times to our best . . .

To see that prewar America was a very different country, one has only to contemplate the origin of America Eats. To anyone who knows and understands the United States, the fact that there was a Federal Writers' Project at all seems nothing short of miraculous. This is America, the land with no Ministry of Culture, where politicians alone are portrayed on the money. Almost unique among Western republics, the likeness of not one writer, philosopher, painter, or composer has ever graced the engraving of a U.S. bill or coin. The separation of church and state may be the great articulated legal principle, but another sacrosanct concept is the separation of state and culture. And yet there was an age when the U.S. government permanently employed painters, sculptors, playwrights, musicians, actors, and writers to produce art.

From The Food of a Younger Land