administrators of cultural organizations. The survey has proven extremely useful in making arts administrators more aware of an heretofore untapped potential audience for arts activities.

To encourage the development and understanding of new attitudes concerning arts programs for the aging, the endowment has supported the National Council on Aging's center for older Americans and the arts for the past 3 years. The center stimulates arts programing for the elderly by providing information and technical assistance to State and local arts organizations interested in sponsoring arts programs for older people. In October 1976, the center, with support from the endowment, sponsored the first nationwide conference on arts and the aging. The conference brought together administrators from the fields of arts and aging to discuss the relevance of the arts to the lives of older persons and to showcase outstanding arts projects for the elderly which have been successful throughout the country. One of the most important results of this conference was that arts and aging administrators alike were made aware of the important contributions the arts are making to the lives of older Americans. With endowment assistance, the proceedings from this benchmark conference will be made available to arts and aging administrators, artists, and the general public.

ARCHITECTURAL BARRIERS

It is not surprising that, along with attitudinal barriers, architectural barriers have played a role in impeding older persons' attendance at cultural events. The problems of architectural barriers in cultural institutions have been identified in a recent publication for the arts endowment researched and written by Educational Facilities Laboratories (EFL). The booklet, entitled "Arts and the Handicapped: An Issue of Access," highlights successful projects which have overcome architectural barriers and which have developed arts programs for the handicapped, including the elderly. In addition, a series of television public spot announcements produced for the endowment by the Public Advertising Council of Los Angeles are being aired this year on television stations around the country. The theme of these spot announcements, "Nobody's Perfect," is serving to heighten the public's understanding of the importance of barrier-free design. In addition, in fiscal year 1976, the endowment and EFL established a national "Arts Information Service" for the handicapped and the elderly which provides written information and telephone consultation to anyone interested in obtaining information on source of funding and technical assistance for arts programs for the handicapped and older persons, successful arts projects and the status of Federal and State laws affecting barrier-free design.

The endowment's architecture plus environmental arts program has awarded grants to individuals and organizations for the research and design of products used by the elderly and for seminars/workshops to enhance the understanding of designers and the public alike about how architectural barriers impede older American's access to the arts. These projects include grants:

-To study the design of bathroom fixtures and spaces to improve their convenience for the elderly;

-To support the design and development of a travel chair which will provide transportation assistance to the physically disabled;

-To sponsor a series of seminars in 10 U.S. cities on the need for barrierfree interior environments for the elderly; and

-To conduct a seminar with corporate industrial designers on the product needs of the handicapped and elderly and to demonstrate how those needs can be met by corporations in the design of new products.

Through its cultural facilities assistance grants, the architecture plus environmental arts program encourages all grantees undertaking studies to establish, replace, or alter cultural facilities to include barrier-free architectural design planning. Under this program, grants were made to study the adaptive reuse of the historic Standard (Folly) Theater in Kansas City, Mo., as a multipurpose community theater with 1,000 seats accessible to the physically disabled, and to Mt. Sterling, Ky., for a design and planning study to convert an obsolete railroad station into a multipurpose community center to include an arts and crafts center for the elderly.

ARTS EXPOSURE

Providing opportunities for older Americans to attend performances and other artistic events in an important means of developing audiences for the arts. For

a significant portion of the Nation's 30 million persons over 65 years of age, attendance at cultural events is an economic problem. They cannot afford the price of admission to a symphony concert, theatrical drama, or dance performance nor can they afford to pay for their transportation to these performances. A number of endowment grantees have developed ticket subsidy, transportation, and touring programs to assure that older persons can partake of the cultural resources within their communities. Through its programs in expansion arts, dance, museums, music, and theater, the endowment is assisting arts organizations to provide tickets and transportation services for older people to attend cultural events. Included among these grants are support for:

-The Old Creamery Theater Co., Garrison, Iowa, provides ticket discounts for the elderly to attend its dramatic performances;

-The Dubuque, Iowa, department of recreation provides persons 60 years and older with tickets and transportation to plays, concerts, historical tours, and art exhibitions;

-The Hispanic American Dance Co., New York City, devotes 1 week of its annual season exclusively to performances for senior citizens;

-The Opera Guild of Greater Miami brings opera concerts and staged performances of opera and piano to an estimated 30,000 older persons of Dade County at an average admission price of $2 per ticket;

-The Cincinnati Ballet Co. programs weekend concerts for the elderly which include free tickets and transportation;

-The Circle in the Square, New York City, is continuing its program of distributing free tickets to the elderly and economically disadvantaged to its four major theatrical productions each season;

-The Chinese Cultural Foundation of San Francisco, maintains a strong, multiarts community program for older persons, including touring performances and festivals;

-The Maryland Arts Council is expanding its 10-year-old program of art exhibitions from the Baltimore Museum of Art to facilities serving the elderly ; —The Durham, N.C., Arts Council sponsors twice-monthly professional arts programs in senior residential communities;

-The New Stage Theater, Jackson, Miss., is offering a series of free tickets for plays and transportation to 3,000 low-income elderly citizens, which includes after-performance seminars led by directors and actors; and -Hospital Audiences, Inc., and its affiliate chapters across the country are continuing their successful programs of free and discount tickets to older persons, as well as bringing professional artists into hospital wards and nursing homes to give performances.

In addition to providing the means for older Americans to attend artistic activities, the arts endowment's grantees are providing opportunities for the aging to have "hands-on" creative experiences through workshops and seminars directed by professional artists. Among these grants are:

-Artkare, Inc., Dayton, Ohio, sponsors artists who give weekly workshops and demonstrations in area nursing homes;

--The West Nebraska League of Arts has developed an "artists outreach program of professional artists in several disciplines who give workshops and instruction in senior citizens centers and nursing homes;

---The Theater Project of Antioch College, Baltimore, Md., is developing a personal oral history and performance project with older Americans based on its successful arts exposure program the International Ladies Garment Workers Union;

-The Madison Civic Repertory Theater, Madison, Wis., is involving the elderly in a variety of activities at the theater, including workshops in playreading, costume and set design, acting and directing classes, and play discussion groups;

-Akron Rehabilitators of Community Houses is providing a ceramic art training program for senior citizens under the direction of a master craftsman; -Free Street Theater, Chicago, Ill., gives instruction and training in the theater arts to older individuals who, in turn, have formed their own repertory company (Free Street Too) and perform for audiences of older persons around the country. Presently, the two companies are developing ways of integrating their casts and activities to promote intergeneration programs for individuals of all ages;

-Frog Hollow Craft Association, Middlebury, Vt., provides tuition and materials fees for seniors in rural communities to attend craft workshops; -Watts Community Symphony Orchestra in Los Angeles, sponsors a summer music workshop program providing free music instruction to older persons, including the loan of free instruments for the duration of the lessons; -The Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University makes a museum professional available to senior citizen centers and homes to conduct slide lectures, participatory workshops and special tours as a means of acquainting older persons with the museum;

-The Monroe County Rural Heritage Alliance of Union, W. Va., sponsors elderly mountain musicians to teach and perform mountain music in their own homes for audiences of all ages; and

-The University Circle, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio, is developing an implementation plan for four Cleveland area museums to provide programs specifically for senior residents of inner city neighborhoods.

The Endowments' Federal-State partnership program has supported several outstanding arts and aging projects which are serving as models for other State arts and community arts agencies.

The Minneapolis State Arts Board and the Community Arts Agency of St. Paul-Ramsey Arts and Science Council (COMPAS) is providing opportunities for older persons to become involved in many art forms. Workshops conducted by professional artists are offered in music, painting, pottery, dance, theatre and writing. A senior chorus and theater group give performances by seniors themselves. During the year these workshop activities were integrated into another COMPAS arts project for seniors funded by the Administration on Aging. This successful 2-year demonstration project placed artists in long-term residencies with older persons in housing sites, nutritional sites, and senior citizen centers. An Endowment grant to the Iowa Arts Council is permitting the continuation of a music, poetry and visual arts program for older Iowans. "The living arts program" involves professional artists who work with 300 older persons at 13 sites throughout the State in developing skills and exploring dormant talents. The program is being expanded to include 20 artists at 40 sites during 1976–77. The poetry component of this program recently published a book containing the poems of senior poets entitled "Speak Easy."

The Endowment's folk arts program has funded a significant number of older folk artists and projects by and for older Americans. Approximately two-thirds of the folk arts program's $1.6 million budget for fiscal year 1976 was devoted to preserving our Nation's cultural heritage by providing opportunities for older artisans to perform, teach, and exhibit their crafts and by recording these contributions to our cultural legacy. Included among the many grants of the folk arts program which utilized older Americans as the transmitters of a culture from one generation to the next are:

-Support to make videotapes of the stories and life-styles of 10 storytellers in the upper east Tennessee region;

-Support of a project to document black Mississippi folk arts for an exhibition within the State and for archival uses;

-Support to document the Indian tribal traditions through and by elderly tribal members of tribes in the upper Northwest;

-Support of a team of trained field collectors, all of whom are older Americans, to work with the Oklahoma Indian tribes in recording and photographing their cultural traditions;

-Support of a project to strengthen the tradition of sacred harp singing through a program of demonstrations conducted by experienced older teachers; and

-Support of a festival in Los Angeles presenting American folk music and dance in concerts and workshops involving older artisans as performers and instructors.

The Endowment's Bicentennial program, "City Spirit," assists planning activities for a variety of cultural efforts which seek to broaden the role of the arts in a neighborhood, town, city, county, State, or region. The program is based on the concept that the interaction of a community's diverse interests-business, labor, government, religious groups, educational institutions, civic organizations can provide new cultural programs for the community. The inclusion of organizations and institutions serving older Americans have been well represented in "City Spirit" grants. Some examples of "City Spirit" programs in which special efforts have been made to include the elderly are:

-The Arts Council of Greater New Orleans is identifying and developing cultural resources for the elderly in the greater metropolitan area; and -The city of San Luis Obispo, Calif., has identified senior citizens as a major resource to contribute to the city's development of arts programs for every segment of the population.

The Endowment, and particularly its new office for special constituencies, is continuing its commitment to make all the arts available to elderly citizens. Currently plans are underway to assist in the planning and implementation of a major conference for arts administrators on the theme of arts and the aging to be held in early 1977. By serving as an initiator of model demonstration programs and the catalyst for transmitting information about arts and aging projects to its many constituencies, the National Endowment for the Arts will increase the opportunities for older Americans to attend and participate in cultural activities.

ITEM 21. NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES

JANUARY 6, 1977. DEAR SENATOR CHURCH: In response to your request, I am pleased to enclose a statement summarizing major activities for the aging supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1976.

I hope that you and your committee will find this report of our activities useful. I also hope that readers of this report will find the examples cited suggestive of the varied ways in which humanities projects can be designed to benefit older Americans, and to increase understanding of their contributions and of the problems associated with aging in our society.

Sincerely yours,

[Enclosure.]

RONALD S. BERMAN, Chairman.

REPORT TO THE SENATE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING ON ACTIVITIES AFFECTING OLDER AMERICANS IN 1976

INTRODUCTION

The Endowment recognizes the important contributions older Americans can and do make to this society; it also recognizes the need of older citizens to have access to information and perspectives that can aid them in making informed decisions as they confront personal and public problems and choices. Therefore, NEH encourages increased utilization by the elderly of Endowment-supported products (such as print materials, radio and television programs), and participation of older Americans in a wide variety of NEH-supported activities, including scholarship, the pursuit of additional knowledge through formal and informal educational programs, and discussions of vital public policy questions in communities across the Nation.

In carrying out its congressional mandate to encourage the understanding and use of humanistic knowledge in the United States, NEH responds to needs and interests in the humanities, primarily as they are expressed in applications for specific projects. The agency does not designate fixed amounts of money for work in any subject area or for particular groups of individuals. Consequently, there is no special NEH program for older citizens utilizing funds allocated for that group; nor is there a formal program to support study of the processes and problems associated with aging.

However, through its regular procedure for selection and support, NEH has funded a number of projects specifically designed to increase understanding of attitudes toward aging, and to provide learning experiences in the humanities for the elderly. In addition, regrants of NEH funds through the State-based humanities committees have supported many locally initiated and conducted projects of these types. This report includes descriptions of all NEH grants made in this area and a few of many examples of local projects funded through Statebased committees.

All of the activities supported by NEH to increase understanding and use of the humanities among the general public reach large numbers of older Americans. This report describes such projects only if they include special planning for the elderly, or are particularly relevant or potentially useful in programing by or for older citizens.

I. SPECIFIC NEH GRANTS SERVING THE ELDERLY

In 1976, the Endowment has awarded approximately $300,000 for grants specifically designed to increase knowledge about aging, or to provide special materials or activities for the elderly.

"HUMAN VALUES AND AGING: NEW CHALLENGES TO RESEARCH IN THE HUMANITIES"

Through the Endowment's science, technology, and human values program, an award was made in 1974 to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, to support the planning and preparation necessary for a symposium which would introduce younger humanities scholars to research needs and opportunities on the subject of aging and the aged. As the result of this planning grant, NEH began in 1975 to support a 22-year research-design project to elicit humanistic research on this important subject.

Early in the project there was a symposium for 30 postdoctoral humanists with interest in this subject, at which several scientists and social scientists discussed the biomedical and sociopsychological aspects of aging, and several humanists discussed possibilities for research in disciplines such as history and literature which could provide new insights into aging and attitudes toward the process. In October 1976, research papers prepared by the participants during this past year were presented and discussed at a conference in New York. Papers resulting from the project will be edited and organized for dissemination. Newsletters issued by the project provide current information about research in the humanities and about programs on the subject of aging in which humanists are involved. The increasing interest and activity in this new area of inquiry are signaled by interchange in New York between scholars on the project and gerontological society members, and by the society's establishment of an ad hoc committee on humanism and humanities in gerontology, charged with exploring ways and means by which the humanities might contribute to gerontology and the work of the society.

THE SALK INSTITUTE: APPOINTMENTS IN THE HUMANITIES

This grant, also made through the science, technology, and human values program, provides for the appointment of two humanists to contribute perspectives on scientific studies underway at the Salk Institute in San Diego, Calif. Appointees are made from the fields of literature and philosophy, specifically to contribute to studies in human specificity-those functions which characterize human uniqueness-and in aging.

YOUTH GRANTS IN THE HUMANITIES

The youth grants program (which supports humanities projects initiated and conducted by students and out-of-school youth) awarded a grant to a group of young people to produce “August," a documentary film on aging made in cooperation with the Masonic Home in Utica, N.Y. This film, recently completed, focuses on the socialization of the elderly in an institutional environment and it pays particular attention to the various social attitudes, fears, and prejudices that contribute to this process. Through its investigation of this particular way of life, the film makers expect that the film will provoke questions leading to a better understanding of attitudes about aging.

"A Matter of Indifference," which was completed in 1974, is another documentary film study of aging in America supported by an NEH youth grant.

TELEVISION PRODUCTION COLLOQUIUM

The University of North Carolina, supported by a grant from NEH's division of public programs, held a 2-day colloquium for humanists and television producers in Chapel Hill, N.C., in November 1976. The meeting was part of a project to develop content for a major television series which will provide new insights into the search for a meaningful old age through a reexamination of the American heritage in the fields of religion, history, philosophy, literature, and other humanistic disciplines.

HUMANITIES PROGRAMING FOR THE OLDER POPULATION

The National Retired Teachers Association/American Association of Retired Persons received a grant in 1976 to explore the feasibility of developing a