The Spirit of 1976: Commerce, Community, and the Politics of Commemoration

4. “Resolving the Commercialism Issue”: The American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, 1973–1977

91 ChaPteR fouR “Resolving the Commercialism Issue” The American Revolution Bicentennial Administration, 1973–1977 By 1974 federal planners had settled on a strategy that mixed grassroots participation with an emphasis on entrepreneurial spirit, a combination that would achieve some success and restore some measure of public faith in the federal government, or at least in its ability to plan a birthday party. the shift in federal strategy reflected a more significant cultural transition in the middle 1970s in the dominant culture’s notion of capitalism as a likely source of positive change, a transition that would provide some force in later discussions of Reaganomics. at the federal level, bicentennial planning looked like a prototype for Reagan’s 1984 campaign slogan “Morning again in america,” an approach reliant on ideas about small town folk culture combined with a strong commitment to capitalism. in its 1977 Final Report to the People, the american Revolution Bicentennial administration noted that at its inception in 1973, it had to work on “resolving the commercialism issue.” significantly, the aRBa did this with an increased emphasis on the important role capitalism—their preferred term was “free enterprise”—has played in the american past. By repeating the mantra of the fundamental americanness of commerce, the aRBa showed it had learned from the aRBC’s mistakes. it continued the aRBC’s licensing and coins and medals programs to show how truly efficient the federal government could be when it played the free enterprise game. this transition from a publicly funded to a partially market-based 92 Chap ter Four approach to supporting federal programs, however, did not come without growing pains. Both the symbol licensing program and the coins and medals program produced significant revenue for the aRBa, and they channeled these funds into a matching grants program for states, cities, municipalities, and tribes. despite the moderate public criticism it faced for “selling” the bicentennial, the aRBa ran two successful merchandising programs, and emphasized in word and action that the spirit of the revolution resided in both commerce and community.1 the aRBa was more successful than the aRBC in merchandising the bicentennial because it included more grassroots organizations in its decision -making and routed profits from the programs to towns, municipalities , tribes, and community groups. this made the funds generated from merchandising not only palatable but desirable in that they supported local organizations with few resources, providing a solution to the lack of minority voices in federal planning that activists criticized in the aRBC’s plans. the aRBa was also successful because it emphasized a combination of free enterprise as american heritage with its program of citizen inclusion. its ability to defuse protest against government commercialism emerged with cultural and political shifts in which americans popularly recast enterprise—rather than activism—as the solution to america’s many problems. it was a part of the slow and incomplete shift in faith from Keynesianism to Reaganomics as the possible solution to government ’s role in the economy. the aRBa emphasized broad participation in the bicentennial, with business participation as one of many important components. the strategy worked, and the aRBa merchandising programs ended up raising almost a third of the total federal funds expended on the celebration. By 1977, the aRBa had convinced americans that entrepreneurial drive, when combined with grassroots support and profitable to communities, could be a solution to america’s problems. as part of a program to promote broad participation, the aRBa’s congressional mandate included the formation of the american Revolution Bicentennial Board and the advisory Council.2 the board oversaw aRBa administration and finances, and set policy. it was supposed to be politically balanced and include members from the house and senate, state bicentennial commissioners, the secretary of the interior, and the chair and vice-chair of the aRB Council. the council’s job was to provide feedback to the chief administrator. appointed by the president, the council, 93 “Resolving the Commercialism Issue” according to the aRBa, “provided broad representation needed to reflect the diversity of the nation’s Bicentennial planning. one member was a homemaker, two were students, four were writers, five were women and seven were executives.”3 despite the claims to diverse representation, the council was stacked with high visibility members like authors alex haley and James Michener, poet Maya angelou, activist Betty shabazz, tV producer Joan Ganz Cooney of Sesame Street fame, the former first lady Claudia “lady...