One of us lives in the State of Maine, which has the oldest average population in the United States. Many of its residents “remember the good old days” when popular music was steeped in such pre-rock-and-roll genres as swing music, sweet music, and bebop. Broadway musicals were also flourishing during the 1930s, 40s and 50s, producing standards written by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and music teams like Kern and Hammerstein, Rogers and Hart, Rogers and Hammerstein, and Lerner and Lowe.
In Maine, recordings of this kind of music are begin cared for and displayed (broadcast) by two independent FM radio stations that offer no commercials. One of these stations has been privately owned by Bob Ventner, who plays music of the 1940s through the 1960s. He has asked for donations once a year to cover the costs of operating the station but takes no salary himself (exemplifying the enactment of Generativity Three). Bob recently passed away. His family and friends are keeping the station open to honor his memory. Over the years, Ventner expanded to several other AM and FM radio stations in Maine and Massachusetts. A second station (WYAR) is a nonprofit that is run by volunteers and plays music from the first half of the Twentieth Century, the 1920’s through the 1950’s. As the announcers indicate: it is the only station to play music by Tex Beneke, Harry Belafonte, Bix Beiderbecke, Helen Morgan, Ethel Waters, and Fanny Brice.
Visual displays are particularly important for those of us who appreciate art and historical artifacts. The most obvious examples are the many museums that populate communities throughout the world. One of us recently visited an extraordinary collection of artifacts from the history of slavery in the United States. Located in New Orleans, this museum displays the slave-market manifests and shipping records for the African men, women and children who were dispatched to New Orleans from ports on the Atlantic seaboard.
The generativity of museums comes in two forms. First, there are those men and women who donated their paintings, recordings, and artifacts. While some museums are filled with objects that were confiscated rather than donated (notably the great Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg), generosity and generativity are abundantly evident in most of these guardian institutions. The Isabel Stuart Gardner Museum in Boston exemplifies this spirit of display. Gardner and her husband spent considerable time in Europe and purchased many works of art. Gardner built a museum to display and preserve this art. She also exhibited a bit of stagnation (or at least stubbornness) to compliment her spirit of display by insisting that there be no changes in the museum and its collection after her death.
One of us recently visited a museum in Dallas, Texas, that featured Spanish paintings. The donor had visited Spain in conjunction with his own prosperous business and fell in love with under-appreciated artwork of Spanish artists. He wanted these paintings to become better known, so he purchased and donated them to the art museum located at Southern Methodist University. What is the nature of his Generativity Three enactments? Like Isabel Gardner, he cared deeply about these works of art and wanted to preserve and display them so others could appreciate the innovative spirit and craftsmanship of these objects. It is when such objects are purchased for public display and preservation that Generativity Three clearly is enacted.
The second form of display-oriented generativity is to be found among those who serve as volunteer docents, museum administrators, and financial sponsors to keep these institutions in business. Some generative volunteers and often low-paid administrators decide to donate their time because they have neither the capital to make a major financial contribution nor the valuable objects to offer the museum. There is also the motivation of social networking found in the desire of generative people to gather together for a reunion or celebration; when working with a museum, they have the opportunity to affiliate with other men and women who have the same interests, passions, and dedications.
