High culture, black culture: Strategic assimilation and cultural steering in museum philanthropy

Abstract

This article provides a case study of race and big-gift cultural patronage, a theoretically and empirically understudied phenomenon, by investigating million-dollar donations to the Smithsonian Institution by black patrons. I find that large donations by black supporters are concentrated at one Smithsonian museum – the National Museum of African American History and Culture. To explain this distinctive pattern of cultural consumption, I draw on ethnographic data and archival texts related to patronage at African American museums. Gifts to the National Museum of African American History and Culture can be partly explained by strategic acculturation, or an impulse to articulate and nurture black identity through consuming black culture. However, cultural steering also played a key role. Black donors were identified and cultivated via a robust fundraising infrastructure where market research cast them as key constituents of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and taste-making strategies that constructed the museum as worthy reinforced their attraction to the museum. By conceptually and empirically elaborating cultural steering, this analysis offers a more complete model of black middle- and upper-class consumption of black culture.