"Looking back on the 110-year history of Art in America, the editors have unearthed some surprises, like this article written for the Winter 1962 issue by Edward R. Murrow, who had left his career in broadcast journalism to become director of the United States Information Agency (which was folded into the US Department of State in 1999). His thoughts on the benefits of promoting American culture abroad—at a time when the world was far less globalized—reflect a postwar drive to bolster America’s image on the international stage, particularly as a strategy to combat the Soviet Union’s influence. Murrow wrote the piece on the occasion of a USIA-sponsored traveling exhibition of works from the corporate collection of S.C. Johnson & Son, lnc., then most notable for its wax products. The company would donate the 102 works to the Smithsonian Institution in 1969 following the exhibition’s stops in Europe, Japan, South America, and Canada."