[3] The NEH was initially skeptical of the creation of local programming entities on the model of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which, by 1969, had created state-based arts agencies in every state.
[4] However, under pressure from Congress and especially Sen. Claiborne Pell, the NEH began to experiment with the creation of non-governmental state-based committees in 1971.
The initial mission of these committees was to facilitate conversation about public policy.
[5] Responding to further pressure from Congress to transform the committees into state agencies, as the NEA had done, the NEH instead began working to increase the committees' autonomy.
By 1980, the committees' programming agendas had been greatly broadened and the NEH had begun to refer to them as "state humanities councils.