Nancy Hanks, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from 1969 to 1977, turned this fledgling organization into a major instrument for government support of the arts--accomplishing thereby a virtual revolution in the public arts policy of the United States. She died of cancer on January 7, 1983; later that year, at the request of Congress, President Ronald Reagan designated the building complex at Pennsylvania Avenue and 11th Street (the "Old Post Office") in Washington, D.C., as the Nancy Hanks Center.

This biography captures the spirit and the flavor of Ms. Hanks's...