Separate education for American women in the arts began in the
mid-19th century as an innovative vehicle for middle-class women to
move into a new and genteel profession. The 20th century evolution
of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, lone survivor as an
autonomous school of many similar institutions founded at the same
time, presents an unusually well-documented case study of meeting
the changing needs of women students.
The first American institutions devoted to women's professional
art education, design schools appeared in industrial northeastern
cities in the 1850s, modeled on Philadelphia's pioneering School of
Design for Women, which opened in 1848. Sponsored by business
leaders and philanthropists, design schools gave women
unprecedented access to craft skills, and eventually helped
professionalize the work of women as art teachers and practicing
artists. Separate education in the arts constituted an innovative
vehicle for expanding Victorian-era middle-class gender
prescriptions into new professional opportunities. Through the 20th
century, the Philadelphia School of Design and its successor, Moore
College of Art, survived as the nation's only autonomous women's
art college, offering new educational options for women.
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