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African-American artists
Taught by an art teacher by the name of Sarah Moorhead, Scipio Moorehead, an African slave in Massachusetts, was one of the first "professionally" trained African-American painters (Sarah Moorhead was believed to be the daughter of Scipio Moorhead's owner). -
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History of American Art Education
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American Academy of the Fine Arts
In 1802, the American Academy of the Fine Arts is founded in New York City. The purpose of the academy is to encourage art appreciation and instruct young men in the fine arts. In a classical approach to art education, students are instructed to copy master works -
Blackboards created
In Philadelphia, the first blackboard was used in a school. Created from pine lumber and covered with a mixture of egg white and carbon from charred potatoes, teachers and students used the invention by writing on them with chunks of chalk and erasing with cloth rags. Lessons in art were taught using such blackboards. -
The Hudson River School
The Hudson River School emerged as a loosely organized group of painters, whose subjects depicted the natural setting of the American continent. Examples of these artists include Thomas Cole, Thomas Doughty, and Alvan Fisher. This art movement was reflective of America and influential to Americans. Because these works were part of visual culture, and because visual culture surrounded students less than it does today, works like this would be remembered and influential. -
The Troy Female Seminary
The Troy Female Seminary was founded by pioneer Emma Willard. Troy gave women the opportunity to earn a collegiate education and offered opportunities for women teachers. Troy, now Emma Willard School, was renamed after Willard's retirement in 1938. -
Boston English High School
Boston English High School originally known as a "terminal" school opened in Boston, Massachusetts, mainly for boys twelve years or older. It was one of the first free public schools in the United States. Free schooling had begun as an idea during the early 1700's. Free schooling was mainly for poor children whose parents could not afford to pay for them to attend a private school. -
An Introduction to Linear Drawing
An Introduction to Linear Drawing was published by William Bentley Fowle. This was the first documented book for teaching art in the United States public schools. Fowle, who was not an artist, translated the book from the original French version by M. Louis Francoeur and added various problems, illustrations, and instruction for basic perspective drawing. Through simple exercises, it gave directions for drawing lines, angles, geometry, simple moldings, classical forms, and architecture. -
Wheaton College
Originally starting as a seminary school with three teachers and fifty students, Wheaton College, located in Norton, Massachusetts, would in time be transformed into one of the first primarily liberal arts devoted schools. After being one of the first schools in the country to realize the age of separate gender schooling was drawing to an end, the school opted to endorse the arts as a school with a visual arts program amongst other curriculum. -
Romantic Idealism
Romantic Idealism enters the American educational system through Transcendentalist, Amos Bronson Alcott and his Temple School that opens in 1834. Alcott believes suitable teaching elicits “the truth and moral sense within children, and that the Socratic question-and-answer method is effective toward that end” -
Horace Mann
Horace Mann accepts the position of the first secretary of the Massachussetts Board of Education. Mann was one of the leading advocates of the common school movement which pushed for the establishment of state-supported schooling in the beginning of the industrial era. The growth of industry would require a workforce that was literate in many areas, including the arts, and especially design. -
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody
Elizabeth Palmer Peabody was a pioneer in art education. She not only established the first organized kindergarten by 1820 in Lancaster, she was also a philosopher. Before taking a stance in the Transcendantal movement by opening a bookshop in Boston, she published papers with her thoughts and expressions about how art needed to be taught in school. -
The Philadelphia School of Design for Women
The Philadelphia School of Design for Women is established by Sarah Worthington Peter. Drawing classes for young, middle-class women, held by Sarah Worthington King Peter, mark the beginnings of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women -
New York's School of Design for Women
New York's School of Design for Women, a division of Cooper Institute, was founded in 1852. Modeled after the Philadelphia School of Design for Women founded in 1848, it instructed women in technical drawing and designing paper and textiles for manufacturers. Free tuition was offered to students taking industrial classes so that women could earn "respectable" livings and be prevented from marrying bad husbands. -
The death of Fredrick Froebel
the death of Fredrick Froebel, the man who is credited with the fundamental ideas and establishments of kindergarten. As a zealous advocate that children should learn through their playfulness, Froebel stated that his school would be called kindergarten, the garden of children. His ideals and his popular "Froebel gifts and occupations" have influenced the work of many artists -
The National Education Association
The National Education Association is created. The goal of the association is to give educators a voice. Today the NEA is the nation’s leading organization committed to advancing the cause of public education. NEA continues to maintain the same goals since its establishment in 1857. Their current mission is “to elevate the character and advance the interests of the profession of teaching and to promote the cause of popular education in the United States.” -
Art History - Vassar College
For the first time ever at a university, art history was brought into the curriculum at Vassar College by Henry Van Ingen. Van Ingen was a Dutch-born painter who tought drawing and painting at Vassar in addition to being in charge of the reknowned art gallery there. His art history cources included such topics as the "History of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture". -
Drawing in Public Schools
Massachusetts legislature passes act authorizing teaching of drawing in public schools. -
The American Kindergarten Movement
nspired by Froebel's philosophies and teaching methods, Elizabeth Peabody is an influential force in the development of the kindergarten in America. The first public kindergarten opens in Boston, Massachusetts in 1870, where Froebel's "gifts" and "occupations" are employed. -
Ruskin's Drawing School
British art critic John Ruskin establishes his Drawing School at Oxford University. -
Massachusetts Normal Art School
Massachusetts Normal Art School established to prepare art teachers -
Child Study Movement
In the 1880s, G. Stanley Hall introduces the Child Study Movement. Comparing children's drawings and paintings to primitive art, Hall examines children’s cognitive development. -
The Child Study movement
The Child Study movement was underway, led by psychologists and educators who agreed that schools needed to serve new functions and should adapt to the needs of the developing child. The education system was evolving from an institution that treated children as miniature adults into one that focused on specific needs and individualism in children. The catalysts for the movement included G. Stanley Hall, Freud, and Dewey. -
Department of Art
the National Education Association establishes a Department of Art. Not only does it give educators guidelines and ideas to use in the classroom, but the NEA discusses and aids in solving major issues in education -
The Applied Arts Book.
September marked the first appearance of The Applied Arts Book. For an annual fee of one dollar, teachers who subcribed were sent a copy which promised to instill in children "perceptual interest in the coming of beauty into life." -
Ella Flagg Young
In 1909 Ella Flagg Young was appointed superintendant of Chicago schools. She was one of the first women to hold this position in a large city. In 1910, she became the first women president of the National Education Association (NAEA). She established teacher's councils and held meetings encouraging teachers to participate in policy and curriculum decisions, which led to the formation of the Chicago Teachers' Federation -
Franz Cizek - Juvenile Art
Franz Cizek holds an exhibition of paintings and woodcuts by his students in Great Britain to raise money for his Juvenile Art Class. Franz Cziek was an internationally known Viennese art teacher and artist in the 1st quarter twentieth century. His juvenile art classes began in 1897 and he exhibited works of art by his students regularly in Britain between 1920 and 1935. -
Collage
The technique of collage is introduced to the world. Collage is a process of cutting and pasting a variety media together to form a composition. This art form is not only a good technique for art educators to use but it also provides a good history into art-making. -
American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
Teachers are struggling for their voices to be heard over powerful administrators. In an effort to become a stronger force, The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is established. The AFT is quickly accepted into the American Federation of Labor (AFL) as a new union. -
The Progressive Education Association
The Progressive Education Association is established to promote the ideas of John Dewey and other educational reformers. Dewey's interest in helping educators provide for the uniqueness of the child and the significance of experience in his life grew into a movement which eventually considered self-expression and noninterference by the teacher an important tenet of its program. -
The Bauhaus School
The Bauhaus School opened in 1919, as a German school for architecture. It attracted many leading two- and three-dimensional experimental artists. The Bauhaus School was Germany's most important and most avant-garde art and design school. Many of its teachers eventually came to the United States, when the Nazis forced the school to close in 1933. -
The Scribble Technique
Florence Cane, developed what is known as the scribble technique. This technique was introduced into the schools in the early twentieth century and it was also used by many therapists at this time. The scribble technique was supposed to produce spontaneous imagery coming from the unconscious. In addition, this would introduce creativity and individuality into the art classrooms of the schools. -
Miss Marion Richardson
Miss Marion Richardson taught at the Dudley Girls High School where she developed her "child-centered approach" to teaching art. She believed that it was important to give students encouragement and guidance rather than imposing taste and aesthetic judgements. She developed a progressive way of teaching art to children by encouraging her students to use memory and visual imagination in producing art works -
The Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art becomes a permanent museum, benefitting education in the arts, increasing the number of programs offered, and leading to an expansion in the number of people able to see artworks in person. -
Radio Art Education
the Ohio School of the Air introduced radio art education to the United States. Prior attempts had been made to link art and radio but it was through the Ohio School of Air that art received academic acceptance by presenting subjects, including art over the airways. Art appreciation lessons were taught Tuesday afternoons from 1:53-2:10, by Henry Turner Bailey of the Cleveland Art Museum. -
Fingerpainting
In February 1931, finger paints were first used by one of Ruth Faison Shaw's elementary school children at the Shaw School in Rome. The idea of finger paints came to Shaw when she sent a student to the bathroom to put iodine on his cut. When he did not return, she found him painting iodine all over the bathroom walls. Finger-painting was later instituted in America in April of 1936. -
Owatonna Project
Owatonna Project was started in Owatonna, Minnesota. This was an educational project conducted in a small town in the Midwest to gauge the importance of art in general education. The project continued until 1938 and the findings were published in 1944. -
Highlights Magazine
Highlights Magazine for children published its first issue in Honesdale, PA. Highlights Magazine is a wonderful source for children's artistic inspiration and creation. In each issue there are several sections that encourage readers to send in original works of art. Some pieces are displayed with other original creations, such as short stories and poems, while others appear along with directions so that other children can follow along to create their own masterpiece. -
The National Art Education Association
The National Art Education Association was founded with the merger of the Western, Pacific, Southeastern, and Eastern Region Art Associations, plus the art department of the National Education Association (NEA). The NAEA consists of educators in all fifty states plus the District of Columbia, U.S. Possessions, most Canadian Provinces, U.S. military bases around the world, and twenty-five foreign countries. -
Play-Doh.
Play-Doh is sold in stores for the first time. A chemist at a cleaning products company, Joseph McVicker, invents a dough-like material to clean dirt off wallpaper. Around the same time, his sister, a school teacher, complained about the hard and unworkable modeling clay her students had to use.Children can easily express themselves in a three-dimensional medium in school and at home with the new Play-Doh. -
Sputnik
The Soviets launch the first artificial satellite called Sputnik. Americans believe that their schools have failed to provide enough good scientists to compete with their Cold War enemies. This concern leads to the National Defense Education Act, passed in 1958, which greatly decreases the emphasis placed on art education in schools. -
The National Defense Education Act
The National Defense Education Act, NDEA, is passed by Congress and heavily supported by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The act called for schools to emphasize science and math in the hope that children with natural ability in these subjects would pursue careers that would eventually aid the United States National Defense and thus outmatch the Soviet Union's military, technology and research. The arts were greatly de-emphasized during this time because they were considered frivolous. -
The Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College
The Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College, formerly known as the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, was founded with the intention of increasing the number of female artists represented in public and private collections -
Etch-A-Sketch
Now a popular children's toy, the Etch-A-Sketch, was first produced on July 12, 1960. Invented by Arthur Granjean and produced by the Ohio Art Company, this sand drawing toy allows for hours of entertainment. Children of all ages can perform countless drawings, expanding their minds and gaining a better concentration in artistic creativity. -
Increase in art teachers
The number of art teachers graduating from college increased by two hundred percent since the 1950s. The only other subject with a larger increase was foreign language. -
Art Therapy
Art therapy had been emerging as a distinct form of psychotherapy since the 1930's. In 1969, The American Art Therapy Association was formed by professionals who shared the belief that creativity and art were healing and life-enhancing. -
The National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts began to devise a plan to expose all Americans to art. Plays, dances, critiques, interviews with artists and other art-related programs were to be shown on public television. -
The Accountability Movement
The Accountability Movement begins in the mid-1970’s as result of increased public pressure to hold the nation’s educational system accountable for declining test scores. The focus shifts from curriculum content to the development of assessment tools, instructional and behavioral objectives, and competency-based teacher education -
The Qualitative Inquiry Movement
The Qualitative Inquiry Movement gains support during the mid-1970’s when educational theorists and researchers resist the use of behavioral objectives in the planning of curriculum and instructional assessment. Qualitative research becomes a widely used research tool in art education in the evaluation of educational activities and accomplishments -
Excellence in Education Movement (Discipline Based Art Education)
The development of Discipline Based Art Education (DBAE and neo-DBAE) comes from a call for educational accountability and growing concern for improving the quality of education (Sabol, 2004). Reform movements focus on the development of standards identified with each educational discipline and the ‘best practices’ in the field. -
The Joy of Painting
The Joy of Painting television series, starring Bob Ross, first episode was aired in 1983. During the show, the soft-spoken Ross taught his audience an easy technique of painting that included how to make "happy" clouds and "happy" little trees. -
Crayola Dreammakers
Crayola created an art education program for elementary school students called DREAM-MAKERS. It is an Internet site that teachers can go to in order to find lesson plans, and ideas for creative projects. They can even print out letters to send home to the parents of students explaining the importance of art education -
Arts Infusion- Learning through the Arts
Teachers and administrators are working together to create integrated and coordinated school curricula in which art is infused into other subject areas in order to improve learning in all disciplines.
