The formal education of women artists in the United States has taken quite a long journey. It wasn't until the nineteenth century that the workings of a recognized education for these women finally appeared. Two of the most famous and elite schools of art that accepted, and still accept, women pupils are the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts the PAFA. Up until the early nineteenth century, women were mostly taught what is now called a "fashionable education" Philadelphia School of Design for Women 5. Their mothers raised them to be proper,...

The nineteenth century brought many changes to the world of art for women. A formal education for future women artists finally became available, and many new opportunities for careers in art were unleashed. Two of the most prominent art schools that catered to female pupils are the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which both still exist today. These two schools introduced women artists to drawing, sculpture, lithography, life drawing, and even anatomy. The mark that these two fine schools made on the women's world of art will never be forgotten.