Steppingstones

Representing the first extensive volume on the history of art education to be published in 20 years, this book will generate new interpretations of both local and global histories for 21st-century readers. Steppingstones captures pivotal moments in art education history within the United States and globally. Chapters are situated within the broad and active stream of history, identified by the authors as places to pause, step down, and deeply explore these moments and the vibrant terrain that surrounds them. Some steppingstones in the volume are new and fresh reappraisals of familiar and well-recognized landing places in art education history. Other steppingstones contain discussions of previously unknown or overlooked material uncovered by the authors. Digging deep, getting beneath, and revealing steppingstones that embrace a pathway through the past, this book explores dynamic and spirited narratives about the people, institutions, events, tensions, and international perspectives that have shaped and continue to direct the course of art and design education.

Book Features:

• Investigates contemporary issues through a lens toward the past, including issues of race, cultural protocols, intersectionality, international influence, White privilege, and other social concerns.
• Presents contributions from well-known senior scholars alongside new voices of several emerging scholars of color.
• Includes biographical accounts of African American artists and educators, and the role and influence of the Harlem Renaissance.
• Contains discussion of art education in colonial India and explores complex relationships between colonizer-colonized histories.
• Focuses on art education in the United States with discussion of specific international influences.
• Offers contemporary best practices for doing historical research and strategies for teaching art education history courses at the university level.
• Highlights the significance of digital humanities and digital scholarship.

Paul E. Bolin is professor emeritus at The University of Texas at Austin. Ami Kantawala is adjunct associate professor of art and art education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Mary Ann Stankiewicz is professor emeritus at The Pennsylvania State University.

“The next time I teach a course on the history of art education, I will certainly use Steppingstones as one of the readings, as it will offer critical perspectives that need to be in dialogue with other texts in the field. I applaud this book for foregrounding international perspectives in the field, and for making visible the histories of Black art educators in several chapters.”

—Teachers College Record

“This book, like its title, is a steppingstone and point of departure for thinking about history, historical research, and what it means to do historical research, and what it means to do historical research in art education from a variety of positions and vantage points (cultural, racial, gendered, classed, etc.).”

—Studies in Art Education

“This volume’s multivocal approach to the history of art education is exactly what is needed in this moment, when remembering and working with the past is necessary for creating educational opportunities that are socially just, culturally responsible, and necessary to supporting democratic citizenship. By focusing on case examples, contributors to this volume reveal the social, cultural, and political complexities associated with art and education, while simultaneously modeling effective practices in historical research. This book is required reading for all those working to advance an art education that is responsive and responsible to the field’s history and future.”
—Doug Blandy, professor, University of Oregon

Contents

Preface  xi

Acknowledgments  xvii

PART I: THOUGHTS ON HISTORY, HISTORICAL RESEARCH, AND TEACHING ART EDUCATION HISTORY  1

1.  Steppingstones for a Future Past: Considering Metaphors Within Historical Discourse in Art Education  3
Paul E. Bolin

2.  Digital Resources and Methodologies for Historical Investigation  14
Mary Ann Stankiewicz and Henry Pisciotta

3.  Historical Research: Digging and Shaping Vessels of Meaning  28
Ami Kantawala

PART II: PIVOTAL STEPPINGSTONES IN ART EDUCATION HISTORY  45

4.  Intricacies of the British Schools of Design and Their Lasting Pedagogical Influence  47
Ami Kantawala

5.  A Window Into Art Education in India: The Great Exhibition of 1851  58
Ami Kantawala

6.  Seeking to Rise From “The Foot of the Column”: Initiating and Legislating Required Drawing Instruction in Massachusetts Public Schools, 1869–1870  72
Paul E. Bolin

7.  Times of Change: International Influences of the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition on Art Education in New England and Beyond in the Late 19th Century  86
Paul E. Bolin

8.  White City, Dark Days: Constructing Racism in Art Education at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair  101
Mary Ann Stankiewicz

9.  Artful Living: Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Her Work in Art Education at the Palmer Memorial Institute  114
Kathryn Farkas and Paul E. Bolin

10.  Administrative Progressives, Functional Art Education, and Commercial Culture, 1918–1945  129
Mary Ann Stankiewicz

11.  BLACK(lash): Political Resistance and Black Artists of the Harlem Renaissance  144
Alphonso Walter Grant and Ami Kantawala

12.  To “See With Your Ears”: Examples of Art Education Through the Technology of Radio in the United States, 1929–1943  162
Paul E. Bolin

13.  Hidden Narratives of Creative Expression: Viktor Lowenfeld and African American Art Education  176
J. Célèste Kee and Mary Ann Stankiewicz

14.  The 1965 Penn State Seminar: Context, Content, Congregants, and Consequences  191
Mary Ann Stankiewicz and Felix Rodriguez

15.  History in the Present: Contemporary Issues  206
Ami Kantawala

Index  221

About the Authors  235