The beginning of the PAEA was not particularly planned. The National Art Education Association (NAEA) was barely a year old in 1949 and in Pennsylvania, art educators met as they had for decades in district and regional groups. Many local art associations held annual meetings such as the Philadelphia Schoolman’s Week Art Conferences. The Kutztown area conferences, started by Dr. Italo Luther deFrancesco in1938, was originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference on Art Education and later as the Kutztown Art Education Conferences. It has provided the eastern region of the state with information and instruction for decades. The western region had similar conferences. Some of these regional art education conferences were attended by several hundred art teachers.

Those who wished to meet colleagues on the state level joined the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) art section. In the early years art educators were invited to be speakers before large groups of general teachers and in smaller sessions shared information about art education. During the Depression the few art teachers left in schools and colleges found it financially difficult to attend PSEA meetings.

By the late 1940s only a few art educators continued to meet at Round Table discussions at PSEA annual meetings, even after they had been repeatedly told to form their own organization due to the dwindling attendance of art teachers. Part of the reluctance to start a separate group was the desire of higher education representatives, state department officials, and art supervisors to advocate for art at the annual meetings through speakers in special sessions and during informal conversations at these conferences.

At the December 1948 PSEA conference, Dr. Italo de Francesco, Director of Art Education at Kutztown State Teachers’ College and also the first Secretary-Treasurer of the newly founded NAEA; George T. Miller, State Director of Art; Dr. Orval Kipp; Dr. Horace Heilman; and Dr. Lawrence McVitty, were sitting around a table when the topic of a state art organization was raised. They decided to organize an association "to provide a liaison between the State Division of Art, the art teacher, the supervisor, and the classroom teacher."

The second Newsletter stated that the PAEA’s purpose was "to provide friendly aid...of real help...things to do and how to do them, also bits of news concerning the art programs in Pennsylvania and those who actively engaged in its success." The first constitution was unanimously adopted in which there were three purposes: (1) to promote the cause and the purpose of Art Education in the schools of Pennsylvania; (2) To provide for the teachers of Pennsylvania a broader understanding of Art Education; and (3) to act as an agency for the dissemination of art news and valuable teaching materials to art educators and school executors in the Commonwealth." These three practical purposes guided the activities of the PAEA for the next 50 years.

The first officers were Maulsby Kimball Jr. from Bryn Mawr, President; Sara Welch, from Charleoi, Vice President; Helen Printz, from Wyomissing, Secretary; and Dr. Lawrence McVitty, from Slippery Rock, Treasurer. (Note: lists of officers, conventions, and conference themes will be listed in the larger history of the PAEA.) Dues were set at $1.00 per year. Apparently the organization met a need and there was interest by art teachers because there were nearly 300 members by Fall 1950.

As a partial result of post World War II educational opportunities and federal government involvement in education, the public leaders and financing of art education changed. The inundation of young men who used their G.I. Bill to obtain a college degree in art education, provided an action-oriented group who were experienced in working within a political system. Where once both audiences and officers of teacher organizations were predominately female, there were now increasing numbers of male art teachers. One elder statesman in art education mentioned that where one would see a "sea of hats" on NAEA conference platforms before and during the war, gradually after the war, the hats and the ladies drifted to the floor of the auditorium and men took over leading public roles. In the PAEA, however, women continued to serve during the 1950’s and 1960’s as leaders in the organization and its activities as: President Ketherine Royer; V.P.: Sara Welch and June Baskin; Treas.: Doris Rupperle, Martha Gault, and Baskin; and as Sec.: Helen Printz, Royer, Anna Magee, Ruth Miller, Lena Cristafulli and Dolores Onuscheck. June Baskin also was Newsletter editor.

Beginning salaries for art teachers without experience in Lansdowne in 1949 were $2200 with $150 additional for each year’s experience up to $3000. There was no shortage of jobs in the beginning of the 1950s as the Baby Boom hit schools.

The first NAEA President, Edwin Ziegfeld, said in the 1972, 25th anniversary issue of Art Education magazine that "the intensity and magnitude of this post-war effort can only be suggested, but it was an exciting time to be a part of. Life was again asserting itself....when creative energies could be devoted to humanizing and constructive ends. It was a great time for an educational enterprise to have been born."

In 1949 the "new Elementary Course of Study:Revision of the Elementary Course of Study-Bulletin 233-B for grades 1-6" was completed. The 600 page bulletin was a textbook for those who taught art with lesson plans, information about how to use inexpensive and discarded materials, lists of movies, films, and slides. An invitation was given to art teachers who could help with a similar book for the secondary level. In 1951 higher education representatives around the United States began redesigning teacher education standards. It was a time of great changes.

The PAEA Newsletter lived up to Its goal of publishing news of these changes that were of interest and use to art teachers across the state. Included was news about what the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) was doing that affected art teachers, what was happening in art classrooms, and news of art exhibits by art teachers and studio faculty.

During the early years there were two conferences--one in each end of the state. The first was held in 1949 in Kutztown where Dr. Edwin Ziegfeld, President of the NAEA, was the main speaker. George T. Miller addressed the Indiana College conference on the theme of "Creative and Mental Growth." The first conference for the entire state was held in Harrisburg in 1954. Conferences moved to different locations to encourage participation of art teachers, but in 1967 settled in Harrisburg until 1994.

In each Newsletter there were short reports on activities of art teachers. The May 5, 1949 issue reported a fire at Pottstown High School in which the art department was damaged by fire, smoke, and water. "Nelson Crofe, art teacher, lost several valuable paintings and bookplates, but hope[d] for a new and better department [in the] fall." The Newsletter advertised and reported on conferences and it is through these recordings that we see how the focuses in art education changed over the years.

Most conference and business records from the years between 1951 and 1960 have been lost, but some individual items were located to help fill voids. Presentations at early conferences included sessions on lesson planning, audio visual aide, selling art programs to communities, attracting pupils into the profession, more effective modern programs for training teachers and supervisors of art, television in education, and media skills and techniques.

Two hundred and four teachers attended the April 1956 conference. This number was reported to be about one half of the membership. Three sessions at that conference were about junior high school problems. Artists Mayers and Chomecky gave demonstrations. Dr. Horace Heilman led eighth graders in figure drawings and Dr. Italo de Francesco spoke on "Basic Premises for Art Education in Our Time."

In the 1950’s reports of the editor of the Newsletter included news of Lancaster junior high students making Red Cross boxes with "Pennsylvania Dutch designs on the top, front, and two sides," and Williamsport Senior High student Richard E. Morgan received a scholarship in the Regional Show of the National Scholastic Art Awards. His instructor [was] Joseph E. Ference.

Art teachers across the state were involved in cooperative projects with other organizations. Murals and posters were frequently created to assist community groups. Many of these contributions by art teachers and students were motivated by altruism, some also may have been made to counter investigations of Communist activities in the arts and the feeling by a large group of people, that artists, and therefore art, were suspect and not really worthy of the money spent on them. These volunteer activities were encouraged in 1951 by George T. Miller, Chief of Art Education in Harrisburg. A great emergency threatens our nation! I feel sure that art departments statewide may cooperate in many ways--in the making of signs, posters, directional helps, illustrative matter, etc. In every national emergency art departments have cooperated with military and civil authorities and I am confident they will do so now.

Many Newsletter reports were about art teachers and students. From Lancaster came a report on students at Reynolds Junior High who appeared on a fifteen minute television program with a puppet and one act play. A 1951 issue reported that Bill Lear at West Chester High School was "recovering from a broken arm and enjoying his new art room." Another item in that edition stated that Mary Burkhart and Harry Kirk of Mechanicsburg conducted a Halloween window painting contest." David T. Lehman, editor, said that "some of the most modern school buildings we have seen lately, with large 30' x 60' art rooms and individual bent iron art tables are at the Abraham Lincoln High School and Sayre Junior High School in Philadelphia."

Speakers at the PAEA conferences were motivational as well as instructional. Advocacy activities were important subjects for conference topics from the beginning of the association. Dr. Viktor Lowenfeld in a 1959 speech titled, "How Can Art Best Assert Its Leadership in Education?" urged members to become politically active and contact their legislators and support art instruction in schools.

By the 1960’s there were 298 "regular" members and 120 student members. The 8th conference that year was held in Kutztown. Mary McKibbin, Director of Art in Pittsburgh, was named "Art Educator of the Year." Creativity was the buzzword in education as reaction to Sputnik’s arrival in 1957 caused an unparalleled emphasis on increasing the ability of American children to compute and create inventions.

Research by Guilford, and Brittain on creativity was reported by Victor Lowenfeld in the NAEA Journal, Nov. 1958. Reports on creativity research and a document from the Governor’s appointed Citizen’s Committee on Education were presented at the 1960 PAEA conference at Penn State University. Art education was justified as an "aid in creative thinking" and members were told that the imagination desired and stimulated by a good art program was the same imagination being searched for by scientific fields.

In 1961 Dr. Blanche Jefferson of the University of Pittsburgh asked the State Art Director, Joseph Todek, to look into specific requirements for art teacher certification at the 16 colleges in the state offering art teacher preparation programs. The October Newsletter contained information about a three year curriculum study in which sample art units were being developed on ceramics, sculpture, enameling, the home and interiors, etching, photography, and industrial design. The committee designing the units included: Joseph D’Amelio, Fred Gilmartin, Mary Gletiz, David Lehman, Estella Rupp, and Joseph Todek.

The March 1962 Newsletter included an editorial in which the author stated that "we are currently involved in the largest talent search of all time. The Air Force, NASA, the National Science Foundation, and many others are probing for ‘the mind’ to solve the problem- what kind of man can remain forever at the front of the frontier?"

Although the PAEA was fully functioning with officers and a constitution and actively supporting art activities around the state by the 1950’s, there were still small Round Table gatherings of art educators at PSEA conferences until 1965 when they were canceled due to poor attendance by these art educators. Discussions at those meetings included state requirements for certification and discussions of a team-taught Fine Arts course to include art, drama, music, and dance lasting one year, five periods a week.

Cooperative and cross-discipline arts courses were continuing topics of interest throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s though it might have been theoretical interest as art students appear to have concentrated on making art. Dr. Robert C. Seelhorst (President 1956-58) commented, "high school art courses seem to be focused on ‘activities’ or ‘projects’ and have been guilty of neglecting the great cultural heritage in our field." As for cross-discipline arts courses, he asked, "are we now preparing teachers who have been and will be competent in teaching...a course in ‘the arts?’"

The mid 1960’s were a time of self expression in New York studios and in many art classrooms, but researchers began to mention that they noticed some shortcomings in this approach. Elliot Eisner in 1965 said a major problem he found in his research was that middle level students did not know basic terms and that art making was the predominate activity.

In addition to the great influence of the abstract expressionists, the political events of the Great Society during the 1960’s and 70’s affected art education in many ways. There also was growing militancy by teachers who formed unions to protect their jobs and to obtain better working conditions for themselves and their students. Federal guidelines for schools did not require attendance at in-service meetings or conferences, and principals short on cash eliminated many of these expenditures. Teachers involved in the PAEA took leadership roles and outnumbered higher education faculty among conference session speakers. Topics for the conferences became more focused on the needs of art teachers than on curriculum theory or research.

For those who were adults in the 1960’s visions of the civil rights movement are still clear. Desegregation, and the federal "War on Poverty," were part of increased activity by the Federal government in Pennsylvania education. Many resented the government intrusion and resisted the federal dollars offered for certain programs. Others did not. Woodstock represented one aspect of rejection, while civil rights marches and sit-ins were another. At the same time the Federal government was trying to change education so that more minority students could get an education and escape poverty.

By the 1960’s, interest in established organizations related in any way to politics and the federal government fell in reverse proportion to activity in anti-establishment groups. Membership in the PAEA fell from 354 in 1962 to 193 in 1964 (at that time there were approximately 1500 art teachers in Pennsylvania.) Clyde McGeary’s appointment to the Department of Public instruction in 1964 preceded by a year efforts at the Federal level to encourage innovation in curriculum and instruction. His new position at the Pennsylvania Department of Education coincided with NAEA organizational changes to form a single unified association for larger visibility to government funders and to better improved working conditions.

The federal Cooperative Research Act of 1954 proposed to develop information and improve education through research. One of it’s first conferences was held at Woods Hole, MA, in 1959. In 1965 the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) made available Title funds for work training and work study programs. Title I encouraged the Job Corp. Title II established funds for school libraries, textbooks, and instructional materials, Title III encouraged local educational initiatives. Title IV provided funds for educational research and centers of research, and Title V provided strengthening of departments of education. Head Start programs were started.

McGeary’s first letter to PAEA members in the Newsletter spoke of upgrading instruction, providing in-service instruction, strengthening the Department of Education and revitalizing support of PAEA and NAEA. The Spring 1965 issue of the Newsletter contained Dr. Edward Mattil’s explanation on how to apply for funding from the Elementary and Secondary School Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). McGeary warned teachers that..."programs are not to be recreative. Whatever we develop should be done in the sense that it will raise the intellectual and artistic level of the elementary and secondary school student."

During the late 1960’s, Clyde McGeary worked to encourage teachers to develop proposals for Title I, funds. He "dreamed" in 1967 of a state-wide art curriculum with "objectives...stated in clear and understandable language, so that the tasks to be accomplished by art teachers are clear and attainable," and for the value of research to be recognized by art educators.

In addition to the 1965 Seminar for Research in Art Education, the PAEA joined with other arts organizations in meetings, workshops, and seminars to advocate for the arts and to find mutual areas of interest. One such meeting was the 1967 Related Arts for Art and Music regional seminars co-sponsored by the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association and PAEA.

The Seminar for Research in Art Education and Curriculum held for 10 days at Penn State University was supported by Title funds. At this seminar 38 leaders in art education curriculum discussed issues that would bring about fundamental changes in the field during the following three decades including curriculum issues and problems, teaching strategies, the basis or theory of art instruction, and the future of art education.

The April 1966 Board meeting minutes stated that the PAEA began a self-evaluation during which the President appointed a special committee to study problems of State-wide and Regional organization. It made plans to enlarge the Council and Board of Directors with elementary, junior high, and senior high art teachers, art supervisors, directors, and college art instructors. It proposed to issue quarterly newsletters, and to create a curriculum research advisory committee to advise on the implementation of ideas from the field of art education and to revise the constitution and by-laws previously rewritten in April 1961.

By 1968 six million dollars under Titles I, II, and V were obtained to develop 17 arts programs and curriculum for the arts for high school and related arts. Over $90,000 worth of art and music films and teaching materials were put in Regional Instructional Materials Centers. Over the next three decades McGeary continued to explain State and Federal mandates and opportunities that affected Pennsylvania art educators. He also visited art teachers and encouraged them to develop and improve their curriculums and to meet together to learn from one another.

An important continuing issue of the PAEA was unification of the PAEA with the National Art Education Association (NAEA.) Minutes of the November 2, 1968, Executive Committee state that the NAEA suggested a merger with its organization. Annual dues would be set at $20 to include a publication. (The dues of PAEA at this time were less than $5 per year.)

Immediately members began to object saying that the PAEA would lose members, it would mean canceling the Eastern Arts Conference, it would take control of funds from the state organization, etc. Supporters of the proposition suggested that "unification" would free the PAEA from membership bookkeeping and advocacy and give PAEA members a larger voice politically in Washington D.C. Discussions over the years were at times bitter, but the PAEA later became one of the first "unified" states, and membership remained within the top five states in the NAEA.

PAEA’s members were active in national art education activities. Two NAEA presidents were from Pennsylvania: Edward Mattil (1963); Ruth M. Ebken (1967-1969). Two of the Secretary-Treasurers, Italo de Francesco (1948-1953) and Horace F. Heilman (1953-1957) also were from Pennsylvania.

As the PAEA neared its twentieth anniversary there were attempts to justify the existence of the organization through lists of what members got for their dues. President Harry Bentz in the October 1967 Newsletter pointed out that since its beginning, the organization provided news and valuable teaching materials through conferences and periodical publications such as the Newsletter and "a broader understanding of education in general." The editor of the Spring 1968 issue noted that the PAEA published four issues annually, jointly sponsored regional seminars on related arts, sponsored the Pennsylvania art educators’ art exhibition, and organized annual conferences featuring "recognized speakers, commercial exhibitions, programs and activities--for $3.00 per year."

This first chapter in the history of PAEA introduces over two decades of high levels of energy spent in fulfilling the goals established in 1949: to advocate the cause and purpose of art education, to provide a broader understanding of art education to art teachers, and to publish news about art teachers, students and valuable teaching resources. The following chapters will reveal more activities by the PAEA and its members to help art teachers become better teachers, planning for teacher inservices and exhibitions for both students and art teachers, to hold conferences for sharing insights and research, and continuing activities meant to strengthen art programs and advocate for high standards in art education in Pennsylvania.