Art Students' League of Philadelphia

[3] This was contrary to PAFA policy, and Eakins was reprimanded in a January 11 letter by Director of Education Edward Hornor Coates.

Although another brother-in-law, Will Crowell, raised the possibility that Stephens himself had engaged in homosexual activity, and suggested that the threat of exposure could be used to silence him, "if he is not stark mad.

[8] In January 1886, the Estate of Joseph E. Temple proposed to contribute $25,000 toward establishing an endowment for the museum/school, with the condition that PAFA raise an additional $75,000 within three years.

My figures at least are not a bunch of clothes with a head and hands sticking out but more nearly resemble the strong living bodies than most pictures show.

Five PAFA instructors — Frank Stephens, Charles Stephens (Frank's first cousin), Colin Campbell Cooper, James P. Kelly, and Thomas Anshutz — wrote a joint letter to PAFA's Board appealing to it to make "an official statement" that "Mr. Eakins' dismissal was due to the abuse of his authority and not to the malice of his personal or professional enemies.

"[14] A committee investigated, concluding that: "Eakins has used his position as an artist and his authority as a teacher to commit certain trespasses on common decency and good morals.

Fifty-five male PAFA students signed a February 15 petition threatening to withdraw from the school if Eakins was not reinstated.

[17] That evening, thirty-eight male students, led by George Reynolds, marched to Eakins's studio to show their support.

But, "[o]nce the renegades fully understood they would be forgoing an education in the most respected and best outfitted art school in the country for a one-room studio without electricity and plumbing, only sixteen of the fifty-five who had signed the petition made good on their pledge to withdraw from the academy.

ASL's first president, H. T. Cresson, was quoted that day in a Philadelphia newspaper: "[T]he young men who have formed the Art Students' League ... desire to study THE ENTIRE NUDE FIGURE, not because it affords them pleasure to look at it, but because it is the only true way to obtain the necessary experience to represent a draped figure ..."[22] Subsequent students, some of whom may have been there that first night, included Cresson, Maurice Feely, Charles H. Fromuth, Douglass M. Hall, Lilian G. Hammitt, Frank B.

Charles Grafly, made the move to ASL, but returned to PAFA the following year, perhaps to be eligible for its traveling scholarships to Europe, one of which he won in 1888.

Eakins set forth the school's purpose: "The Art Students' League of Philadelphia is an association formed for the study of painting and sculpture.

Eakins gave criticisms two mornings, one afternoon and one evening a week, delivered lectures on anatomy, perspective, and other subjects, and superintended the dissecting.

For all this he refused to accept any salary during the years of the school's existence; indeed, he assisted some of the poorer students financially, often under the guise of paying them for posing for him.

With time, tradition proved more strong than the rebellion against it.”[28] Eventually, the school could not attract enough paying students to cover expenses, and it was dissolved in early 1893.

Dismissed by Philadelphia's Drexel Institute in March 1895 for again using a fully nude male model,[29] Eakins gradually gave up teaching.