Can you talk about the Violet Oakley works – and maybe about women in the Drexel Art Collection?

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We have a large collection of study drawings by Violet Oakley. A large portion of the pieces came from Edith Emerson, who was Violet’s partner. They came in the 1980s. Other Oakley art was donated to us afterwards.

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We also have three portraits by Cecilia Beaux. She was a leading female portrait artist here in Philadelphia and one of the first full-time female faculty members at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

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Drexel itself, as an institute, was co-ed from the beginning, with a large proportion of the students being women. I think about a third of the illustration classes taught by Howard Pyle were female - an unheard-of proportion back in the 1890s.

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Howard Pyle, who was the father of American illustration, taught illustration at the Drexel Institute of Art, Science, and Industry (now Drexel University) and was very supportive of his female students. He helped women get the big commissions and encouraged them in their fields.

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Definitely, some pretty successful female artists came out of Drexel, including Violet Oakley, Elizabeth Shippen Green, Jessie Willcox Smith, Alice Barber Stephens, Anna and Ethel Betts, and Sarah Stilwell Weber.​​