Cornish School of Allied Arts (Seattle, Wash.)

Founded in 1914 by Nellie C. Cornish as the Cornish School of Music, the Cornish School of Allied Arts quickly became established as the first school in the western United States to offer comprehensive training in all of the arts.

Nellie Cornish sought to educate artists through exposure to all art forms and within the first few years of the school's existence she had expanded the curriculum to offer courses in dance, visual arts, theater and design. She recruited a wide variety of artists for her faculty, many of whom achieved great distinction, including composer John Cage, dancer and choreographer Martha Graham and painter Mark Tobey. After World War I, a group of prominent citizens formed a Board of Trustees to raise funds for a new facility. Originally located in the Booth Building at Broadway and Pine Street in Seattle, the Cornish School moved to a new building on East Roy Street, in which Nellie Cornish maintained an apartment. Although its programs flourished, the Cornish School faced repeated financial crises. In 1924, the non-profit Cornish School Foundation was formed by a group of benefactors to manage finances; it named Nellie Cornish the lifetime director of educational programs, working in coordination with the Foundation's Board of Trustees and the Women's Advisory Committee. Following the resignation of Nellie Cornish in 1939, a Faculty governing Board directed the school until 1946. The Music and Art Foundation (a women's civic organization formed in 1923 to encourage young people to develop their creative and artistic talents) assumed ownership and administrative responsibility of the Cornish School in 1954. In 1977, the Cornish School of Allied Arts became Cornish Institute of Allied Arts, a fully accredited college offering Bachelor of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees. In 1986, the college was renamed the Cornish College of the Arts. Cornish College opened a new campus in downtown Seattle in 2003.

...