Art Students' League of Philadelphia

Art Students' League of Philadelphia was a short-lived, co-operative art school formed in reaction to Thomas Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Eakins taught without pay at ASL from 1886 until the school's dissolution in early 1893.

In early January 1886, Eakins, director of the art school at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, had a male model remove his loincloth during an anatomy lecture in front of either an all-female or a mixed male-and-female class of students. This was contrary to PAFA policy, and Eakins was reprimanded in a January 11 letter by Director of Education Edward Hornor Coates. But the incident ignited controversy, including charges that Eakins had cavorted nude with his students, had manipulated them into posing nude for him or for each other, had photographed them nude, and that he did not possess the moral character to be a teacher at PAFA.

Eakins's brother-in-law and teaching assistant, Frank Stephens, became the most vituperative critic over the next month. Stephens accused Eakins of indecent behavior with his students and even incest with his deceased sister, Margaret. Stephens and his wife (Eakins's sister Caddy) were living with her father at 1729 Mount Vernon Street. Eakins had married Susan Macdowell in January 1884, and they were living in his studio at 1330 Chestnut Street. Interestingly, the surviving documentation contains no accusation of homosexual activity by Eakins. 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."

Coates wrote to Eakins on February 8, asking him to resign; Eakins submitted a one-sentence resignation the following day. Eakins continued to protest his innocence, and met with Coates on February 13. Coates presented the charges to PAFA's Board of Directors at a meeting that night, and the Board voted to accept Eakins's resignation. Eakins wrote to Coates on February 15:

Was ever so much smoke for so little fire? I never in my life seduced a girl, nor tried to, but what else can people think of all this rage and insanity. It is not a rare ambition in a painter to want to make good pupils. My dear master Gerome who loved me had the same ambition, helped me always and has to this day interested himself in all I am doing.

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