Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts

Philadelphia
PA
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Interior

Interior view of the Historic Landmark Building

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Founded by Charles Willson Peale, William Rush, and others in 1805, this is the oldest art museum/school in the U.S. Includes works by Charles Willson Peale, William Rush, Benjamin West, Rembrandt Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and Thomas Sully.

The Historic Landmark Building houses mostly 18th and 19th century American art. Next door, the Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building offers modern, contemporary, and student art.

Associated People
Peale, Charles Willson
Peale, Rembrandt
Stuart, Gilbert
Sully, Thomas
West, Benjamin

One of the most stubborn myths of American history is the idea that the frontier promoted equality of material condition. This national folk legend is, unhappily, ver much mistaken. With some exceptions, landed wealth was always highly concentrated throughout the southern highlands, as it would be in the lower Mississippi Valley, Texas and the far southwest. Inequality was greater in the backcountry and the southern highlands than in any other rural region of the United States.

— David Hackett Fischer
Albion′s Seed: Four British Folkways in America (1989)