From the Archives 1885
China decoration was among the earliest vocational programs offered by Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, forerunner to RIT. The program attracted women interested in pursuing careers as art teachers as well as women interested in acquiring a marketable skill. Students - who paid $15 for the class per term - received instruction on tinting, gilding sketching, historic ornament, flower painting, designing, Royal Worcester in all its branches, raised paste work and jeweling, according to the course catalog. For more about the history of women at RIT, visit http://library.rit.edu/depts./archives/women. (Photo courtesy RIT Archives.)