William Morris Hunt begins art classes for women.

The lessons take place in the Studio Building at 5 Park Square. Hunt offers the classes because, according to sculptor Thomas Ball, he believed, “there was a vast deal of talent among [the ladies] that only required to be directed [and] he considered it his duty, and that of every artist, to do all he could to lighten the path of those groping in the dark.” After Hunt’s death in 1879, his former student, Helen Mary Knowlton, teaches her own classes for years thereafter.