Culture and Community. After the War of 1812 several organizations dedicated to the cultivation of an American artistic culture were founded. While their primary goal was the development of the arts in America, many of these organizations also helped to shape a nascent American arts community. By helping to connect artists with other like-minded men and women, these institutions helped to foster an increasingly nationalminded sense of culture and drew attention to the uplifting effects aesthetic culture could have on American audiences.

Fine Arts Academies. The American Academy of Fine Arts in New York was founded in 1802 by Edward Livingston and others, originally for the purpose of housing casts of such works as the Apollo Belvedere, Dying Gladiator, and Laocoon Group, sent home from the Louvre by Livingston's brother Robert in the hope that "a constant view of the finest Models" would bring about a...