As Massachusetts rapidly industrialized during the nineteenth century, there was a need for an increasingly well-trained work force including men and women skilled in "industrial drawing"—technical drawing to show the construction and operation of machinery and manufactured products. In 1870, the Massachusetts state legislature passed the Massachusetts Free Instruction in Drawing Act, making the study of drawing obligatory in public schools and instruction in industrial drawing free to persons over fifteen years of age in towns and cities with a population of more than 10,000.

While the legislation met with broad public support, there were almost no art teachers available to instruct students, so the legislature also established a 国立师范艺术学校—a training school for art teachers. The shortage of drawing instructors extended to the faculty of the new Normal Art School and was so great that teachers skilled in industrial art education were recruited in England to train American art teachers. The top students in the first class to graduate from the Normal Art School were offered direct appointments to the faculty of the school.

随着时间的推移, the Normal Art School evolved from its vocational origins and not only prepared instructors "to teach and superintend industrial drawing in the schools" and "to provide for high skill in technical drawing," but to encourage creativity in a broader range of art culture.

这是师范艺术学院的永久所在地

After renting and leasing temporary space at different addresses in the center of Boston, 1886年，立法机关拨款85美元,一所普通艺术学校的大楼. Within a year (and under budget), the architectural firm of 亨利·W. 哈特韦尔和威廉. 理查森 designed and constructed a brick and brownstone home for the school at the corner of Newbury and Exeter Streets in the elegant new Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. 1887年2月, the school moved into its new headquarters that had been created to concentrate classrooms and galleries on each floor where they would receive the most natural light.

亨利·W. 哈特韦尔和威廉. 理查森 were known for their conservative, well-built shingle-style suburban homes and brick and brownstone town halls and school buildings. They were influenced by and worked in the shadow of H. H. 理查森(与威廉. 理查森). Their most prominent earlier project stood diagonally across the street from the Normal Art School-the very grand First Spiritual Temple of Boston, 现在的埃克塞特街剧院大楼. [See a web presentation of a photograph of this building from Digital Commonwealth: First Spiritualist Temple, corner Newbury and Exeter Streets.]

As the Normal Art School evolved to become the Massachusetts School of Art and then the Massachusetts College of Art-now MassArt-it moved, 分阶段地, from its home in the Back Bay to its present campus on Huntington Avenue, 波士顿的“艺术大道”." It remains the first and only public independent college of art and design in the United States.