The University of the Arts, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is comprised of the College of Art and Design, the College of Performing Arts, and the College of Media and Communication.
The University of the Arts was founded in 1985 as the Philadelphia Colleges of the Arts, via the merger of the Philadelphia College of Art with the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts. It adopted its current name in 1987. Both founding institutions could trace their history back over a hundred years.
The Philadelphia College of Performing Arts began in 1870 as the Philadelphia Musical Academy. Seven years later, the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music was founded, and in 1944, Nadia Chilkovsky Nahumck founded the Children's Dance Theater, later known as the Philadelphia Dance Academy. In 1962, the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music merged with the Philadelphia Music Academy, keeping the latter's name. The Philadelphia Music Academy changed its name to the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts in 1976, and one year later, absorbed the Philadelphia Dance Academy.
The Philadelphia College of Art started as part of the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art, created in 1876 in conjunction with that year's Centennial Exposition. Both the school and the museum, founded as one institution, though operating from separate locations, opened to the public in 1877. In 1938, the museum took its current name, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the school became the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art. Eleven years later, with the departure of its Textile School (now known as Philadelphia University), the school changed its name to the Philadelphia Museum School of Art. 1959 saw the school gain accreditation and become the Philadelphia Museum College of Art, and upon its separation from the museum in 1964, it took the name Philadelphia College of Art.
