ABSTRACT
Academy training until the Royal Academy was tricked into admitting them in 1861 when Laura Herford submitted as part of her application a drawing signed with only her initials. Even then, women were not allowed full membership in the Royal Academy until 1922. In the intervening years Royal Academy members debated with much gravity the unthinkable possibility of including female members at the annual banquet. Meanwhile, women trained at other art schools and with private instructors showed their works regularly at Royal Academy exhibitions, while the press and the public continued to castigate that most stolid of institutions for its illogical exclusionary behavior.
