In 1893, the American Girls Art Club in Paris opened its doors at 4 Rue de Chevreuse near Luxenbourg Gardens. It was intended to provide “proper” room and board to female art students arriving in growing numbers from the United States. It was a rambling, four-story yellow building with a courtyard and gardens.

The sponsors hoped to discourage the bohemian behavior for which American girls were becoming known, including such threatening breaches as “loud voices and use of slang,” a “swaggering walk” and “careless gayety.” Some of them even drank, laughed, smoked and entered freely into the studios of male artists.

Imagine that.

This blog is In honor of those bohemian girls and their careless swagger. I’ll soon be walking the streets of Paris in their footsteps. With a little slang and gayety of my own, I hope.