A lion in a matchbox: Artistic identity and cracking the professional code in American higher education

Abstract This article is an analysis of the culture of academic professionalism of art programmes in American universities. In the Gilded Age, American universities underwent significant reforms that transformed them in to centres for professional education in Medicine, Law, social work, and other professions, including the visual arts. College art was transformed during these years. Guided by theory set forth by Burton Bledstein, the article decodes this new culture with concepts of time spent in practice and training, the specialized spaces (for art this meant studios and classrooms), and words (the discourse, terminology and language that distinguishes professionals from their clientele). These concepts help embody a collective professional identity of people with boundaries to regulate the social experience art faculty and students in a new, and at times troubled modern culture of professionalism.