New Bedford’s Swain School of Design Merged With Dartmouth’s SMU

The Swain School of Design was an independent, tuition-free, non-profit school of higher learning located in New Bedford.

In 1988, the Swain School of Design merged with Southeastern Massachusetts University's College of Visual and Performing Arts and is now part of the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

The Claire T. Carney Library at UMass Dartmouth says, "The Swain Free School of New Bedford, Massachusetts, was established in 1881 through the provisions of the will of New Bedford philanthropist William W. Swain."

"The following year, it began offering courses in languages, literature, history, education, art, and chemistry free of charge to area residents who could not otherwise afford an education beyond public school," says the Library.

Students were required to pay a deposit of 10 dollars per semester "as a measure of good faith."

The Library says, "As the textile industry became increasingly important to the area, the school concentrated on instruction in textile design."

Eventually, the school's focus shifted, becoming a School of Design.

The Swain School of Design's footprint, originally located at the William W. Swain homestead at 391 County Street, expanded rapidly over the years to include a dozen buildings. They included the New Bedford Textile Building at 1213 Purchase Street, the William Rotch Rodman Mansion, and the William W. Crapo Gallery on Hawthorn Street.

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In the 1950s and '60s, the school added painting, printmaking sculpture, graphic design and the Bachelor of Fine Arts curriculum.

The College of Visual and Performing Arts transferred the Swain School of Design archives to the University of Dartmouth Library Archives and Special Collections in 2000, when preparations were being made to move the Purchase Street campus to the Star Store in downtown New Bedford.