110 years ago in 1915, transcribed as originally published in the Youngstown Vindicator:

Art exhibit here in May. Mahoning Art Institute plans first annual show of paintings. Organization taking steps to secure many members and become a permanent body.

Announcement was made Tuesday by J. G. Butler Jr. president of the recently organized Mahoning Institute of Art, that the first annual exhibition of paintings, under the auspices of the institute, will be held during two weeks from May 3 to 17 inclusive, and for a longer period if the public interest demands, in the assembly room of the Reuben McMillan Library in this city.

Mr. Butler with J.W. Porter secretary of the institute went to New York City a week ago to arrange for paintings by the best American artists for use at the exhibition. Mr. Butler returned from New York Monday but Mr. Porter is still in that city completing arrangements for the use of the pictures. It is said that approximately 40 paintings, each by a different author, and representing as nearly as possible the best in the different schools of American art, will be included in the local exhibit. One landscape by Innes, which will be shown, is said to be valued at $25,000. Other paintings will be from such masters of the American school as Blakelock, Henri, Ranger, Carleson, Homer, Robinson, Davies, Howe, Ryder, Davis, Hunt, Sartain, Dougherty, Inness, Symons, Foster, LaFarge, Twachtman, Frieseke, Martin, Waugh, Fuller, Metcalf, Weir, Groll, Miller, Wiggins, Hassain, Murphy, Williams, Hawthorne, Olinsky and Wyant.

It is the purpose of the newly organized institute to promote among the residents of the Mahoning Valley an interest in art and to lay the foundation for what it is hoped will eventually mean an organization able to establish and maintain a museum of art in this city. Officers of the institute as now organized are J.G. Butler, president; H.H. Stambaugh, vice president; and J.W. Porter, secretary and treasurer.

Finely arranged invitations bearing a request that the recipient become a member of the institute, accompanied by an application card, are being sent to hundreds of residents of this city and the territory up and down the Valley. The annual dues of the institute are $5 and this fee is to accompany all applications for membership.

Organized as it has been under the direction of a number of the most prominent residents of the city, and having as its object the promotion of, and interest in, a line of endeavor and educational work, which has been almost entirely neglected in this city and vicinity up to this time, the institute should receive the hearty support of the many who are interested in the upbuilding of the community. In such organizations as the local institute, the great art museums of other and large, cities have had their beginning. It is the object of the officers of the institute to make the annual exhibit one which will be of interest to all, whether they be art critics or merely lovers of the beautiful, and if the plans now laid are carried out as intended, there would seem to be little to stand in the road of the ultimate success of the organization.

Compiled from the Youngstown Vindicator by Dante Bernard, Mahoning Valley Historical Society Museum educator.