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Nellie Cornish, founder of the school that became the Cornish College of the Arts, taken in the 1920s, courtesy Cornish College of the Arts

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Nellie Cornish

How one woman staked a claim for art in Seattle

When Nellie Cornish arrived in Seattle in 1900, she was a 24-year-old piano teacher looking to make a living in a city that was more hospitable to Gold Rush prospectors than it was to the fine arts