E. Eva Hubbard was a graduate of Morgantown Female Seminary (1876). Early widowhood led her to pursue a career in art to support her child and mother. Hubbard taught in private studios and at home in Wheeling, Mountain Lake Park, Maryland and Morgantown, and was occasionally affiliated with the Morgantown public schools before accepting the position as instructor and becoming first head of WVU's new Department of Art in 1897. Her students found positions in the fine arts throughout the state's normal school system and one of them, Blanche Lazzell, became nationally know as a modernist. Lazzell kept in close touch with her mentor throughout her life. Before the 1950's both art and music suffered from being considered service units. During her career Hubbard disputed the subordination of the fine arts in the curriculum. When she unsuccessfully lobbied the Board of Regents in 1912 not to abolish the department, she noted that she had been underwriting the department with fees collected from occasional students, taught courses to engineers and showed considerable success producing fine artists. "The Department has supplied a need and I feel very deeply the wrong of tearing down the work of fifteen years of upbuilding." She reminded the Regents that the General Federation of Women's Clubs would be meeting in Morgantown in October and their help could be recruited in lobbying for continuance of the Department.
