NHIA was founded in 1898 as the Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences with the goal of promoting a "cultivation of the arts and sciences, to give a more general impulse and systematic direction to scientific research and encourage and stimulate the study of history, literature, and industrial institutions." In 1924, the New Hampshire State Board of Education certified the institute's four-year program to prepare high school graduates to teach art. Shortly thereafter, a four-year program in fine arts was approved.