Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Impressionist art movement began in 1874 when the first independent exhibition was held in April at the studio of the photographer Nadar. This event marked the start of the movement after Louis Leroy published a satirical review in the newspaper Le Charivari that coined the term Impressionist.
Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas founded the Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc. in December 1873 to exhibit their artworks independently. These artists were expected to forswear participation in the official Salon and exhibited together eight times between 1874 and 1886.
The term Impressionist was coined after Louis Leroy reviewed Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise in the satirical newspaper Le Charivari in 1874. Leroy declared that the work was nothing more than an unfinished sketch and used the title to mock the artist's new chaotic style.
New technology played a crucial role when mid-century introduction of premixed paints in tin tubes allowed artists to work more spontaneously outdoors. The availability of vivid synthetic pigments such as cobalt blue and viridian in the 1840s and 1860s enabled the Impressionists to create brighter styles of painting.
The four most well known Women Impressionists were Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, and Berthe Morisot. Morisot participated in seven of the eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions that took place from 1874 to 1886, while Cassatt participated in four and Bracquemond in three.
Photography influenced Impressionism by encouraging artists to pursue subjective alternatives to the photograph rather than competing to reproduce reality. The development of portable cameras inspired Impressionists to represent momentary action and fleeting lights of a landscape instead of creating exact representations.