Behold the unassuming postcard, found on e-Bay (!), which led one of the intrepid contributors to our newer, truer history of the New School to piece together a missing chapter in the story of the namesake of the Parsons School of Design. It turns out we know remarkably little about the life of Frank Alvah Parsons (quite different from the New School's voluble Alvin Johnson), and much of what we think we do know was a carefully constructed narrative "colored by his dreams and perhaps
shaped by what a premier art school needed in its leader." The school 
took the name of a visionary leader, who apparently had designed the life story - including extensive European travel - which such a school needed in its leader, even if it wasn't strictly true! "Some of this biographical obscurity was intentional," Molly Rottman notes as if in passing, "but the onus is
also on The New School and Parsons today to better reckon with the lives
of our founders if we are to understand our school’s history." What else is there to reckon with, in the life of Frank Alvah Parsons and in its intentional obscurities? Stay tuned!
took the name of a visionary leader, who apparently had designed the life story - including extensive European travel - which such a school needed in its leader, even if it wasn't strictly true! "Some of this biographical obscurity was intentional," Molly Rottman notes as if in passing, "but the onus is
also on The New School and Parsons today to better reckon with the lives
of our founders if we are to understand our school’s history." What else is there to reckon with, in the life of Frank Alvah Parsons and in its intentional obscurities? Stay tuned!