Parsons School of Design was founded in 1896 by the artist William Merritt Chase. Between the years 1896 and 1898, it was known as the Chase School. In 1898, it became the New York School of Art, which name was lengthened in 1909 to the New York School of Fine and Applied Art. In 1941, the institution was renamed the Parsons School of Design in honor of its former president Frank Alvah Parsons, who was important in steering the school's development and in shaping visual-arts education through his theories involving art and industry. Parsons School of Design became a division of the New School for Social Research in 1970.

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