Oscar A. Turner papers, 1945-1957

A manuscript by Oscar A. Turner entitled "A Prelude to an Unknown Designer in Industry: A Missing Chapter of Industrial Design of Industrial Art, the New Fine Art Profession of Industry Unveiled" and correspondence related to it.

The manuscript is an oversize (13x18") handwritten 33-page document, in which Turner campaigns for the use of the word "fabritecture" to replace the term "industrial design." The first 31 pages are dated 1956, and three additional pages, titled "What Research in the Industrial Fine Arts means," were added in 1957.

Paragraph 75 notes, "I therefore give this thesis to the Art Institute of Chicago and to the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Chicago...". Laszlo Moholy-Nagy is mentioned in the paragraphs preceding and following this one. Accompanying correspondence concern Turner's effort to interest others in his cause, including letters to Joseph Palma, Jr. of Palma Knapp Design, Jared S. Moore of Western Reserve University, John E. Alcott of Rhode Island School of Design, and Illinois Institute of Technology president John Rettaliata who referred the matter to Jay Doblin of the Institute of Design.