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PAUL RITTER MACALISTER was the son of Dr. Alexander Macalister and his wife, the former Sarah Holland Ritter. he was the youngest of five children, coming after Charles P., Elizabeth., Alexander G., and Robert S. Macalister. With home and offices on Federal Street, Dr. Macalister was a leading doctor in Camden for many years and was the personal physician to poet Walt Whitman. Paul Macalister was born October 15, 1901. After attending art schools, the Yale University School of Fine Arts, and the Ecole-des Beaux Arts, and after years of practical work, he was widely known as a leading interior designer, with a studio in Manhattan. Paul Macalister served in the U.S. Navy during WW II in its Department of Training Devices, along with designer Henry Glass, under the head of its design program, Cleveland designer Viktor Schreckengost. MacAlister came to Chicago in 1946 to reorganize design at Montgomery Ward, and to conduct a color survey for them. He was one of the first designers to venture into television. He later served as a consultant and appeared frequently on the NBC Home Show. He developed and mass-produced a "Plan-a-Room" kit with scale furniture and room layouts that could be used to plan and organize home spaces for consumers. MacAlister was president of the Industrial Designers Institute (IDI) in 1953. He founded, and for many years chaired, IDI's pioneer national design awards program, which began in 1951 and continued until 1965. He was awarded IDI Fellowship, which was honored by IDSA when it was formed in 1965 by IDI and other organizations. He lived in Lake Bluff, IL. In 1974 he designed a cardboard kit to recreate an astrolabe, an astronomical instrument with a history going back to ancient times. The kit was published as part of a book by Roderick S. Webster titled “The Astrolabe. Some notes on its history, construction and use”. Paul Macalister passed away on November 2, 1990. |
Camden Courier-Post * February 9, 1938 |
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