Wicker, Rattan and Reed

Wicker furniture can be traced back through many centuries to the ancient Egyptians. Most collectors are interested only in pieces made in the 1800s or later. Some cargoes sent to the United States from China in the nineteenth century were held in place with bundles of rattan. Grocer Cyrus Wakefield experimented and found it suitable […]

Wicker Heywood-Wakefield

The most famous maker of wicker furniture in America was the Heywood-Wakefield Company. Cyrus Wakefield was the clever Boston grocer who realized that discarded rattan was suitable for furniture. Just before his death in 1873, he incorporated the Wakefield Rattan Company. Levi Heywood founded Heywood Brothers in 1861. His firm was the largest chair manufacturer […]

Waterfall Furniture

The Depression of the 1930s forced furniture manufacturers to create inexpensive furniture for the middle class. A new method was invented to kiln-dry red gum tree wood, which had always cracked when dried. Waterfall furniture was made with red gum tree lumber core plywood, which was strong and cheap. The drawer fronts on chests were […]

Wooton Desk

Indianapolis, Indiana, was a center of furniture manufacturing when William S. Wooton came to town in 1870. Wooton set up his own company in Indianapolis, which made school, office, and church furniture. In 1874 he patented “Wooton’s Patent Cabinet Office Secretary,” the first of the famous desks. The Wooton desk was made in sections with […]

Platform Rocker

The platform rocker was patented and produced by the late 1860s. It was a chair on springs attached to a platform. The chair moved, but the base remained stationary. It was popular because the design kept the rocker from wearing out the carpet.

Gateleg Table

The gateleg table was first made during the seventeenth century. Usually the more legs on the gateleg table, the better the table. Small tea tables, stools, and chairs were also introduced at this time.

Computer Furniture

Just as the invention of the telephone and television led to new types of furniture like the telephone stand and the TV tray, the personal computer, used at home since the 1980s, has inspired new types of furniture to accommodate the equipment and the person using it. Work stations for the office and computer desks […]

Cedar Chests – Lane Company

Lane furniture traces its beginnings back to an abandoned packing-box plant that was purchased for $500 in 1912 and turned into a factory to make cedar chests. Edward Lane, with little manufacturing experience, started the Standard Red Cedar Chest Company in the Altavista, Virginia, plant that his father had purchased. The company, now called Lane […]

Rolltop Desk

The standard rolltop desk had a flat top with a tambour front that rolled up into the desk. The earliest examples were black walnut. Later ones were made of cherry, mahogany, and eventually oak. Many manufacturers used a combination of woods. The desks were factory-made from about 1875 to the early 1920s. They were used […]

Windsor Chair – A Style with a Country Heritage

The earliest known Windsor chairs were made in England in the late seventeenth century. The first American Windsors were made in Philadelphia about 1730. American furniture makers developed a style of their own, making chairs without cabriole legs or splats, and with higher backs and thicker seats. Legs on American Windsor chairs are more splayed […]