File:Chair (United States, 1878).jpg

Identifier: industrialhistor00boll (find matches)
Title: Industrial history of the United States, from the earliest settlements to the present time: being a complete survey of American industries, embracing agriculture and horticulture; including the cultivation of cotton, tobacco, wheat; the raising of horses, neat-cattle, etc.; all the important manufactures, shipping and fisheries, railroads, mines and mining, and oil; also a history of the coal-miners and the Molly Maguires; banks, insurance, and commerce; trade-unions, strikes, and eight-hour movement; together with a description of Canadian industries
Year: 1878 (1870s)
Authors: Bolles, Albert Sidney, 1846-1939
Subjects: Industries Industries
Publisher: Norwich, Conn. : The Henry Bill pub. Company
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
gl ymade, and withoutany pretence ofstyle. The carpen-ter, when out of ajob of house-build-ing, filled up thedull days with fur-niture-making, notas a regular trade,but as a means ofsaving his time.The chairs werestraight-backed af-fairs, o f t e n withbent hickory arms.They were general-ly uncushioned, butthey supported theform admirably;and so well didthey perform theirpurpose, that nine-tenths of the heav-ily upholstered anddraped chairs of the chair.present era of fash-ionable art are far less comfortable and healthful to the occupant than thequaint hickory chairs which come down to us in ancient homes from a hundredyears ago. The tables were simple, but heavy. They generally had hingedleaves in order to economize the space of the apartment when not in use.Sometimes they were made so that the whole top revolved on a hinge, aridcould be turned up perpendicularly, and the table pushed up close against thewall. Oftentimes the tables were hinged to the wall of the room, so as to turn
Text Appearing After Image:
5*4 INDUSTRIAL HISTORY up flat against it when not in use, the leg of the table hanging down against itwhen thus raised, but swinging down into its proper position when the tablewas lowered. The bedsteads were often as strongly built as a house. Therewas no grudging of material in them. The four posts were huge and high,and the sides and the head-boards almost as thick as the side of a ship.A framework was built over them for the curtains of the bed. Less fur-niture was used in that age than at present, and the wants of the colonistswere amply supplied by this desultory manufacture in the carpenter-shops.Besides, for more than a hundred years, a great deal of furniture was im-ported from Europe. Mahogany furniture, which was then very much infashion, was almost exclusively imported. After the Revolutionarywar, ornamental woods wereMahogany freely importedfurniture. f r o m the WestIndies and South America.Carpenters then began tomake mahogany furniture, aswell as that of the more com-

Note About Images