ANTIQUE
COUNTRY ROCKING CHAIRS
Thee country rocking chair is among the most
familiar forms of seating furniture in this country, but it is
unclear how or when it first evolved. One fact is certain,
however: rocking chairs are a purely American innovation.
The ledgers of early
furniture makers suggest that Americans may have started using
rockers as early as the 1740s. The first known examples,
dating from about the 1750s, are ladder-back chairs to which
rocker blades were added. Converting chairs into rockers (a
practice that continued into the 19th century) required
trimming a few inches off the rear legs so that the chair
would tilt back slightly; a notch was usually cut into the
outside edge of each leg to keep the rocker blade in
place.
By the late 1700s, it
had become common for tall-back Windsor armchairs to be
designed expressly as rockers.
One of the most
popular "fancy" styles was the Boston rocker,
which - despite its name was produced by Hitchcock and other
non-Boston manufacturers beginning in 1825, and may in fact
have originated in Connecticut. The rolled seat and curled
arms that are the hallmarks of the Boston rocker were designed
for comfort, while its broad crest and seat front offered
ample space for the scenic paintings and stenciled cornucopias
and baskets of fruit that were the favored decorations.
A plainer style of
rocker shared popularity with the Boston rocker in the 19th
century. By 1830, the Shaker community in New Lebanon, New
York, had perfected a simple, slat-back rocking chair that was
a model of comfort and balanced design. : From the mid-1800s
until the I 1930s, the Shakers produced these chairs for sale
to "the world," making them in seven sizes. Shaker
rockers won awards at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial for
"strength, sprightliness, and modest beauty,
"qualities for \vhich they are still admired today".
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