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".