Classis Furniture Designed Over Decades for Children

By Robert Reed

As seen in The Antique Shoppe Newspaper, December 2007

In comparative terms most classic furniture of the ages was created for adults and not children. But in historic terms children’s furniture was made in most every style and throughout every important period.

Some books were illustrating children’s chairs, stools and other items as early as the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe. Eventually examples followed the stylish designs of Queen Anne, Chippendale, Sheraton and all the rest. By the 1890s catalogs devoted entire pages to selections of children’s chairs and other fashionable furnishings for the little ones.

Some of the earliest examples of children’s furniture might be described today as little more than wooden cages. Historians describe the 16th century children’s chair as box-like with large sides cut to form rather crude arms. They were built more for control that for comfort.

These ‘boxed chairs’ were “the easiest way of looking after a number of babies and toddlers in a nursery or in the crowded living room of a cottage.,” notes Constance King author of a number of books including County Pine Furniture. King too described them as a “low, almost box-like chair from which escape was difficult.”

There was other children’s furniture apparently by the 17th century but not much. There were small side chairs of slat construction, according to King. Such chairs allowed toddlers to be fed in their own miniature seats placed at the kitchen table.

Additionally, by the early 1700s, there was a type of standing cart which allowed the child to stand with frame supports or sit on a wooden panel. Katherine McClinton, author of Antiques of American Childhood, describes one as a “frame sitting on a square base with a wheel at each corner, two spindle supports go up from three sides and connect with a small square support above.” Basically a bar across the front of the cart kept the child in place.

Historic accounts point out that Dutch settlements in New York constructed children’s fancy chairs early in the 18th century. Some had reeded banister backs while others had serpentine slat backs. In some cases miniature wing back chairs were crafted for children of that era.

Gradually there were more written references to children’s chairs made in America during the 18th century. Documents at the Winterthur Museum show Philadelphia chair maker Solomon Fussell was producing some furniture expressly for children as early as the 1740s. Fussell’s records in once case list a billing for “one 4 Slat Child’s Chair.” Massachusetts chair maker noted the sale of a “Child’s little Chare” from his shop in 1758.

Newspaper advertisements in the 1760s proclaimed “Children’s dining and low chairs” or “Windsor chairs made in the best and neatest manner, (including) sack back’d children’s chairs (a small bow back chair), and “Child’s arm Chair, straw Bottom.”

Housed in beautiful Colonial Williamsburg today is a child’s arm chair crafted in relatively elaborate form during the 1780s. The maple chair was produced in central Virginia and was owned by a Colonial family that lived at Burlington plantation in King William County, Virginia. Some child’s armchairs of this period had turned knobs and knob handholds, and many had arched slats. Typically they were painted in solid colors of black, red, or green.

By the early 19th century American makers were distinguishing themselves in an other area of children’s furniture, the small bed. Some four poster offerings were fairly ornamented with poster carving and painted headboards. Apparently small-sized beds and trundle beds were much more common in the United States than in Europe where parents were more likely there to make the transition from cradle to a regular-sized single bed.

Children’s settees were also being made during the early 1800s. Often they the painted and decorated with various designs. Like children’s armchairs, many were in the popular Windsor style.

On occasion there were even chests of drawers for children. One such chest was described by Charles Montgomery in the book American Furniture: The Federal Period. Crafted around 1810 the reverse serpentine-front bureau, “it had all the finesse and fine workmanship of a full-scale piece, the shaped front was veneered with matched branch mahogany.”

Montgomery also makes note of a child’s cylinder-fall desk from the same period. It had teardrop inlays and a scalloping skirt. Both the chest and desk examples however exquisite were infrequently crafted and therefore are considered rare today.

Much more dominate in the marketplace of the early 1800s were the various forms of the child’s chair. One New York maker advertised in 1819, “elegant, well-made children’s chairs of every description constantly for sale...” Sometime later a Philadelphia merchant advertised children’s rockers with fully upholstered backs and seats.

At the other extreme were children’s carts, which were quite favored during the first half of the 19th century. Some carts were little more than wooden box with perhaps a small shelf for toys. Others had casters or wheels to allow them to be moved while the child stood inside. Later carts came with springs, which allowed the child to move up and down in a jumping motion. Eventually such spring-loaded carts were sold commercially as baby jumps, baby tenders, and baby carts.

Children’s chests were being regularly advertised by the 1870s along with an assortment of children’s chairs. One Connecticut firm, according to McClinton, offered chairs for children with cut-out side supports in the shape of various animals. The painted images were very comparable to the enclosed seats sometimes found on a carrousel of the 20th century.

Various children’s chairs were offered to the public during the latter quarter of the 19th century. The “cane seat” was a standard for children’s for many of the regular chairs and rockers, even those made of  better walnut and maple woods.

By 1898 a catalog for the prestigious Heywood Brothers and Wakefield Company included several pages of children’s reed and rattan furniture. Child-size rockers, chairs, tables, and even table chairs were available from the firm’s numerous factories and warehouses around the United States.

Some early 20th century children’s furniture still tended to be fanciful and highly decorated with both animal and fantasy images. By the 1930s children’s furniture was more diverse and included beds, chests, chairs, bookcases and sometimes even desks. Contrasting colors were generally less fanciful than previously offered and styles leaned toward plainer and sleeker lines.

Almost any older chairs made for children are collectible today according the experts. As author King points out, “the small sizes hold immediate appeal for people. They fit well into almost any room and are small enough to be placed on a half landing or in a narrow alcove that would not hold any adult-sized pieces.”

Moreover some of the sturdier made children’s furniture can still be used as it was originally intended, for little ones in the nursery or elsewhere in the home.

Join Our Mailing List

Email:

For Email Marketing you can trust