|
Beginning
in about 1815, a special of type of furniture, called “spool furniture,”
came into fashion in many country homes. Called "Jenny Lind" furniture
because it first appeared in the years when the popular and famous Swedish
singer toured the United States, it came into being because a new lathe
had been developed that made it possible to create elaborate turnings that
were cut apart to make buttons or spools for thread. Some furniture makers
believed the turnings would also make unique parts for chairs, tables, and
beds.
 The
earliest spool furniture had angled joints. However, by 1850, furniture
makers found ways to bend these turnings to produce curved spool
headboards and such.
The peak for factory-made spool furniture came between 1850 and 1865 and
in smaller quantity to 1880. The term "spool" is descriptive of the
turning done on the straight members of each piece–spindle, railings, and
the towel bars on a washstand–which resembles a string of wooden spools.
Factories produced beds, tables, chairs, whatnots, and washstands in
greatest quantity, although they probably produced some other
miscellaneous pieces as well.
Furniture makers usually employed maple, birch, or other native hardwoods
in making spool furniture. Often they painted or stained pieces a dark
tone in imitation of the cabinetmaker's rosewood and black walnut pieces.
Newly invented steam-driven machines, as well as the assembly-line method,
helped contribute to spool furniture’s low cost and thus its popularity
among the working and middle classes.
Collectors can recognize a spool or Jenny Lind bed by the turnings of the
headboard and footboard, which are the same height. Sometimes
manufacturers spool-turned the posts, too. These beds were much less
expensive than pieces of furniture from cabinetmakers of the time, which
were made of exotic woods, had more elegant lines and hand-worked details.
Today, antique collectors cherish spool-turned pieces. And since furniture
makers produced less spool furniture, scarcity has increased its value.
Unfortunately, too many antique dealers, in a quest to satisfy the taste
for natural woods, have had spool pieces stripped to reveal the simple
woods underneath. Often furniture makers used several different woods on
the same piece then painted it or paint-stained it to give it an overall
look. |