Previously, the company made fabulous traditional adaptations under the Drexel Heritage Furniture name. Without proper labeling, it was easy to confuse the consumer.Drexel Heritage was the name of what is now known as just “ Drexel Furniture”. The most common use was to make secondary woods, like gum, poplar and birch, look like more expensive woods such as walnut and mahogany. With anilines, almost any wood could look like almost anything else. This new tool for coloring wood produced some very confusing results. Around the turn of the 20th century, aniline dyes were introduced into the American furniture market. The most famous of these is the ubiquitous “Mahogany Association” that many collectors mistakenly believe to be a company name. Sometimes the only label found in a piece is that of a trade association or guild. Flint and Horner became a well known maker of early Depression-era furniture, but sometime later, it ceased manufacturing and became a broad-based retailer in New York. Horner around the turn of the 20th century. Flint was a mid-19th-century cabinetmaker whose business was acquired by R.J.

One such example is the firm of Flint and Horner. The same is true if the name of the company includes terminology like “department store,” which was used by Federated.Ī little more difficult to identify are companies that were at one time a manufacturer but became a retailer or department store. Hartman bought furniture from a number of factories, but when it was sold, it carried only Hartman’s name. The inclusion of “carpet” is a dead giveaway. An example of that is Hartman Furniture and Carpet Co. One clue that a company is a retailer and not a maker is the inclusion of another product line. That practice was called “stenciling” and is still in use today both in pianos and in furniture.Īnother famous name found in furniture that is often believed to be that of a manufacturer is “John Stuart, Inc.” But John Stuart was a high-end retail showroom in Grand Rapids and New York that sold quality products made by, but unlabeled by, a number of manufacturers in Grand Rapids. A major store would have a promotional line of instruments made with its name on it, omitting the name of the manufacturer. This was also a common practice in the piano industry. Sometimes, manufacturers made a specially designed line of items exclusive to Sears, but the mark on the furniture was always from Sears. Sears didn’t actually make any of the own products in its own factory. These names offer a slightly more solid reference to the company as a maker and not a retailer.Īround the turn of the 20th century, the largest furniture retailer of self-labeled goods was Sears & Roebuck. Some specialty factories did a little better by including their main product in the name, such as Sikes Chair Co. To the uninformed, could this be the name of a retail furniture store rather than a maker? Other company names, however, were less straightforward.Įven some of the best-known makers, like Berkey & Gay, Century and Phoenix, used only the term “furniture co.” in the title. The use of the word “manufacturing” in the company name was unambiguous about what the company did. Another was Green Manufacturing of Chicago, a maker of parlor frames for the custom trade. of Zeeland, Mich., a famous maker of hall clocks. One of these was Colonial Manufacturing Co. Many manufacturers had clues in the names themselves that left no doubt as to their identity. Manufacturers actually produced the furniture from a design to a finished product. Labels found on 20th-century furniture generally fall into three categories: manufacturers, retailers and associations.

Drexel furniture catalog 1966