Rare Indiana Hickory Steamer Chair
This hickory chair evokes the leisure lounging of passengers on the deck of a steamship, yet it is much sturdier than traditional steamer chairs which typically had light open cane weave or flat slats on the seat and back, and thin, collapsible mahogany frames. In contrast, this chair has a sturdy hickory pole frame with solid double stretchers along its length, and a tight herringbone weave rattan cane seat and back. It does, however, have the basic shape of a steamer chair with a long leg rest and a slightly inclined back rest, as seen in this vintage photo of passengers relaxing aboard a steamship.
Passengers in steamer chairs (ebay - photo postcard)
Despite Indiana’s proximity to the Great Lakes where passenger steamers were a popular means of transportation from the 1890s through the 1940s, these heavy hickory chairs would not have been manufactured with steamships in mind. This circa 1930 ad for an Old Hickory steamer chair indicates that a more likely target audience for these chairs was institutions such as sanitariums, hospitals, hotels and resorts.
The heyday of early hickory furniture manufacturing from the early 1900s through the 1940s coincides with the establishment of sanitariums for nurturing tuberculosis sufferers, from about 1890 through 1943 (when streptomycin was discovered and used to treat TB). In fact, during this era Martinsville, Indiana itself had built a number of health sanitariums and resort hotels where guests would visit for mineral bath treatments (see “A History of the Old Hickory Chair Company and the Indiana Hickory Furniture Movement” by Ralph Kylloe, 2002).
While the design of hickory steamer chairs was similar to the special chairs used outdoors on sanitarium porches and patios to keep TB patients sitting in a restful but partial recline while filling their lungs with clean, restorative air, “steamer chair” undoubtedly had more appealing associations for marketing than “sanitarium chair."
Adirondack Museum photo of the porch of a Saranac Lake "cure cottage" (http://www.adirondackhistory.org/newtb/four.html)
Interestingly, in their ad for steamer chairs Old Hickory makes a pitch for them to be purchased in quantity by sanitariums and resorts by giving a 25% discount off the price of $20 each if more than 25 chairs were ordered. The fact that vintage hickory steamer chairs seldom appear in the antiques marketplace today (this is only the second hickory steamer chair we’ve owned in over twenty years of dealing in hickory furniture), casts doubt on Old Hickory’s success at selling them in mass quantities to institutions 80+ years ago.
Determining the Maker of this Steamer Chair
We attribute this hickory steamer chair not to Old Hickory Furniture Company of Martinsville, but to Indiana Hickory Furniture Company of Colfax, Indiana. Indiana Hickory of Colfax was one of several companies established in the wake of Old Hickory and Rustic Hickory companies’ successes. The aggressive business man who owned Indiana Hickory lured an executive away from Old Hickory to become his company’s vice president and sales manager, and also hired away Old Hickory’s chief designer (Kylloe, 2002). Thus, there was much overlap in the furniture designs made by Indiana Hickory and Old Hickory, but the pieces were not identical.
For instance, our chair does not have the same bottom stretcher treatment as an Old Hickory steamer chair, as shown in this photo from their 1929 catalog (below):
Rustic Hickory Furniture Company of LaPorte, Indiana also made a steamer chair (first appearing in their 1916 catalog for $12 and subsequently in their 1924 thru 1936 catalogs for $20). Their steamer chair does have a bottom stretcher design like our chair, as seen in their 1926 catalog (below).
The tagline "Take a cozy voyage on the good ship 'Nature'" with a lake and boathouse photo background indicate that Rustic Hickory's target audience for steamer chairs was cottage owners rather than institutions.
However, like Old Hickory’s steamer chair, the Rustic Hickory chair had a very high back extending 29-31” above the seat (it varies in different years' catalogs), and a total seat length of only 46”. The seat dimensions of our chair are 50” long x 22” wide and the back rises 25.5” high above the seat; these do not match the dimensions of the other hickory manufacturers' steamer chairs. Another indicator that our chair was not made by Rustic Hickory Furniture Company is that its tenons do not have the characteristic tapered shape of Rustic Hickory’s tenons.
A few more clues point to Indiana Hickory Furniture Company as the maker of this steamer chair. One is that in all of the stamped Indiana Hickory pieces we’ve owned which have had herringbone rattan cane weave, the cane has had distinctive dark strands within the weave as this chair does, perhaps due to that company's particular overseas source of cane.
Finally, the ultimate hint at this chair’s manufacturer was that it was obtained from a home furnished in the 1930s with other furniture stamped with this Indiana Hickory brand:
None of the hickory manufacturers consistently stamped each piece of furniture they produced, so it is not uncommon to find pieces without a brand. Even within a set of four identical side chairs in this home, one did not have a brand. All Indiana Hickory Furniture Company furniture was made between 1928 when the company began, and 1942 when it closed. We date this chair to the early 1930s when the rest of the furniture in the house was purchased.
This single hickory steamer chair connects simultaneously to the history of one American region's (Indiana) furniture-making enterprises, to an era of steamships and incurable illness, and to one family’s early rustic home. Yet in today's world it fits perfectly with a current penchant for sophisticated vintage designs, and for relaxed lifestyles that include lounging indoors to read or outdoors on a porch to take in some cool, restorative air.
