Americans are very proud that they
Invented one of the most popular forms of furniture - the
rocking chair. It is no longer possible to ascertain who
actually created the first rocking chair but the story that
Benjamin Franklin was the first in 1787 to have had curved
rails set under a chair is not true. An earlier bill from the
furniture maker William Savery of 1774 bears the inscription:
'to putting rockers on a chair' for which the charge was one
shilling and sixpence.
The rocking chair was brought
back into fashion in the 1960s by President Kennedy but
furniture makers had started putting curved rockers under
existing chairs from the beginning of the eighteenth century
to make them more comfortable.
These early rocking chairs were
known as 'carpet cutters' because of the damage done to
carpets by repeated rocking in the same place. Rocking chairs
existed in whatever style was in vogue such as Windsor, slat
back, and banister. Rockers were fixed by notching the legs of
the chair which were then fixed to the rockers. This was used
for attaching rockers to chairs that had not been made as
Soon chairs were being
expressly designed and made as rocking chairs. These often had
heavier duty legs which were jointed to the rockers
themselves. These chairs were also often broader with some
being up to three times as wide as the early 'carpet cutters'.
Rocking chairs are usually not upholstered and the seats are
normally of wood or rush. In order to sit on a soft seat
cushions were added.
The Boston rocker is a popular
form of rocking chair with the earliest known example of this
Windsor style chair being made in 1830, probably in
Connecticut. The rolled seat is characteristic of these
chairs, with the front of the seat curved inwards and the rear
curving upwards. Collectors and art historians are
particularly interested in the decorations on the chair back
and armrests that Were often done in gold paint.
Soon the grandmother knitting
in in her rocking chair or spinning yarn became a familiar
sight throughout the world. The best way to determine if a
rocking chair is genuine or converted is to compare the
history of paint on the chair with that of the rockers. If the
rockers have fewer layers of paint than the chair then it is
almost certain the rockers had been added later.