20 Old Furniture Pieces That Reveal How Families Really Lived

Antique dealers in the 20th century dubbed a certain type of neoclassical-style reclining sofa “the fainting couch,” but in trade catalogs, such a piece, actually a daybed or chaise longue, was intended for lounging or receiving guests in the parlor, not for recovering from swoons. Such sofas might, however, have offered 19th-century Euro-American women relief from constricting, steel-boned corsets that made it impossible to take a full breath, providing a place to recline during the day without retreating to the bedroom.

In mid-19th-century France, and then in Victorian Britain, the tête-à-tête was an S-shaped settee with two seats facing opposite directions, often used by young lovers preparing for their wooing. A wooden arm ran down the middle of the settee, enabling man and woman to sit near each other and converse eye to eye, as parents or other family members kept watch at the opposite end of the room. Antique dealers came to refer to such settees as “courting chairs.”

Dumbwaiters had been around since the 1720s in English homes, where they were a novelty for the upper crust and handy for snazzy hosts who wanted to keep their servants out of earshot of political chit-chat. But when America’s third president came across the three-level, mahogany-wheeled contraption while minister to France in the 1780s, he brought the idea home to Monticello and, later, the White House. With rotating shelves, the carts allowed diners to help themselves without having to summon a waiter into the dining room.

TV tray tables, a set of four lightweight folding trays on a rolling metal stand, were introduced in 1952. They let families eat dinner in front of the TV instead of at the family’s dining table during the postwar television-ownership explosion in suburbia. Though the concept existed before the Swanson food company introduced its “TV Dinner” in 1953, the Swanson meal typically receives credit for the idea.

The commode, sometimes called a nightstool, looked like any other armchair or nightstand, but the hinged lid on top concealed a chamber pot underneath. Commodes were kept in bedrooms by both Europeans and Americans prior to the advent of indoor plumbing and modern sewer systems in the late 19th/early 20th century. Servants emptied the chamber pot every morning, and the commode was thus kept out of sight for most of the day.

From the 1930s through the 1950s, most homes had only one phone jack, usually in a central hallway, and so every call was planted right there for all to overhear. The gossip bench, a kind of small bench-and-table contrivance designed to house a telephone, a phone book, and a notepad, was a popular fixture. It wasn’t until extension phones with multiple jacks came out in the late 1950s that calls were able to migrate to more private locations.

In Brittany, France, as well as parts of Scotland and the Netherlands, lit-clos, wooden box beds equipped with sliding doors or heavy curtains that could be drawn shut, were common from the 1500s through the 1800s. Most rural houses had only one room, and dirt floors with no heating, so shutting the panels helped keep the family warm. The bed also afforded a little more protection from the elements, as well as privacy in a house that otherwise was incredibly tight.

A cassone was a huge, ornately carved wooden chest commissioned by an Italian father to store his daughter’s dowry, including linen, clothes, and other items of value. In Renaissance Italy, when marriage cemented economic and political bonds between affluent families, attendants would carry the cassone through town during the ceremonial public wedding procession, which went from the bride’s house to her groom’s. There, it would be kept permanently in the bedroom, serving as a symbol of the wife’s status within her new household.

From the 1400s to the 1800s, a four-poster canopy bed, featuring four tall posts at each corner draped in heavy curtains of velvet, wool, or silk, furnished the bedrooms of Europe and America. These rooms lacked proper heating, and servants or other family members would walk through them from time to time. Pulling the curtains shut at night enclosed a little pocket of captured body heat, shutting out drafts and affording some semblance of privacy in a house where people were constantly coming and going.

A trundle bed, a low frame with wheels that could roll entirely underneath a master bed during the day, was common throughout Europe and North America from the 16th to the 19th centuries in homes where sleeping quarters were at a premium. It was drawn out for children, apprentices, and servants at night, placing them literally at the foot of the head of the house, so that they remained within earshot. Where one slept indicated much about their station within a home.

In Europe and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries, a piece of furniture known as the press bed was used in small townhouses and tenements where the occupants needed to maximize the space in each room. These beds were essentially a hinged bed frame that could be folded up and stored in a tall cabinet designed to look like a wardrobe. During the day, the bed would be folded up, making the room available as a workshop or kitchen, and at night it would be unfolded and ready for sleeping.

In Britain and Ireland, it was common to find a bacon settle in cottages. Especially popular in the 1700s and 1800s, a bacon settle is a wooden bench with a high back, often positioned near the hearth to protect the sitter from drafts off the stone wall. Many bacon settles also had a cupboard built into the back or underneath the seat, which contained iron hooks for hanging strips of salted bacon. This kept the meat dry and less likely to spoil, thanks to the nearby heat from the fire.

In 18th- and 19th-century America and Britain, it was common to find a free-standing piece of furniture in the dining room known as a cellarette. This wooden box, often fitted inside with dividers for bottles and metal linings to hold ice, had a heavy brass lock on the front. These cellarettes contained expensive fortified wines and spirits that the master or mistress of the house locked away from servants, children, and, in America, enslaved laborers. Not only could spirits be stolen, but they also represented a financial asset. Consequently, the master or mistress of the house also controlled the amount of each beverage served.

Porter’s chairs were high-backed wooden armchairs with an arched leather hood and solid wing sides which enclosed the sitter on either side. They were used in large European houses from the 1600s to the 1800s by the hall porter, the servant who was posted at the door to let in guests and keep an eye out for intruders, when he had to sit in a cold, drafty entryway for hours on end. The leather hood enclosed the body heat of the porter, keeping him warm as the chill seeped in through the door.

A Davenport is a small writing desk with drawers built into one side rather than the front, and a sloped writing surface. The name comes from a customer listed as only “Captain Davenport,” possibly but not certainly a naval officer, in the cost books of Gillows, the English cabinetmakers, dating from the 1790s. Lockable Davenports were particularly favored by 19th-century women for keeping household accounts and doing their own letter-writing. They were also small enough to fit into a family sitting room.

The sewing table had shallow drawers for pins and thread above, while below, a hanging pouch of pleated silk held the bulky mending and unspun wool out of sight. It was women’s work in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and America to mend clothes and to look after the household linen on a regular basis. The hanging pouch allowed the woman to sit properly at the table in the parlor.

The nursing rocker was a wooden rocking chair that was in style from the late 1700s through the 1800s in North America, featuring short legs and no arms whatsoever. Its lack of arms was by design. Without arms in the way, a mother could cradle a swaddled infant across her lap and hold the baby to her breast without her elbows hitting wood. Because the seat was low, she could easily plant her feet on the ground while she rocked.

The metamorphic high chair, built in Britain and the U.S. between 1870 and 1900, was made of iron with hinges, latches, and wheels. These let a toddler eat at adult table height, then be lowered so the child could play on the floor or be wheeled around the home as a low play table or four-wheeled indoor stroller. The latching systems would not meet today’s child safety standards.

Victorian middle- and upper-class houses had a hallstand, or stand for coats, a wooden or cast-iron affair fitted with coat pegs, umbrella slots, a drip pan, and sometimes a mirror. A tray for the all-important calling cards was also often included. In accordance with the elaborate visiting etiquette of the day, visitors were expected to leave their cards on the hallstand and await formal acceptance by the host. No caller could be admitted to the parlor until they had been “sized up” and dried off.

Between the 1300s and 1500s in medieval Europe, large houses only had one room for multiple purposes: a great hall. Nobles, servants, and workers lived and worked here. One piece of furniture found in the great hall was the “trestle” table. The trestle table was just that, a table. However, this table consisted of a large wooden top and separate, portable legs called trestles. This allowed servants to remove the top from the trestles and lean it against the wall when not in use, clearing space in the great hall for other activities, such as sleeping or working. Hence, the phrase “turn the tables.”

This content was created with the help of AI.