The World in Miniature

 

QUESTION: My great grandfather made a dollhouse for his daughter, who passed it down to her daughter, my grandmother, who passed it on to her daughter, my mother, who then passed it on to me. It’s a grand house, all handmade of wood. He styled it to the Victorian houses of the time. Over the years, each owner furnished it differently using both commercially made and homemade furnishings. When did little girls begin playing with dollhouses? And does my dollhouse have any value?

ANSWER: Dollhouses, in one form or another, have existed for centuries, most likely beginning with the ancient Egyptians. Archaeologists discovered the earliest known examples in the Egyptian tombs of the Old Kingdom, created nearly 5,000 years ago. They placed small clay replicas of their houses and belongings in and around burials to provide the comforts of home to the deceased in the afterlife. Although today’s dollhouses are different from these ancient ones, they include purposes other than play. Over the last five centuries, dollhouses have evolved from elaborate displays for adults, to household teaching tools, to objects of imagination  for children. 

Today's dollhouses can be traced back to the 16th century’s German baby house display cases, later found in The Netherlands and England. Known as a “dockenhaus,” meaning miniature house, “cabinet house,” or “baby house” (because of its size), these handcrafted items were not initially made for children to play with—they served as display cases for wealthy adults to fill with miniature furniture, fabrics, and artwork that reflected their own taste and lifestyle. 

One of the earliest examples of a dollhouse  was the Munich Baby House. Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, commissioned it between 1557 and 1558. It consisted of a cabinet display case made up of individual rooms. Dollhouses of this period showed idealized interiors complete with detailed furnishings and accessories. Artisans built cabinets by hand with architectural details, filled with miniature household items. The baby moniker referred to the scale of the houses rather than them being for babies. They were off-limits to children and were meant to house trophy collections of wealthy women. 

In the early 17th century, baby houses took on a more practical purpose. Nuremberg houses and Nuremberg kitchens, named for their primary place of manufacture in Germany, emerged as educational tools to teach young women how to decorate and care for a household. These versions of baby houses were less ornamental than their predecessors, typically made entirely out of metal and sometimes consisting of just a kitchen. But they were no less meticulous, featuring tiny handcrafted brooms, kettles, copper cooking pots, and mini masonry hearths at the heart of the kitchen. 

Between 1686 and 1710, gentlemen often possessed "cabinets of curiosities" to hold collections of various objects they had acquired in their lives and travels: indeed such a cabinet would often reside in a small reception room. In the Amsterdam of the Dutch Golden Age, their wealthy wives similarly created dollhouses as status symbols. 

By the 18th century, baby houses had become popular in England. The term “baby” in the baby house came from the Old English word meaning doll. These structures commonly had detailed and realistic facades, including doors and windows, informing what we commonly think of as the classic Victorian dollhouse. Craftsmen often modeled them after the owner’s home, and although they still functioned as displays of opulence, caring for them and decorating them also became a beloved hobby for women. Until the mid-18th century, dollhouses were unique, one-of-a-kind creations.

Most people know dollhouses as toy houses made in miniature. Since the early 20th century, dollhouses have been primarily for children, but the collection of them is for  adults.

Originally, dollhouses weren’t made to scale. By the time manufacturers began to mass produce them, the scale of 1:12 or 1" scale became the standard.

Germany produced the most prized dollhouses and doll house miniatures up until World War I. The doll houses were produced in Nuremberg, Germany; which, since the 16th century, was coined as the 'toy city.' Their baby houses were thought to be the origin for the basic standards of contemporary doll houses. Notable German miniature companies included Märklin, Christian Hacker, Moritz Reichel, Rock and Graner, and others.

The Bliss Manufacturing mass-produced the first dollhouses in the United States in the 1890s, even as the U.S. imported them and miniature furnishings from Germany. Despite becoming more mainstream in the early 1900s, dollhouses didn’t become affordable for most families until after World War II. The postwar economic boom, along with increased manufacturing materials and abilities, made them fixtures in playrooms throughout country.

The TynieToy Company of Providence, Rhode Island, made authentic replicas of American antique houses and furniture in a uniform scale beginning in about 1917. Other American companies of the early 20th century were Roger Williams Toys, Tootsietoy, Schoenhut, and the Wisconsin Toy Company. 

After World War II, manufacturers produced dollhouses in factories on a larger scale with less detailed craftsmanship than before. By the 1950s, the typical dollhouse was made of painted sheet metal filled with plastic furniture. Such houses cost little enough that the majority of girls could own one.

In the United States, most houses have an open back and a fancy facade, while British houses are more likely to have a hinged front that opens to reveal the rooms.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "Lady Luck" in the 2024 Fall Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

Keeping Food Fresh

 

QUESTION: When I was a youngster, my family had an ice box in the kitchen. I remember when we first got it. My grandmother was in awe and my mother was overjoyed, for she could now keep food fresh for up to a week. Before that, she had to go to the grocers just about every day. Recently, I saw a beautifully restored old ice box at an antique show. Can you tell me who invented this food cold storage unit and when it first appeared in homes?

ANSWER: Before the mid 19th century, people depended on holes in the ground and spring houses to keep food cold. For the most part, people smoked meats and fish to keep them longer.

The traditional ice box dates back to the days of ice harvesting, which peaked between the 1850s and the 1930s, when manufacturers introduced the gas-powered refrigerator into American homes. However, the ice box became such a part of American culture that older people often refer to their refrigerators as ice boxes. But the real story of the ice box began in 1802.

Back then, an American farmer and cabinetmaker, Thomas Moore, needed to figure out a way to get his butter to market in solid chunks rather than a melted mass. He experimented with various methods until he came up with an ingenious solution—the ice box. His first design consisted of an oval cedar tub with a tin container fitted inside with ice between them, all wrapped in rabbit fur to insulate the device. Later versions included hollow walls that were lined with tin or zinc and packed with various insulating materials such as cork, sawdust, straw or seaweed. He placed a large block of ice in a tray near the top, so cold air could circulate down and around the tin storage compartment. Moore used his device to transport butter from his home to the Georgetown markets, allowing him to sell firm, brick butter instead of soft, melted tubs like his fellow vendors.

By 1830, Moore refined his design by making a wooden cabinet, similar to a large dresser, of hardwoods such as oak or walnut. As with his earlier versions, he lined the cabinet with zinc or tin, packed with insulating materials such as straw, flax, sawdust, cork, mineral wool, or charcoal. He tried each material to see which worked best, eventually settling on zinc.

Moore added several storage compartments inside the cabinet, with doors to each, including the ice compartment. He placed a drainage hole in it so that melted water, collected in a tray, could be emptied daily. Other ice box makers added spigots for draining the ice water.

The user had to replenish the melted ice, normally by obtaining new ice from an iceman, who delivered it by horse and wagon. The design of the ice box allowed perishable foods to be stored longer than before and without the need for lengthy preservation processes such as canning, drying, or smoking. Refrigerating perishables also had the added benefit of not altering the taste of what was preserved.

Until the late 1820s, cabinetmakers made ice boxes to order. But by the 1840s, various companies appeared including Sears & Roebuck, The Baldwin Refrigerator Company, and the Ranney Refrigerator Company began to mass produce ice boxes. Historians consider D. Eddy & Son of Boston to be the first company to produce ice boxes in large quantities. During this time, many Americans desired big ice boxes. Such companies like the Boston Scientific Refrigerator Company, introduced ice boxes which could hold up to 50 lbs of ice. A survey of New York City residents in 1907 found that 81 percent of the families surveyed owned some form of ice box.

Depending on the condition, an antique wooden ice box can be worth a lot of money. Many restored ice boxes now sell for as much as $2,000 to $3,000. It’s even possible to buy a restored antique wooden ice box that has been converted into a refrigerator or wine cooler with modern refrigeration equipment.

The usability of an antique ice box determines its actual market value The ice box’s age, size, condition, material, authenticity and provenance all contribute to its value.

Even a properly restored or professionally refinished ice box can be a good buy. While a restored or refinished model can sell for as little as $2,000, extremely rare ice boxes in good condition can cost as much as $10,000.

With those prices, it’s a good idea to make sure an ice box is worth it. Early ice boxes didn’t feature top-quality structure, so quality will vary. It’s important to check the wooden surface closely to detect signs of deterioration, such as visible cracks, chips, scratches, and warps. All of these add to the originality of the ice box. Reproductions are common, and many get sold as antiques.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about "In the Good Ole Summertime" in the 2024 Summer Edition, online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

On the Lamm

 

QUESTION: My grandmother has been collecting fancy cups and saucers for several decades. Some in her collection are simple in design, but others are artistically decorated. Two sets have an unusual shape with pedestal cups decorated with ornate paintings. The mark on the bottom of the cup and saucer is a blue lamb with the word "Dresden" below it. Who produced these cups and saucers and when were they made?

ANSWER: Chances are that the two cups and saucers in your grandmother’s collection are from Dresden, Germany. Ceramic factories such as Rosenthal and Meissen produced blanks that were later decorated by independent studios. Ambrosius Lamm owned and operated one of the top decorating studios, producing consistently high quality wares. 

The city of Dresden became a leading cultural center in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the city became known as the "Florence on the Elbe" because of its magnificent Baroque architecture and its outstanding museums. Artists, especially  porcelain decorators, took up residence there.

Between 1855 and 1944, more than 200 painting studios existed in the city. The studios bought porcelain white ware from manufacturers such as Meissen and Rosenthal for decorating, marketing and reselling throughout the world. Ambrosius Lamm owned one of the top decorating studios consistently producing high quality wares.

Lamm operated a porcelain painting studio and arts and antique shop from 1887 to 1949. It was located at Zinzendorfstrasse 28 in Deesden. He had approximately 25 employees by 1894, which grew to about 40 in 1907. 

 studio became well known for painting in the Meissen, Vienna, and Copenhagen style. Lamm's specialties included Old Dresden flowers, Watteau and mythology, as well as decorated luxury and utility articles in the old and new styles. Lamm bought blanks from a number of manufacturing firms, including Meissen, Rosenthal, Hutschenreuther and Silesia.

Lamm used at least three different marks by Lamm, including a pensive angel with Dresden and Saxony, an L within a shield, and the most common mark, an outline of a lamb with Dresden underneath.

He also produced cabinet cups and saucers. Middle and upperclass Victorians often had display cabinets in their dining rooms in which they displayed fine decorated plates and cups and saucers. A set of six flared cups with scrolled handles, hand painted with French court beauties, such as Mme. Lebrun, sell for between $3,000 and 4,500.

Collectors can still find desirable cabinet cups, as well as sherbets and goblets can be found, decorated  on Rosenthal blanks with a gilt cutout star or flower inside the cup. Usually, well-painted portraits of men and women in period dress appeared on the outside with heavy gold paste work.

Lamm often used rich cobalt blue and luster glazes for his ground colors. His favorite decorative techniques were jeweling and beading. His studio was well known for using heavy intricate gold paste work on borders of plates and cups.

 also enjoyed painting cherubs or putti. Many of his pieces featured cherubs holding fruit, flowers, and playing musical instruments. He often portrayed them floating amid fluffy clouds.

His paintings on porcelain cups and saucers and cabinet plates rivaled the quality of Royal Vienna and Sevres porcelains.  For example, he pronounced a series of 12 plates portraying ones from various oil paintings displayed in the famous Scamper Gallery in the Zwinger Palace. These plates had cobalt blue borders with elaborate gold paste gilding.

Lamm’s excellent reputation as a top porcelain decorator encouraged wealthy families in Germany and abroad to commission demitasse sets and dinner services from his studio. These sets included the monogram of the owner in intricate gold work. Examples for sale today include dinner plates and serving items with one to four hand-painted courting scenes within medallions on the border.

 occasionally decorated dinnerware with the floral and gilt patterns typically used by other Dresden studios. But he preferred to be more creative in his designs. His studio produced a line of dinner and tea ware featuring bold, large vibrant flowers covering each piece. Lamm’s studio was particularly known for its artistic rendering of flowers.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Articles section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the over 30,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about militaria in the 2022 Fall Edition, with the theme "After-Battle Antiques," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The American Look of Danish Modern

QUESTION:  My wife’s mother bought this piece of furniture around 1976.  It seemed to be an antique back then. The label on the back says it’s from Meier & Pohlman Furniture Company.   I looked online and haven’t found anything quite like it with a curved top. I’m interested in knowing more about this piece?  Can you lead me in the right direction?

ANSWER: I can do better than lead you in the right direction. I can take you there. But first, you need to know more about what style your cabinet is. This china cabinet is a form of Danish Modern, an American version in fact, that was originally part of a suite of dining furniture. The Meier & Pohlman Furniture Company made it in the early 1950s.

Danish modern is a style of minimalist furniture and housewares from Denmarkthat originated with the Danish design movement. In the 1920s, Kaare Klint embraced the principles of Bauhaus modernism in furniture design, creating clean, pure lines based on an understanding of classical furniture craftsmanship coupled with careful research of materials, proportions and the requirements of the human body. With designers such as Arne Jacobsen and Hans Wegner and associated cabinetmakers, Danish furniture thrived from the 1940s through the 1960s. Adopting mass-production techniques and concentrating on form rather than just function, Finn Juhl contributed to the style's success.

Adopting the Functionalist trend of abandoning ornamentation in favor of form, he nonetheless maintained the warmth and beauty inherent in traditional Danish cabinet making, as well as high-quality craftsmanship and materials. His use of teak wood added warmth to his pieces.



The development of modern Danish furniture owes much to the collaboration between architects and cabinetmakers. Cabinetmaker A. J. Iversen, who had successfully exhibited furniture from designs by architect Kay Gottlob at the Paris World Exhibition in 1925, encouraged further partnerships. In 1927, with a view to encouraging innovation and stimulating public interest, the Danish Cabinetmakers Guild organized a furniture exhibition in Copenhagen which occurred annually until 1967. It fostered collaboration between cabinetmakers and designers, creating a number of lasting partnerships including those between Rudolph Rasmussen and Kaare Klint, A. J. Iversen and Ole Wanscher, and Erhard Rasmussen and Børge Mogensen.

Following World War II, Danish designers and architects believed that design could be used to improve people's lives. Particular attention was given to creating affordable furniture and household objects that were both functional and elegant. The fruitful cooperation ensued, combining Danish craftsmanship with innovative design. Initially, the furniture was handmade, but recognizing that their work would sell better if prices were reduced, the designers soon turned to factory production. Interest in Danish Modern in the United States began when Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. from the Museum of Modern Art purchased some items for the Fallingwater home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. This ultimately led to mass-production in the United States, too.

The scarcity of materials after the Second World War encouraged the use of plywood. By the 1940s, the development of new techniques led to the mass production of bent plywood designs by Hans Wegner and Børge Mogensen. They used beechwood for their furniture frames with a teak overlay.

From the beginning of the 1950s, American manufacturers obtained licenses for the mass production of Danish designs while maintaining high standards of craftsmanship. Later, they altered their designs to suit American tastes and introduced American parts  to reduce costs. One of these furniture manufacturers was the Meier and Pohlmann Furniture Company of St. Louis, Missouri.



From 1891 until 1959, the Meier and Pohlman Company manufactured fine wooden furniture. The company's original factory stood close to the Mississippi River, on Second Street. By 1874, when John Meier and John Pohlmann founded their company, lumber yards, saw mills, and other woodworking establishments already crowded this area. Here they had easy access to the rafts of white pine logs floated down the river from Wisconsin and Minnesota. The depletion of the northern forests, however, forced St. Louis furniture makers turned to other sources of wood by the beginning of the 20th century. Meier and Pohlmann, for instance, increasingly relied on rail shipments of oak from Missouri and the Carolinas.

The firm's relocation to Fourteenth Street in St. Louis in 1891 reflected the general westward movement of people and industry in the neighborhood while its tremendous success mirrored the growth of the furniture industry in St. Louis at that time. By 1906, the city ranked first in the country in terms of the volume of furniture produced and its market extended across much of the American West. Initially, Meier and Pohlmann recruited skilled cabinetmakers from Germany to work in their factory. The sons and grandsons of these original workers comprised a large part of the labor force well into the 20th century. Contracts with Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward gave the company a national market for its fine dining room furniture after 1938.

Unfortunately, a dramatic increase in shipping rates and a shift in the public’s interest to the new Mediterranean style, ultimately led to the company's closure in 1959.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 24,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about vintage games in the 2019 Holiday Edition, "Games, Games, and More Games," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques and More Collection on Facebook.

The Ultimate All-in-One

QUESTION: My grandmother had a cabinet in her kitchen which she called a “Hoosier.” She told me her mother left it to her and now I have it in my kitchen. What can you tell me about it?

ANSWER: The modern kitchen with its microwave, glass-topped stove, side-by-side refrigerator, and granite countertops is a far cry from your great-grandma’s kitchen. The most modern thing in her kitchen was her Hoosier, an all-in-one preparation and storage unit that brought her convenience and practicality.

Named after the Hoosier Manufacturing Co. of New Castle, Indiana, the Hoosier cabinet was to become one of the most popular pieces of furniture to hit the American market. Though there were other companies in Indiana that made them, Hoosier Manufacturing built over four million of these special cabinets between 1900 and 1940. Until 1920, the company made and finished their new all-in-one cabinet in natural oak, but as the third decade of the 20th century progressed, they began to offer Hooisers with white enamel-lined drawers. Because of the bright white of the enamel, people called them “White Beauties.”

When the Hoosier first appeared, American homes didn’t have built-in storage cabinets. Soon housewives demanded something in which they could store their baking supplies and equipment, as well as give them an additional work surface. The company quickly adapted the 19th-century baker’s cabinet, a piece of furniture they were already making, to fit the needs of the modern housewife. These existing cabinets featured a work surface to roll out and knead dough, a few cabinets above, and  “possum belly” drawers below to hold flour and sugar. Manufacturers of these baker’s cabinets made the drawers from tin to protect their contents from rodents. At first, they made the work surface of wood, then later employed zinc, aluminum, and porcelain enamel. They attached casters to the legs, both for ease of moving and to keep ants out of the cabinet.

By rearranging the parts of the baker’s cabinet, Hoosier Manufacturing came up with a well-organized, compact unit which answered the housewife’s needs for storage and working space. The company added to these cabinets many improvements, including flour sifters, bread drawers lined with enamel, cutting boards, and an assortment of storage containers, to help the homemaker.

The typical Hoosier cabinet had three sections—a bottom section, featuring one large compartment with a slide-out shelf and several drawers to one side, a top portion only half as deep with several smaller compartments with doors, with or without windows, and a large lower compartment with a roll-top door that could be closed to hide various tools and equipment. Hoosier joined the top and bottom of the cabinet using a pair of metal channels which served as the guide for a sliding work surface, which usually had a pair of shallow drawers attached to its underside. The cabinet, with its work surface retracted, was normally about two feet deep— double that when pulled out—while the cabinet stood nearly six feet high.

A distinctive feature of the Hoosier cabinet was its accessories. Most came equipped with a variety of racks and other hardware to hold and organize spices and various staples. Some came with a hand coffee grinder and a combination flour-bin/sifter, a tin hopper that a housewife could use without having to remove it from the cabinet. Some contained a similar bin for sugar.

To hold a variety of spices and other staples, Hoosiers came equipped with special glass jars, manufactured by the Sneath Glass Company, to fit the cabinet and its racks. Original sets of Hoosier glassware consisted of coffee and tea canisters, a salt box, and four to eight spice jars. Some manufacturers also included a cracker or cookie jar. Some Hoosiers had elastic straps attached on the inside of their doors behind which housewives could place cards with such information as measurement conversions, sample menus, and household tips.

Manufacturers marked their cabinets with an identifying label which was often engraved or stamped onto metal, then screwed onto the front of the cabinet. Some glued paper labels on the back of the cabinet. Both types often disappeared as a result of refinishing.

Though Hoosier cabinets remained popular into the 1930s, they began to fall into disuse as soon as home builders equipped new kitchens with built-in cabinets and other appliances. Today, Hoosiers, dating from 1900-1910, sell on eBay for $500-$2,300. Later models sell for as little as $200.

To read more articles on antiques, please visit the Antiques Article section of my Web site.  And to stay up to the minute on antiques and collectibles, please join the other 18,000 readers by following my free online magazine, #TheAntiquesAlmanac. Learn more about western antiques in the special 2019 Spring Edition, "Down to the Sea in Ships," online now. And to read daily posts about unique objects from the past and their histories, like the #Antiques & More Collection on Facebook.

Mystery Solved

QUESTION: I bought this piece of furniture recently, and I'm not sure what it's called. It has drawers on each side and a closet in the middle. The piece is extremely heavy and stands about six feet tall. Can you help me, please?

ANSWER:  Your piece of furniture is commonly called a chifforobe, a combination of the French word “chiffonier” and the English word “wardrobe.” These pieces have been somewhat of a mystery because different groups of people have given them different names over the years.

These closet-like pieces of furniture originated in 1908 and became especially popular during the Art Deco Period in the United States from 1925-1935 or so. Your piece is a good example of high-style Art Deco, similar to French Art Deco. The drawer pulls on the bottom and the front feet are in the waterfall pattern. These pieces held a lot of clothes at a time when houses had very small bedroom closets.

A chifforobe combines a long space for hanging clothes with a chest of drawers. Typically the wardrobe section runs down one side of the piece, while the drawers occupy the other side.  It may have two enclosing doors or have the drawer fronts exposed and a separate door for the hanging space.

The 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue first advertised chifforobes as a "a modern invention, having been in use only a short time." Southerners seem to use the term more than anyone else. However, others use this piece of furniture but may call it an armoire or a wardrobe.

A wardrobe is a standing closet used for storing clothes. Many people argue that wardrobes are different in use and style of closets, but the French created to use as a closet. While the earliest wardrobe was a chest, it wasn’t until the homes of wealthy nobles became more luxurious that a separate room held their clothing. Builders filled this room with closets and lockers since drawers didn’t exist at the time. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, eventually evolved.
                                                                                                
Throughout the evolutionary changes in the form of the enclosure, it more or less retained its function as a place to store a noble’s apparel. Over time, the word “wardrobe” came to mean an independent storage place for preserving precious items belonging to the home’s wealthy owner. The modern wardrobe differs  from the historical one in its triple partitioning, with two linear compartments on either side with shelves as well as a middle space made up of hanging pegs and drawers, which came later. A clothes press, placed at the height of a person’s chest, enabled servants to lay clothing that they had just ironed on a pull-out tray.

In the beginning, cabinetmakers used oak to construct wardrobes, but later oak went out of use in favor of the more elegant walnut. They based the size on a wardrobe on the eight small men method.  A good sized double wardrobe would thus be able to hold eight small men.

In the 19th century the wardrobe began to develop into its modern form, with a hanging cupboard at each side, a press in the upper part of the central portion and drawers below. More often than not, cabinetmakers used mahogany for its construction. However, fine-grained, foreign woods became easier to obtain in quantity, and cabinetmakers used them to create elaborately and magnificently inlaid wardrobes.

While furniture designers in the 18th century often created luxurious wardrobes of highly-polished woods, the ultimate refinement occurred with the introduction of central doors, which had previously enclosed merely the upper part, were carried to the floor, covering the drawers as well as the sliding shelves, and were often fitted with mirrors.

As mass production of furniture became more common in the late 19th century, furniture manufacturers abandoned the refinements of early wardrobes in favor of simpler, if not downright plain decoration. By the 1920s, wardrobes appeared in cheaper woods so that they could be sold to the growing middle class of consumers. The term “chifforobe” became an everyday household word, especially to more blue-color people who could purchase one as part of a bedroom set when they got married. However, some manufacturers still made beautiful examples in the American Art Deco or Waterfall style. 

A Cabinet for Chocolates

QUESTION: We recently purchased a Vassar Display Cabinet. It’s in perfect condition with all original glass, shelving, doors, etc. The top was to contain blocks of ice, and there’s a small door at the very bottom where the ice would drain when melting. Is there anything you can tell me about it? I've found very little on the Internet.

ANSWER: You’re the proud owner of a commercial refrigerated chocolate cabinet that would have been used in candy and chocolate shops. At the turn of the 20th century, Vassar Chocolates was one of the top brands of gift-boxed chocolates, similar to Whitman’s today.

But to fully understand your cabinet and the contents it held, we have to look at the background of two companies–the company that made the cabinet and the company that made the chocolates.

The O.D. Royer Manufacturing Company began making refrigerated display cabinets in 1901—a patent date of March 26, 1901 appears on the brass handles on the box doors. They were unique because of their see-through sides. These enabled store and shop owners to display a variety of perishable goods, including chocolates and cheeses. The company moved from Downing, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, before 1900. However, your cabinet has “Vassar Chocolates” painted on the front. And since Vassar Chocolates weren’t made until 1912, this dates your cabinet to that time.

The iceboxes that Royer Manufacturing made had double panes of glass about one inch apart, something that’s quite common today in double-pane insulated windows. Royer used flax straw to insulate the top ice compartment. It included a beveled mirror on the side opposite the doors. As in today’s pastry and deli display cabinets, the door side probably faced the store clerk for easy access from the back of the cabinet, while the mirror side faced the customer, making it seem as if there were more goods on display than were in the cabinet. As with other iceboxes of the time, the framework and exterior paneling are of oak.

Vassar Chocolates, a type of fudge bon-bon, sold loosely and also packaged in gift tins, were a hot item when they appeared in 1912. The Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company of Kansas City made them along with a variety of other candies and crackers. 

Established in 1902 by Joseph Loose, his brother Jacob, and John. H. Wiles, the company became the second largest manufacturer of crackers in the country by 1912. It had factories in Kansas City, Missouri, Boston, Massachusetts, Chicago, Illinois, Omaha, Nebraska, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Dallas, Texas, and Seattle, Washington, employing nearly 2,000 workers and competed successfully with the National Biscuit Company until the 1930s.

Loose-Wiles Biscuit Company produced not only Sunshine Biscuits, but Vassar Chocolates and a general line of crackers, cakes and fine confectionery, and sold them within a 15-state area surrounding Kansas City. By 1912, it had become the largest combination cracker and candy factory in America, and its facilities for handling business, and also looking out for the welfare of its employees were second to none.

Joseph Loose envisioned a factory which would be filled with sunlight, and Loose-Wiles adopted the name Sunshine for their products. Soon they began expanding and opened new plants in Boston and then New York. In 1912 Loose-Wiles opened their "Thousand Window" bakery on Long Island, which remained the largest bakery building in the world until 1955. When sales began to slump in the 1940s, Loose petitioned the company’s board of directors to change the name to the Sunshine Biscuit Company in 1946, and in 1996, Keebler purchased it. In 2000, Kellogg purchased Keebler. The product it’s best known for is Cheeze-It Crackers.

So how did the chocolates get the name Vassar? It’s no small coincidence that the Vassar Girls, as the students of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, were commonly known, began making chocolate fudge in the late 1880s.

“Nearly every night at college,” said the Vassar girl in a newspaper ad, “some girl may be found somewhere who is making ‘fudges’ or giving a fudge party.” These fudges became known in fashionable circles as Vassar chocolates. Though mystery shrouds their origin, students at Vassar handed down the recipe from year to year. It’s most likely that the recipe, which would have become well known by the turn of the 20th century, would have been easy for Joseph Loose to procure. He added the Vassar name to his chocolate fudge bon-bons to give them class. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Sweet Storage

QUESTION: My mother has a cabinet and has been wondering what it is. Whatever you can tell me about it would be grand.

ANSWER: Your mother’s cabinet is often referred to as a jelly cupboard. However, it seems that this name may have been a more recent reference invented by antique dealers to give these rather primitive cabinets some panache.

Before the advent of built-ins, the only means of storage in 19th and early 20th-century kitchens was separate cabinets. These held pots and pans, foodstuffs, preserves and such. One of the smaller cupboards, often one that stood in a corner, was the jelly cupboard, created to store jellies and preserves and jarred vegetables.

During the late 18th century, many a colonial kitchens had a large hutch/cupboard that featured an upper section with narrow shelves for holding pewter plates and spoons. The lower section held shelves enclosed in a single or double-doored cabinet in which wives stored foodstuffs.
Often a large serving shelf separated the two sections.

But between 1800 and 1825, smaller cupboards with a single door came into widespread use. These varied in styles from extremely primitive affairs, used in rural kitchens, to more refined ones for upper class kitchens. The specifics of such pieces varied from maker to maker and from region to region, but all were meant to store jams and jellies, which had become a staple in American homes.

Typically, jelly cupboards featured two drawers above double doors which opened outward from the center. But the variations were endless since the makers of these cupboards customized them to their needs.

Inside, the cupboards had shelves set only high enough apart as to accommodate jars of jellies or preserves.  This allowed makers to permanently affix more of them into the interior of the  cupboard. Most had wooden latches but better ones featured metal hardware and locks. Most people didn’t lock their jelly cupboards but may have locked the drawers in which they stored spices, tea, and sugar, above the cabinet portion. Early on, tea and sugar were both expensive commodities and had to be protected.

Generally, most women kept their jelly cupboards in their kitchens during the 19th century since they prepared their jellies and preserves there and having the storage cabinet close by was more convenient. Towards the end of the 1800s, however, some placed in their dining rooms. This practice demanded better looking cupboards that often doubled as a place to keep foods while serving dinner.

Jelly cupboard makers responded by using better quality construction, better woods, and better hardware.

Surviving examples exist in a wide variety of woods. Though pine is probably the most common, cabinetmakers also employed birch, butternut, cherry, chestnut, maple, poplar, oak, and walnut. At times they used two different woods, such as pine and poplar, for their cabinets.

According to furniture historians, jelly cupboards used in kitchens were usually taller than those used in dining rooms, which tended to be shorter and wider. Kitchen cupboards were usually vertical affairs up to 72 inches tall while those used in dining rooms tended to be about 45 inches tall and perhaps 60 inches wide.

To cover up less expensive woods, jelly cupboard makers often painted them in decorative colors, including robin’s egg blue, gray, sea green, barn red, and sometimes pale yellow.

At their peak during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, makers dovetailed the drawers and permanently mounted the shelves. But some later models featured adjustable shelves. As late as the 1920s Montgomery Ward's mail order catalog offered a basic jelly cupboard, 34 inches wide and 60 inches tall, with a single drawer above two doors constructed of seasoned oak and with adjustable shelves for $9.95.  Sears Roebuck had similar models.

Though this jelly cupboard is one of the good ones, the primitive ones are easy to fake. It doesn’t take too much imagination, a few pieces of old weathered wood, and some old nails to fashion what looks like a charming old jelly cupboard. With even primitive ones selling for $400-500, it’s no wonder there are some great new “antiques” on the market.

A Stitch in Time

QUESTION: My great-grandmother used this piece of furniture as a sewing cabinet.  I’m interested in its age and use. The drawers have spaces for wooden slats—one side a round hole and the other side of the drawer has a slot. The side compartments are finished inside and may have been used to store fabric. What can you tell me about this piece?

ANSWER: You, indeed, have a sewing cabinet, a Martha Washington sewing cabinet to be exact. And while it takes Martha’s name, it isn’t much like the one Martha, herself, used. Her original sewing cabinet was a small work table with an open shelf space in the middle with no drawers set between two storage compartments. A fabric skirt, draping to the floor, shielded the shelves. Your cabinet is a Depression era reproduction of a table made in 1815. However, Martha Washington died in 1802.

Today, Martha Washington sewing cabinets generally have two or more drawers in the center flanked by half round compartments on each side of the cabinet that are covered by a shaped lid attached by concealed hinges. These side compartments, called project pockets, held fabric, needlepoint or knitting projects in progress, plus they were long enough to hold knitting needles.

These handsome little cabinets came in many similar designs. Some had nicely turned legs while others had plain ones. Matching wooden or glass knobs adorned the drawers, which, themselves, often varied in size and depth. Often the top drawer contained a removable thread holder. Makers produced them from the early to the mid-19th century in walnut or mahogany. Some came with drawer inserts and other didn’t.  Made to fulfill a practical purpose, they became popular with women who liked their small size and maximum storage ability.

The versions of this cabinet that mostly appear on the market today have three drawers and two flat top lids, which incorporated the "Soss" type invisible hinge, patented in November 1911, over the material compartments. The drawers can be either three different descending sizes, the smallest on top, or three of the same size. While thread holders appear in some, they’re not in all. Generally, they measure 27 inches wide, 14 deep, and 29 inches tall. In 1915, the Cowan Manufacturing Company of Toledo, Ohio, advertised their mahogany version for $12.50.

In the mid-1920s, furniture manufactures began making small, relatively inexpensive pieces such as magazine racks, tea carts, and smoking stands that people could afford to buy during the Great Depression. Known as the "novelty" furniture movement, it helped keep production going when customers could no longer afford to purchase dining room or bedroom sets.

The quality of the 20th-century Martha Washington sewing cabinets ranges from those made of solid mahogany to cheaper models made of fruit wood (apple or pear), finished to look like mahogany. The better ones in good condition sell for around $150-$165 and finer examples can sell for as much as $500.