May 10. 1922 



HARDWOOD RECORD 



15 



Ten Year Review of Furniture Industry Improvements 



Improvements to Machines and Methods in Furniture Manufacture Keep Pace 

 with Remarkable Industrial Evolution in the United States, Making 

 It Possible to Produce in Great Quantities High Grade 

 Furniture at Relatively Low Cost* 



The mechanical inventive genius of man has had its most vigor- 

 ous and briUiant blooming in the United States. America has un- 

 doubtedly failed to keep pace with the Old World in the develop- 

 ment of the esthetic values of life; artistically we are children still, 

 or at best, only coming into manhood, but in the mechanical or 

 industrial arts our achievements have been such as to astound the 

 world. We have developed, by virtue of this genius for mechanics, 

 coupled with a like genius for the art of commerce, an amazing 

 commercial and industrial civilization. It is the wonder, if not the 

 admiration, of the remaining world, and has made us rich beyond 

 measure. Our mills and factories are the most efficient in the v\rorld 

 and their equipment is contin- 

 ually in process of improvement 

 by our engineers and inventors, 

 who labor so diligently, so swift- 

 ly and w^ith such astonishing 

 cleverness, that a machine which 

 today may be thought to repre- 

 sent the apogee of mechanical 

 perfection, may tomorrow^ be 

 rendered obsolete by some new 

 invention. 



However, the purpose of this 

 article is not to generalize upon 

 our vast industrial civilization, 

 but to examine in some meas- 

 ure into the part the furniture 

 industry has played in this swift 

 and never-sleeping evolution of 

 mechanical appliances and in- 

 dustrial methods. The limita- 

 tions of space forbid anything 

 better than a superficial treat- 

 ment of the subject, but an ef- 

 fort will be made to put dow^n 

 enough to show that the furni- 

 ture industry (and those w^ho 

 serve it) has not stood still in 

 the improvement of its mechan- 

 ical equipment and processes. 

 For the purpose of further lim- 

 iting the discussion it has been 



*The preparation of this article 

 would have been impossible without 

 the extended advice and counsel of 

 woodworking mnch inert/ manufac- 

 turers. We have placed a large 

 dependence upon them, and hare, in 

 fact, in many instatiees employed 

 their exact statementft, hut hecause 

 of the impedimrnt it would have 

 offered to tin- reader^ were forced to 

 omit rrrditing each quotation as it 

 was made. Therefore, we desire to 

 make grateful acknowledgment to 

 the following, upon whom we drew 

 for our data: L. G. Merritt, Mer- 

 ritt Engineering d Sales Co., Lock- 

 port, N. Y.; R. F. Baldwin, treas- 

 urer^ Oliver Machinery Co., Gra/nd 

 Rapids. Mich.; W. A. Furst, general 

 engineer, Westinghouse Electric rf 

 Manufacturing Co., East Pittsburgh, 

 Pa.; F. F. Dams, Baxter D. Whit- 

 ney & Son, Inc., Winchendon, Mass. : 

 Ohnn B. La Page, swretanj, and 



necessary to establish arbitrarily a period of ten years — the last 



ten years to survey for improvements. We would not undertake 



to say, however, that the improvements mentioned are rigidly re- 

 stricted to a period of ten years; but we can say that their genera! 

 use lies within that space of a decade. 



Perhaps the most conspicuous advance has been in the field 

 of design and this has been directly predicated on improvements 

 in machines, for the manufacture of furniture in this country is 

 essentially a quantity production proposition and no considerable 

 advance could have been made in furniture design had the design- 

 ers of woodworking machines not been at hand to provide the 



means of producing these de- 

 signs in relatively large quanti- 

 ties, with a minimum of hand 

 Work and at minimum cost. The 

 massive, awkward, "gingerbread 

 stuff" of our grandfathers' and 

 even of our fathers' time, has 

 largely disappeared; and our 

 factories are turning out designs 

 of period furniture, light and 

 strong and generally beautiful, 

 certainly well adapted to the 

 needs of the modern American 

 household. Undoubtedly good 

 furniture, that is, furniture of 

 enduring structure, of graceful 

 design and pleasing finish, is 

 available in America today to 

 a wider range of people and 

 purses than ever in the history 

 of the world. The mark of the 

 jigsaw is no longer upon the 

 great bulk of the product of our 

 American furniture factories, 

 and today it is not alone the rich 

 man who may furnish his home 

 comfortably and in good taste. 

 In the manufacture of the ex- 

 pensive grades of furniture it 

 has always been possible to use 

 a relative small amount of ma- 



By Courtesy Westlnghoiise Electric & Mfg. Co. 



A Direct Motor Driven Mortiser of the Latest Type 



W. Marsh, Jenkins Machine Co., 

 Sheboi/gan, Wis.; Kenneth Redman, 

 manager of the dry kiln dcpart- 

 tiieut, and H. M. 'Nichols, in charge 

 of the department of collecting and 

 ronveying systems for woodworking 

 filants. B. F. stur'tevant Company, 

 Hyde Park, Boston, Mass. ; R. T, 

 Maston, advertising manager, Amer- 

 ica7i Wood Working Machinery Co., 

 Rochester, N. Y.; J. A. Quixley, 

 Mattison Machine Works. Rockford, 

 III.; Fred Kershaw, secretary-treas- 

 urer. Proctor d Schwartz, Inc., 

 Philadelphia; R. D. Waltz, the De 

 Vilbiss Manufacturing Co., Toledo, 

 Ohio. 



JS'ote: Hardwood Record will be 

 glad to assist anyone desiring to 



further inv^tigate the merits of 

 types of mrnhines mentioned in this 

 article to get in touch with manu- 

 facturers of the machines. 



