When we look at early American antique chairs one of the things that strikes is how uncomfortable they must have been, particularly such examples as wainscot chairs. But, with all things considered, perhaps the those who had to sit on them had it better after all in the comfort stakes as this excerpt from House and Garden magazine in the 1930’s suggests.
Exponents of early American furniture may protect the idea, but we have a notion that of all styles it is the one that offers the least comfort. In this iconoclastic thought we have recently been upheld by a young lady who has been staying in a house furnished completely with primitive American pieces of great value and rarity. She was literally obliged to go to bed to get comfortable!
Our forebears wore more clothes than we and they were raised under a harder regime. To them the slatback and the wooden-bottom chair were the veriest epitome of ease. But to our softer generation, schooled to expect comfort on every muscle, the rigors of some Early American pieces are distressing.
It might be well for us to undertake a more vigorous regime. And yet, when we compare our daily hectic lives with the relatively slow lives lived by the Colonial fathers, we begin to think that they were the ones to have an easy time of it. They may have thought hard chairs comfortable, but could they stand up under the strain of the lives many of us lead—the strain of noise and rush and fierce business competition? Perhaps they would be the ones who would flee to bed to find comfort and ease and tranquillity.