A Child's Goodnight

Life's most soothing things are a child's goodnight and sweet music.... Thomas Edison

Last weekend, I found a dresser on Craigslist, that was offered for sale, for $35.  I'd been looking for a white dresser for our guest room - and this one looked nice and roomy.  When we went to go pick it up, it was fun to see that it had some vintage looking lines.  The carved edges were very art-deco looking.  I don't have great pictures of the dresser - but here they are, the ones from the ad:

The person selling us the dresser couldn't tell us much about the piece of furniture, but it was fun to find a paper label affixed to the inside of one of the drawers.  It read:

Little Folk's Furniture; New London New Jersey.

Needless to say, I got to researching right away.  What fun to find out that the Thomas Edison had a furniture business (really!) and that "Little Folk's" was the children's division!   I was able to find the following history (here):

"You may be wondering why Thomas Alva Edison, the revered American inventor, was doing producing children’s furniture. It started out as an adjunct to Edison’s phonograph factory. In 1917 Thomas Alva Edison purchased Wisconsin Panel and Cabinet Company, a maker of opera seats. He converted the factory to the production of cabinets for his newly patented line of phonographs. The name of the factory was changed to Edison Wood Products and it continued to make phonograph cabinets until 1927. During the Depression, the consumer demand for phonographs slowed a lot because they were considered a luxury item at a time when most people were concerned about where their next meal was coming from. Edison didn’t want to add more people to the bread lines by laying off several hundred employees, so he decided that the company should make juvenile furniture under the trade name "Edison Little Folks Furniture".

It was really neat to look up other vintage pieces of Little Folk's furniture.  Both of the decals above are from vintage Little Folk's cribs.  You can see another art-deco style piece (part of another dresser) below:

And I also thought this display of vintage Edison furniture was delightful:

I have not been able to find a furniture catalogue online, so I don't know exactly how old my dresser is.  In fact, Little Folk's was sold off to Simmons at some point (yes, the same as the Simmons as the mattress company) and they continued to manufacture under the Little Folks' name, until 2005.  However, given the lines, and the specifics of the label on my piece, I suspect it is older rather than newer. 

However old it may be, I had a wonderful time finding out more about the history of the furniture line, and finding the lovely vintage pieces and decals shown here.  I hope you had as much fun seeing them, as I did!

Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday, and Time Travel Thursday!

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