Regardless of the style
of furniture, finish was the first thing the consumer noticed. Mass
magazines published articles to educate the public about the finishing
process as well as celebrate American advances in the area. Good
Housekeeping reported that in the construction of historical
reproductions of handmade eighteenth-century mahogany furniture,
manufacturers used varnishes "devised to give the same effect without
the skilled and tedious labor demanded" by traditional processes.
American furniture manufacturers employed women workers to replicate
the century-old patina found on cherished antiques. Regarding painted
furniture, the magazine reported that the pneumatic air brush surpassed
"hand work in smoothness and beauty of finish" and was capable of
finishing twenty-four chairs in one hour. Hand methods produced only
four chairs per hour (For documentation, Kinney cites Ralph C. Erskine, "Fine Cabinet Woods and How They Are Finished", Good Housekeeping 72 1921, pages 27, 82,85.)]
Source: Jeremy R Kinney. "We hold the merchandising idea as Paramount": The virtues of flexible mass production in the 1920s American furniture industry
Business and Economic History28 No 2 Winter 1999, pages 83-93.
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