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Lambert Hitchcock (May 28, 1795, Cheshire, Connecticut – 1852) was an American furniture manufacturer, famous for designing and mass-producing the Hitchcock chair. Hitchcock was the son of John Lee Hitchcock, an American Revolutionary War veteran who was lost at sea in 1811.
Feb 20, 2023 · Lambert Hitchcock applied early mass production techniques to turn out chairs by the thousands—uniform, durable, attractive, affordable, and, for a time, wildly popular.
- Chair-Making Thrives in Hitchcocksville
- New Partners Save Debt-Ridden Business
- Post-War Rebirth
- Hitchcock Name Conjures Nostalgia and Sales
By 1821, Hitchcock’s small operation had become so well-known that the area around his mill was dubbed “Hitchcocksville.” This designation would continue until 1866, when the town changed its name to Riverton. Business continued to boom and in 1825 Hitchcock expanded, building a three-story brick factory that facilitated increased production and pr...
By 1826, Hitchcock’s company had grown to about 100 workers, including many women, who were responsible for painting the intricately etched patterns on the furniture. The factory produced about 50 chairs daily and used a variety of woods including maple, beech, and birch. But as business grew, Hitchcock found himself in a bind. Transportation was s...
In the spring of 1946, West Hartfordshoe salesman John Kenney happened to be trout fishing on the Farmington River. He made his way into Riverton and stumbled on the old Hitchcock mill. Apart from a Hitchcock chair he’d received as a wedding gift, Kenney knew nothing about the old mill’s history, but an obsession with the story of Lambert Hitchcock...
Part of the factory’s success, Kenney would later say, came from the fact that the reinvented Hitchcock brand represented the confluence of two uniquely New England symbols–superior craftsmanship and homemade charm. When he dropped what he called “the magic name” of Hitchcock, buyers were interested, and when they learned he was producing the chair...
Lambert Hitchcock, 1795–1852, American chairmaker, b. Cheshire, Conn. In 1818 in Barkhamsted, Conn., Hitchcock established a factory whose employees came to number about 100.
In 1825, Yankee inventor Lambert Hitchcock started a fashion craze in middle-class households for the fancy Hitchcock chair. It's still being made.
May 17, 2010 · Learn about the origin and evolution of the Hitchcock chair, a popular style of early American furniture. Find out how to tell original chairs from reproductions based on the stencil and the backward "N's" in "CONN".
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Why did Lambert Hitchcock choose machine over hand production?
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May 8, 2022 · During the second quarter of the 19th century, “fancy chairs” were all the rage for middle-class American parlors and dining rooms. These emblems of social mobility were often called “Hitchcock chairs” after Lambert Hitchcock (1795-1852), the Yankee inventor who started the craze.
