Windsor armchair
Made by Samuel Gragg
Boston, Massachusetts, 1805–1825
Pine, maple, oak, walnut
On loan from a private collection

Between the ages of 24 and 29, Gragg lived in upstate New York with his brother. By the time he moved to Boston in 1801, he was a chair-maker by trade. He made simple, inexpensive stick back “Common” chairs and Windsor chairs that featured a variety of steam-bent parts (although the curved arms on the chair on the right were not bent but rather shaped with hand tools). Gragg’s experience with bending parts for Windsor chairs was instrumental to his invention of the Elastic Chair.