Made in America: The Stories Furniture Tells
What does it mean when we say a piece of furniture was made in America? And why would it be important that our furniture is made in America?
Under the Federal Trade Commission, the definition of Made in America is a hazy one, and subject to interpretation. To simplify it, the qualification is typically broken up into three groups:
"Unqualified Made in America,” which means something was produced or assembled in the United States with all or nearly all domestic materials.
"Qualified Made in America" is a looser interpretation, and allows the inclusion of more foreign materials.
Finally, any product whose country of origin for the majority of its manufacturing is not the United States cannot be classified as Made in America, no matter where the materials came from.
In today’s globalized and far-stretching digital marketplace, classifying what we buy into one of these three categories might seem like a daunting if not categorically futile task. Relatedly, it is true that the globalization of the world market over the past four decades has opened up the eyes and shopping carts of American consumers, providing people with a broader and more diverse range of both factory-made and handmade products alike.
But at the same time, research shows that there are certain products (food, gemstones, and energy, to name a few) that people place at higher or lower values according to whether or not they were created locally. The American furniture industry has long stood at this intersection between locally and globally produced goods, and the pieces we choose to furnish our homes with are a result of that history.
This post focuses on the American furniture industry’s historical challenge with offshoring and outsourcing in order to provide a more detailed picture of the broad and complex world of home furnishings that we all shop in.
A Tale of Two Bassetts
By the 1950s, Bassett Furniture Industries, in the small mountain town of Bassett, Virginia, stood as one of the biggest wood furniture makers in the world. The second World War was over, the Baby Boom was full-blown, and a growing class of American consumers was buying houses in the suburbs, and they wanted to furnish those homes with quality furniture. Founded by industrialist J.D. Bassett in 1902, Bassett Furniture was modern America’s most sought after hardwood furniture product.
Then in the 1980s, the challenges of a fast-globalizing economy hit: Bassett was being undercut by imports from Asian markets while at the same time being put under pressure by its shareholders to increase profits margins. By the mid-2000’s, the company had shuttered all its factories in the town of Bassett, choosing to outsource and offshore its wood furniture to drastically lower-wage plants in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
The Bassett factory closings came amidst a large swath of widespread furniture industry offshoring in notable nearby factory towns like High Point, Hickory, and Greensboro, NC. Few places in the United States, outside of perhaps the Rust Belt, were hit as drastically as Bassett, VA when its furniture operations moved across the seas. From the late 1980s through the early 2000s, nearly twenty-thousand people were put out of work.
J.D. Bassett’s grandson, John Bassett III, had different plans for American furniture, though. Having once been the heir of Bassett Furniture, he was pushed out of the family business by his older brother-in-law, who ultimately made the choice to offshore the company’s operations. As a result, Bassett III found an operation in another mountain town where he could resist the industry’s push towards overseas outsourcing.
That company is Vaughan-Bassett, and currently employs over 500 craftsmen in the small town of Galax, Va. In 2003, John Bassett III brought the struggling Vaughan-Bassett company back to life, organizing what was at that time the biggest appeal against China over its illegal practice of selling exports to America that are valued lower than the cost of their materials. Bassett III won. And as Beth May documents in her book Factory Man, “Vaughan-Bassett ended up with forty-six million dollars in anti-dumping duties, a development that allowed John Bassett to keep his factory going at the same time as his relatives in Bassett were closing most of theirs.”
Today, Vaughan-Bassett’s mission is simple: provide customers with furniture that not only reflects the standards and traditions of American craftsmanship, but which also makes their customers feel at home. Vaughan-Bassett is extremely proud of the fact that 100-percent of its furniture is crafted in the United States, made with hardwoods harvested near their plants in the Mid-Atlantic region. Still under the tutelage of John Bassett III, Vaughan-Bassett is the largest manufacturer of wooden bedroom furniture in America.
A Tradition in Flux
Rewind two centuries from the Bassett sagas of the 1990s, to an earlier series of sagas following American independence. Before the country’s formal independence from Britain in 1783, the American colonies were fast-becoming a global titan in the furniture industry. Its abundance of domestic hardwood forests provided European and Asian markets with a completely new lumber palette to choose from. Notably, white oak and black walnut from the American colonies were some of the most sought after furniture woods in late-18th century Europe.
From the 1720s to the early 1760s, British industrialists (funded typically by the Crown), flocked to America to expand or establish their furniture shops in emerging hubs like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, bringing with them their own teams of master craftsmen to guide and grow a young American furniture industry. As historian Carl Bridenbaugh notes, during the period of the 1740s - 1760s, hardwood furniture pieces from the American colonies were among the most sought after commodities on British, French, and Spanish markets.
By 1800, and in the wake of the War of Independence, the budding furniture industry in America would undergo a significant transformation. Three major factors contributed to this drastic shift:
The Crown retracted its funding from furniture factories in the United States, prompting many shop owners to return to Britain in search of better business opportunities.
The passing of the Embargo Act of 1807 closed U.S. ports to exports, essentially shutting the American furniture industry off from its largest consumer in Europe.
Lastly, America’s emphasis on land acquisition and agriculture led to a depletion in trades-related industries, which resulted in a significant exodus of master craftsmen and skilled furniture makers.
With a crippled market demand and shrinking workforce, the young American furniture industry was forced to pivot. During that period, there was a marked shift in America away from European furniture aesthetics like the once sought after Sheraton, Hepplewhite and Chippendale styles and a turn toward more locally and organically produced furniture that emphasized Shaker, Pennsylvania Dutch and Federal styles.
While many master woodworkers of this time aimed to apprentice abroad in cities like London, Paris, and Vienna, they did so with the express purpose of returning to America to design and build what was emerging as uniquely American furniture. So strong was the American furniture movement in the 19th century, that by the early 1900s, manufacturers like Gustav Stickley, Thomas Stanley and J.D. Bassett would inherit a powerful and vibrant domestic legacy of structural and aesthetic quality in the world of home furnishings.
Stories We Tell
The story of furniture made in America is a complex and at times difficult one to understand. It’s a story full of pushes and pulls, starts and stops, and victories and losses. All of which combine to create the landscape of wood furniture products we experience today.
But every piece of furniture tells a story. About the trees it came from, about the people who made it, and most of all, about the families that bring it into their homes. Some stories are made local, with places and trees and people we recognize. Others come to us through the hazy screen of a digitized world market. Knowing the details of your furniture–where it came from and who made it–will only ever add to the truth of its value.
I still remember the story of the first major furniture purchase my parents made when I was young. It was a white oak dining table. An extension table with two leaves and a hand-cut double pedestal base, modeled in the Pennsylvania Dutch style.
They loaded me and my sister into a beige Toyota Previa minivan on a cold January night and took off towards Amish country in what felt like a blizzard. After three hours and multiple traffic stops, we arrived at a medium-sized factory in Norwalk, Ohio (nearly an hour late for our appointment). The shop owner was generous, and walked my parents through the details of the table they wanted, emphasizing the locally-sourced solid wood, the hand-applied finish, and the carefully installed extension mechanisms.
With mom convinced, my sister and I high-fived a purchase that our young brains knew little about and could barely appreciate at the time. Two weeks later, it was a sunny day when two craftsmen delivered the piece. After they left, I remember my dad rubbing the top and saying “this feels real.” My mom put her hand on his shoulder and said “it feels like home.”
Nearly thirty years later, that table remains a much-used and celebrated centerpiece within my parents’ house.
Brenelli Design’s Commitment to Made in America:
Every one of our pieces is made from locally-harvested solid hardwoods from the Mid-Atlantic region. Our white oak and ash come mostly from Virginia, while our maple and black walnut grow in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
The leather we use in our furniture comes directly from free range cattle ranches in south Texas
The metal components to our pieces are designed by us and welded in close partnership with fellow craftspeople down the road in Zebulon, NC
Brenelli works hard to be mindful of the global furniture market, and we aim to provide high quality and custom made furniture at fair prices
Check out our collection of custom work and contact us for your next piece of heirloom furniture, made in America.
