At the turn of the twentieth century, furniture-making became, along with textiles, one of the South's manufacturing mainstays, drawing on the region's plentiful natural resources and relatively inexpensive labor supply. Although North Carolina came to be synonymous with the furniture industry, Virginia played an important role as well. One of the Virginia concerns central to the state's emergence as a furniture center was the Lane Company, maker of the iconic Lane Cedar Chest.
Edward Hudson Lane (1891–1973) founded the company in Altavista, Campbell County, in 1912, at a junction of the Virginian and Southern railways, which allowed for easy transportation of materials to and finished products from the factory. After struggling through the first few years of its existence, Lane's fortunes received a boost during World War I, when the company contracted with the federal government to produce pine ammunition boxes. To meet wartime 
Lane advertisements reached a high point during World War II, persuading thousands of GIs leaving for overseas to purchase a Lane Hope Chest for the sweethearts they were leaving behind. Ads combined romantic images of men in uniform and their fiancees with patriotic slogans and the well-known face of national spokeswoman, and symbol of all things American, Shirley Temple. In the 1950s Lane added a number of new product lines to its repertoire, including television cabinets manufactured for General Electric and occasional tables. These were followed in the 1960s and 1970s by new lines of bedroom furniture and recliners.
0 comments:
Post a Comment