H4562.17A

• california gold rush

Two simple wooden straight chairs with woven rawhide seats. From the History Information Station: Wooden chair, once painted green, with seat of rawhide. Probably manufactured in California, where rawhide and sinew were common materials for chair seats, or brought form the East and given a California-style seat when the old one wore out. Chairs received heavy use in the pioneer kitchen. As the heart of the house, the kitchen was the center of family sociability. Guests, boarders, and hired hands might join the family in the kitchen for meals and conversation, and families often gathered in chairs around the table to read aloud from magazines, books, or the Bible.