H70.142.12

• california gold rush

Chair. Description: Chair, painted blue, leather seat. Appalachian-style, ladder-back chair with web-woven 'gut" seat. Acquired in Mendocino. Such chairs were made in small factories in Mendocino and Sonoma counties and probably elsewhere in California. From the History Information Station: Wooden chair with seat of woven animal sinew, painted blue. Either manufactured in California, where sinew and rawhide were common materials for chair seats, or brought from 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.

Used: Mendocino Co. | Sonoma Co. | Factory ~ California