Louise Brigham and the Early History of Sustainable Furniture Design

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xviii

   PDF

2. Introduction: Adventures of a Scrap Artist

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 1-11

3. The Limits of Education

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 13-24

4. Box Furniture

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 25-48

5. The Social Program

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 49-65

6. The Home Thrift Association

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 67-75

7. Ready-to-Assemble Furniture

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 77-83

8. Vanishing Act

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 85-90

9. Caycean Disciple

   • Antoinette LaFarge

   Pages 91-98

10. The Contemporary Context

    • Antoinette LaFarge

    Pages 99-112

11. Back Matter

    Pages 113-131

    PDF

During the Progressive Era, a time when the field of design was dominated almost entirely by men, a largely forgotten activist and teacher named Louise Brigham became a pioneer of sustainable furniture design. With her ingenious system for building inexpensive but sturdy “box furniture” out of recycled materials, she aimed to bring good design to the urban working class. As Antoinette LaFarge shows, Brigham forged a singular career for herself that embraced working in the American and European settlement movements, publishing a book of box furniture designs, running carpentry workshops in New York, and founding a company that offered some of the earliest ready-to-assemble furniture in the United States. Her work was a resounding critique of capitalism’s waste and an assertion of new values in design—values that stand at the heart of today’s open and green design movements.

• Design History
• Progressive Era history
• Furniture design
• DIY movement
• Green design movement
• IKEA
• modular furniture
• mid-century modern design
• Arts and Crafts Movement
• recycled furniture
• Home Thrift Association

“A fascinating life, told with attention to historical contexts, an awareness of the ingenuity of Brigham’s design, and a great deal of narrative flair. Brigham’s modular, upcycled furniture made from cast-off boxes in the early twentieth century reflects the dynamism of this period in terms of progressive design, and the close connection between design and a social mission.” (Stephen Knott, Lecturer in Critical and Historical Studies, Kingston University, UK)

• University of California, Irvine, Irvine, USA

  Antoinette LaFarge

Antoinette LaFarge is Professor of Art at the University of California, Irvine, USA.