Heywood and Morrill Rattan Oak Pressed Back Chairs (ca. 1900)

Recently I restored three chairs made by the Heywood and Morrill Rattan Company of Chicago, Illinois. All three chairs were made of Oak around 1900 give or take a few years. The chairs were what is known as "pressed back chairs" due to the nature of how the backs are decorated. For a closer look at the process of how these chairs are made, You can read an earlier post I wrote on another similar chair. here is the link:

 http://johnmarkpower.blogspot.com/2010/09/repairing-oak-pressed-back-side-chair.html

For information on the Heywood and Morrill Chair company, here are a few links:

  http://en.allexperts.com/q/Collectibles-General-Antiques-682/2011/1/Heywood-Merrill-Caned-Chair.htm

This second link requires a little scrolling to find the history of this particular furniture company:

http://mwcc.edu/gardnerfurniture/BriefHistory.htm

this last link is to Flickr and shows some great images of the old Heywood chair factories. There is one particular image of  a man standing next to a truck load of rattan chairs that I love:

http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=heywood+chair+factory&m=text
 
Below is a photo of the remains of one of the labels on the bottom of the seat that led me to identifying these chairs.

The chairs were all loose and needed to be glued and in addition, one needed a new stretcher turned and they all needed new pressed in Cane seats. Below is a photo of one of the chairs disassembled so that the joints could be cleaned and the chair reglued.

This next photo shows the three chairs being glued up.

This final photo shows the chairs after they had been taken to the caner. All three chairs had the old seats removed and new cane installed.