The History of The Davenport
🕑 Added 2024-07-23 01:54:14 +0000 UTCDavenport was the name of a series of sofas made by the Massachusetts furniture manufacturer A. H. Davenport and Company, a late 19th-century, early 20th-century American furniture manufacturer, cabinetmaker, and interior decoration firm. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it sold luxury items at its showrooms in Boston and New York City, and produced furniture and interiors for many notable buildings, including The White House. The word "davenport," meaning a boxy sofa or sleeper-sofa, comes from the company. Due to the popularity of the furniture at the time, the name davenport became a generic trademark in parts of the United States.
It is used as a synonym for "sofa" or "couch" in some Great Lakes regions of the United States, especially the Upper Midwest and Buffalo, NY–Erie, PA areas. It was used in the Adirondack Region and the Tug Hill Plateau amongst those born there before World War II. The so-called davenports of the northern New York region are often sofa versions of the locally manufactured convertible Adirondack chair.
The word has come to mean a more formal sofa among the younger generations. In the Tug Hill and Adirondack regions in New York, a davenport may refer primarily to a couch which, like a modern futon lounge, converts on pivoting hinges from a sofa to a bed.
In other areas of North America, the word davenport is used for a futon-style sofa with storage under the seat area.
Do you call it a couch, a sofa, or a davenport?
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Comments
Tim White
I slept on a Davenport when I would visit my aunt and uncle in Toledo, OH. That’s the only time and place I heard the term growing up in Indiana.
David Johnson
When I was young we called it a couch. My grandmother actually had a clear plastic cover (not comfortable) on theirs.
