Just as the whole face of things has changed architecturally in the last ten or fifteen years, furnishings have also changed. The improved appreciation which makes people build sightly homes makes them fill those homes with furniture of respectable design. People are beginning to know about the history of furniture, to recognize the characteristics of the great English furniture designers and to appreciate the beauty which they handed down.
We went through the warerooms with Mr. Gay, and as I feasted my eyes upon piece after piece, set after set, of Chippendale, Sheraton, Heppelwhite, and Adam, I asked Mr. Gay about the renaissance which is upon us. One thing I was particularly curious about: I wanted to know whether the improvement in furniture sprang from popular demand or whether it had been in some measure forced upon the public by the manufacturers.
Mr. Gay told me that the change was something which originated with the people. "We have always wanted to make beautiful furniture," he said, "and we have helped all we could, but a manufacturer of furniture cannot force either good taste or bad taste upon those who buy. He has to offer them what they are willing to take, for they will not buy anything else. I know that, because sometimes we have tried to press matters a little. Now and then we have indulged ourselves to the extent of turning out some fine pieces, of one design or another, a little in advance of public appreciation, but there has never been any considerable sale for such things." He indicated a fine Jacobean library table of oak. "Take that piece for instance. We made some furniture like that twenty or twenty-five years ago, but could sell very little of it. People weren't ready for it then. Or this Adam set—as recently as five years ago we couldn't have hoped for anything more than a few nibbles on that kind of thing, but there's a big market for it now."
I asked Mr. Gay if he had any theories as to what had caused the development in popular appreciation.
"It is a great big subject," he said. "I think the magazines have done some of it. There have been quantities of publications on house furnishing. And the manufacturers' catalogues have helped, too. And as wealth and leisure have increased, people have had more time to give to the study of such things."
On the train going to Chicago I fell into conversation with a man whom I presently discerned to be a furniture manufacturer. I don't know who he was but he told me about the furniture exposition which is held in Grand Rapids in January and July each year. There are large buildings with many acres of floor space which stand idle and empty all the year around, excepting at the time of these great shows. Last year more than two hundred and fifty separate manufacturers had exhibitions, a large number of them being manufacturers whose factories were not located in Grand Rapids, but who nevertheless found it profitable to ship samples there and rent space in the exhibition buildings in order to place their wares before the buyers who gather there from all over the country.
Before we parted, this gentleman told me a story which, though he said it was an old one, I had never heard before.
According to this story, there was, in Grand Rapids, a very inquisitive furniture manufacturer, who was always trying to find out about the business done by other manufacturers. When he would meet them he would question them in a way they found exceedingly annoying.
One day, encountering a rival manufacturer upon the street, he stopped him and began the usual line of questions. The other answered several, becoming more and more irritated. But finally his inquisitor asked one too many.
"How many men are working in your factory now?" he demanded.