Commander-in-Seat: The Gunlocke Washington
2 Comments Published by Jason November 7th, 2008 in Great Men. Share This
From FDR to Jimmy Carter, when the President settled in behind his desk in the Oval Office, he settled into a Gunlocke Washington chair.
For as low as $3000, would-be world leaders can also place their rear in the Gunlocke chair. It doesn’t really appear to give enough lower-back support for an infirm old man like me, but Obama may be able to deal with it.
Gunlocke offers an interesting list of historic events that during which their chairs have provided the President comfort and support, here are a few:
1933 – The Washington chair arrives in the Oval Office with the Roosevelt administration. In it, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs the New Deal legislation, ends prohibition and declares war on Germany and Japan.
1945 – President Harry S. Truman oversees the end of World War II in Europe and later authorizes the use of atomic weapons on Japan, ending the Pacific conflict.
1961 – The 35th president of the United States takes office – John F. Kennedy. Events during his administration include the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the building of the Berlin Wall, the continuation of the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement and early events of the Vietnam War. The Washington chair is spotlighted on the cover of leading magazines as Kennedy and his son, “John John”, are captured on film sharing special family moments.
1981 – On the last day of his administration, President Jimmy Carter is relieved as the Iran hostage crisis is finally resolved after 444 days of 52 U.S. diplomats being held hostage. His Gunlocke Washington chair is eventually displayed in his presidential library.
Makes you wonder is the Gunlocke was involved in providing any support for President Clinton with his interns.
I visited the Gunlocke facilities in New York back in 1996 or so; they are (or at least were) the only remaining company in the U.S. that steam-bent wood.
They would take surprisingly huge chunks of wood and drench them in boiling hot steam, then force them into jigs until they reached the right shape. That’s how they could produce chairs with long, arching single pieces of wood making the whole back of the chair, without having to laminate it together (looks poor) or carve it out of a larger block (expensive).
The website doesn’t mention it at all now, which is somewhat disappointing if it’s not done any more.