Vigo County Historical Society

Historical Treasure Article

Historic Treasure of the Week - October 19, 1986
By Susie Dewey
Vigo County Historical Society

From armor to boudoir
Wardrobe come full circle

In the front upper bedroom of the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., stands an imposing piece of furniture that is no less practical than it is attractive. Made of walnut and nearly 9 feet tall, it is known as a clothes press, a wardrobe or an armoire.

Just as the elegance of the furnishings in Victorian homes stated the social status of the owners, so did the nomenclature the owners used to prove their education, wealth and self image. The armoire or wardrobe is a prime example of the theory that the name is as important as the object.

The large piece of storage furniture was necessary in Europe and early America because built-in closets were unknown in medieval architecture. Closets were built. They were actually small rooms for personal purposes and they were assessed as separate rooms for tax purposes.

Consequently, early settlers, pressured by both the problem of building extra space and taxation by number of rooms, did not put closets in their homes. Even the affluent settlers in the Southern colonies relied upon pieces of furniture for storage. The poor or struggling settlers hung their few garments from hooks on the wall, but as soon as they became land holders and built larger homes, they began to collect furnishings to hold their apparel.

The wardrobes were made of mahogany in early Victorian years. The affluent could afford the imported wood, but the middle-class began to use black walnut around the middle of the 19th century. The mahogany imported from Honduras was expensive and scarce. The walnut was less costly, but the craftsmen often tinted the native wood with red stains or applied a finish containing red mahogany pigment. The wardrobe in the museum is black walnut with crotch-veneer-paneled doors.

The term armoire to describe these huge pieces of furniture is of medieval origin. The first storage pieces were designed to hold the arms and unwieldy armor of the knights. Later, a division of the cupboards permitted drawers to be placed on one side of the cupboard. Cabinetmakers began to put two parallel drawers in the base to increase storage room for soft goods. The shelves let the owners lay clothing flat. Fur-trimmed garments often were stored this way.

Early American armoires were plain, serviceable pieces, but Victorian cabinetmakers began to add carvings and ornamental doors and drawer pulls to the crest and the base. Expert craftsmen were proud of matching the burl veneer on the door panels exactly.

The armoire in the museum has plain wooden handles but has the crest and base carving ornaments. Later Victorians often added full-length mirrors to the wooden door panels, but these pieces were only in the homes of the most affluent.

The very size of the wardrobes immediately raises a question in the minds of every viewer: How were these gigantic, heavy, cumbersome pieces moved up narrow stairways and through ordinary doors? Clever craftsmen solved that problem by building them with pegs. The pieces could be completely collapsed, reassembled and pegged quickly. The sides, back, doors, shelves and drawers could be transported in pieces to the selected room.

Today, armoires are used in recreation rooms rather than in bedrooms. They furnish storage for games, books and recreational clothing. Quilts are stored on the shelves of the armoire in the museum. When these pieces are used for gun storage, they are returning to their original function--storing arms. The armoire has gone full circle.

The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday through Friday.