Cause A Frockus

History of Lane Furniture: 1922-1930

Apr 20, 2016 | by Becky Oeltjenbruns

Welcome to the second installment of our history on Lane Furniture: 1922-1930. Catch up on Lane’s first decade (1912-1922) in this post. In that feature we were right at the moment where our beloved company officially became The Lane Company, leaving its former identity (The Standard Red Cedar Chest Company) in the dust. I think the name is a vast improvement, wouldn’t you agree? Now that Edward Hudson Lane felt confident in the product’s future, and with WWI behind him, you’ll start to see a much braver and adventurous manufacturer. Here is where the seeds for mid-century magic were sown. Let’s dive in.

A newly launched national advertising campaign, buoyed by a well-trained sales team who found inspiration in the kitchen cabinet industry, catapulted Lane into the forefront of the home furniture industry. (Remember prior to 1922 it was just Edward doubling as the founder and salesman.) An eager public wanted more sophisticated pieces and although Lane had pioneered this in the war years, it relaunched this formerly abandoned program in response to consumer demand: beautiful wood species such as mahogany or walnut were introduced. The public was happy to purchase these stunning pieces for their homes. (This is a testament to the tangible difference a few years can have in the shift of consumer perspective.) By the early 1920s cedar chests weren’t something to tuck away – they were a point of pride. Edward Hudson Lane & his sales team made sure to remind happy young brides everywhere of this fact.

Railroad billboards, newspaper ads, and a prominent spread in the Saturday Evening Post created a cultural milestone. Purchasing a high-quality Lane Cedar Chest for your sweetheart became one of the most romantic offerings a devoted man could provide. You know that whole “diamonds are forever” mantra? Kiddie league. Back in the day nothing said forever like a cedar chest.

But Lane didn’t rest on their laurels – content to let snappy advertising and endorsements from Miss America be the coat tails they grabbed onto. In the early 20s Edward Hudson Lane focused a lot of resources on research and development. How can Lane build a better product that evolves to meet their customer’s ever-changing needs? Enter the research firm of Arthur D. Little. As commercial chemists they focused on two specific tasks: how to make the cedar chest’s olfactory experience amazing and how to cleverly use the wood waste that inevitably is a by-product of modern day manufacturing.

Fun fact: It’s estimated that Lane spent $20 million in advertising efforts from 1922-1962. In today’s dollars that is a staggering 158 million. To put that in perspective: Netflix spent approximately $121 million dollars last year in advertising.

While the manufacturing process initiative to eliminate or reduce waste proved a more complicated task, surprisingly the product development in the aroma department was addressed pretty quickly. The results of this hard work couldn’t have arrived at a more ideal time. The mahogany and walnut chests were cleverly constructed of cedar panels, with the more “exotic” wood species as the covering. The face of the chest might be a rich mahogany, but the inside was still classic cedar. Their time building ammunition boxes and developing assembly lines during the War paid off, as Lane laid claim to the most air tight chests on the market. This distinction between the lining of cedar and the outside wood selection gave happy gals that experience of bold cedar aroma when they opened the lid. Scent is the sense most highly associated with memory – Lane was definitely onto something special. Find out where the next years take Lane in our upcoming installment.

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The author would like to thank “Lane Furniture with a Tradition and a Future: The Company’s First 50 Years” by Edward Hudson Lane and the various bloggers & collectors out there who adore Lane!

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