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Online Museum of Creativity |
Items: Oaken Chest of Drawers
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Carpenter
Harry Orlan Miner
of Washington, PA built this oaken chest of drawers circa 1911-1912 because his
wife Armena (Cain) Miner was out of space for baby clothes. Its
construction coincided with the birth of the couple's fifth child Edward
John Miner,
For the bottom of the wide top wide drawer, seen
at left, Harry used a discarded plywood lid from the A.B. Green's Variety Store
near the corner of McCarrell Avenue and Chestnut Street. He probably obtained it
at little or no cost. The lid apparently was from a packing crate sent from
William Whitman & Co. in New York City.
For the bottoms of the two smaller, narrower drawers on the left hand side of the piece, Harry sawed a plywood lid in half from another shipping crate sent to the Green store. The hand-painted address on the lid can be seen when the two drawer bottoms are placed side by side, as seen at right.
This chest sat in the bedroom on the second floor of the Miner home in West Washington, PA, at the top of the stairs. The mirror was originally placed vertically so that small hand towels could be draped over the crossbar. Scratches on both the bar and back mirror frame attest to this positioning.
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Copyright © 2006 Mark A. Miner