Legend has it that Benjamin Franklin had runners under his chair in 1787, making him the inventor of the rocking chair. Since the beginning of the 18th century, additional runners have been increasingly attached to chairs to make sitting more comfortable. Over time, rocking chairs in all styles have been made from a wide variety of materials.
President Kennedy helped the rocking chair to gain further popularity when he brought the first such piece of furniture into the White House in 1961. The chair from the famous Oval Office can still be seen today in the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. There are also numerous other museums in the USA, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, which exhibit famous rocking objects.
Many American artists now produce custom-designed rocking chairs. For example, the “Hemingway of hardwood,” Sam Maloof, has hand-crafted chairs for Presidents Reagan, Carter, and Clinton that cost well over $20,000.
Rocking chairs are an integral part of the American landscape today. Especially in the south, you can see them in different colors and types of wood on the porch or by the open fireplace.
If you are interested in buying your own rocking chair and would like to use it outside, you should find out about its weather resistance. Unfortunately, you often get stuck with rattan or other woven materials in your rocking chair.
