Larkin Furniture

MR. LARKIN, I PRESUME
by Fred Taylor

The Ubiquitous Desk

The term "Larkin Desk" is a familiar one to most collectors and buyers of older and antique furniture, especially to those who favor furniture from the "Golden Oak" era around the turn of the 20th century. In fact the phrase has become so familiar that the original meaning and source may be a little obscure.

In Buffalo, NY, a young John Larkin went to work in 1861, at age 16, for Justus Weller who then moved to Chicago in 1870 to establish a new soap manufacturing concern. Larkin became a partner in the business at age 26, not long after the move to Chicago but sold his interest back to Weller in 1875 to return home to Buffalo, having recently married Hannah Frances Hubbard, a native of his home town. His new small business in Buffalo was the manufacture of a laundry product called Sweet Home Soap, his one and only product. John Larkin may have had the know-how to make soap but his new brother-in-law, Elbert Hubbard, knew how to sell it - in vast quantities. His marketing efforts were so successful that within two years Larkin had to acquire a larger manufacturing facility and soon made Hubbard his partner in the business.

Elbert Hubbard was a true pioneer in the mass marketing field. His ability with words and his creativity were responsible for the phenomenal growth experienced by J. D. Larkin and Company. His new techniques included the use of premiums enclosed with the product, at first just a small card with a homey scene on it. Housewives traded among themselves to accumulate the entire set. Sound familiar? Another technique was to sell a box of 100 pieces of soap to an individual and encourage them to resell the pieces to neighbors, while purchasing the $10 original box on the installment plan. The reseller not only made a profit, she got redeemable premium points good toward purchases from the Larkin catalog. The Larkin Company, in turn, made a profit and accumulated a huge mailing list of people who bought a disposable product, soap, and would need to buy it again. Elbert Hubbard really had an impact on his time and he would do it a second time. In 1893 he left Larkin for a trip to Europe. There he met and was impressed by William Morris (of Morris chair fame) and his artistic ideas. He returned to New York and in 1895 established the American branch of the nascent Arts and Crafts movement in Aurora, NY with the founding of a colony called The Roycrofters, a group of artisans dedicated to simpler times and ways.

Meanwhile John Larkin's soap and premium goliath marched on. He awarded such vast quantities of household goods as premiums that he had to start manufacturing them himself. One of the more popular premiums was assorted crockery which he had heretofore purchased from outside vendors, primarily in New Jersey. In 1901 Larkin chartered his own factory, named Buffalo Pottery, to supply him with premium crockery. Its first kiln was fired in 1903.

But perhaps the most lasting legacy of Mr. Larkin's industriousness and Mr. Hubbard's cleverness is in the area of home furnishings. The 1890's were the roaring years of the emerging catalog sales industry and Larkin was right out there in front with his company motto of "Factory to Family". And he meant it. All of this happily coincided with the long awaited adaptation of mass production techniques to furniture, generally begun after the Civil War but really coming into its own in the 1880's. And mass produce they did. While Sears dominated the market, there was plenty of room for Aaron Montgomery Ward and John Larkin in the furniture industry.

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