Transformer Furniture: Nothing New Under the Sun
In 1866, Charles Hess of Cincinnati, Ohio received US Patent 56,413 for an "Improved Combined Piano, Couch and Bureau" that was designed "principally for the benefit of hotels, boarding schools, and apartments which are used for parlors etc. in day-time and yet required for sleeping rooms at night"- pretty much the description of much of the multi-function furniture we have shown on TreeHugger.
Credit: US Patent Office, found by Siegfried Gideon in Mechanization Takes Command
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