Folding Chair
Most Americans have a folding chair or two that they use religiously on family barbeques and even on fishing trips, as they are so easy and portable. These chairs are also commonly seen in wrestling and boxing matches, when the wrestler or boxer sits in the corner for a break and a drink of much needed water (although in the case of wrestling, the chair is often used more as a weapon, than as a place of rest!). The folding chair has a long history, and was amazingly around in the early Egyptian, Roman and Greek times – with the magistrates of Rome using them, as well as the emperor. Although today, folding chairs can be made from a wide array of different materials, in those ancient days, they were made exclusively from wood, but did have beautiful artistic carvings and engravings of ivory on them, for added value and luxury, as well as an indication of the wealthy.
During the middle ages, the folding chair grew in popularity, and was used a great deal in churches as well, although it was still very basic. In the 16th century, however, the folding chair was modified to have armrests as well as headrests, although it was still mainly made out of wood, and not the metal and plastic varieties that we have today. Over the years, the folding chair advanced greatly, with many different variations being produced, and en masse, which meant that the high status symbol it used to carry disappeared, as everybody had one. People started realizing the great use of these chairs, especially in the case of meetings, concerts or other events – as the bother of dragging hundreds of large chairs and removing them after the event was eliminated, with you just having to quickly stack them, and rearranging the hall was also no longer the mission it used to be.
The folding chair was always used greatly within the military, from Napoleon’s time to the present, as its’ functionality was extremely useful. In actual fact, the design used in Napoleon’s folding chair in the military fields is the exact forefather of what we call the director’s chair today. There are so many different patents floating across America for the folding chair, with every different design having its’ rightful designer, and in fact chair design has grown tremendously in the last fifty years or more. Some of the chairs designed are made specifically for sporting events, barbeques (with a holder for your beer!), fishing trips, camping trips and even sunbathing on the beach – there’s one for every conceivable place you might need a chair! Today many high schools and even theatres use the folding chair as an easy means to assemblies and production viewing – making it easier to clean the hall afterwards. Cinemas use a variation of the folding chair, in that the chairs are all affixed together, and yet they fold up, unless sat upon by the film viewer.