The Charles Horton Papers contain photographs, drawings, furniture catalogues, price lists, correspondence, and financial information related to Horton's career as a free-lance furniture designer in Statesville, North Carolina.
Charles M. Horton (1912 - 1987) was a furniture designer in Statesville, North Carolina. He graduated from Statesville High School and never studied furniture design in a formal setting. He began his career working with his brother and his father, Fred Horton. As his father's successor, he became a free-lance furniture designer in one of the most prosperous furniture manufacturing centers in the country. He designed individual pieces and suites for manufacturers throughout the Southeast. Among his clients were Lexington Chair Company and Burlington Furniture Company in North Carolina, Pulaski Furniture in Virginia, Trogdon Furniture in Georgia, and Williams Furniture Corporation in South Carolina.
Charles M. Horton (1912 - 1987) was a furniture designer in Statesville, North Carolina. He graduated from Statesville High School and never studied furniture design in a formal setting. He began his career working with his brother and his father, Fred Horton. As his father's successor, he became a free-lance furniture designer in one of the most prosperous furniture manufacturing centers in the country.
Horton designed individual pieces and suites for manufacturers throughout the Southeast. Among his clients were Lexington Chair Company and Burlington Furniture Company in North Carolina, Pulaski Furniture in Virginia, Trogdon Furniture in Georgia, and Williams Furniture Corporation in South Carolina. Williams Furniture Corporation merged with Georgia-Pacific Corporation in 1967, becoming the Williams Furniture Division.
Horton's designs reflect the interests and taste of middle-income families after World War II, when many people were establishing and furnishing homes. He designed for a clientele who wanted the warmth and security of early American values -- solid wood, patterned fabrics, and stability. His contribution to the cultivation of this taste, pervasive in the 1960s, was seen in his design for pieces for every room of the house in his Village Square suite. Manufactured by Williams Furniture Company, the Village Square suite received national attention in major newspapers nationwide, and was featured on the gameshow The Price is Right for eleven weeks in
The Charles Horton Papers contain photographs, drawings, furniture catalogues, price lists, correspondence, and financial information related to Charles Horton's career as a free-lance furniture designer in Statesville, North Carolina
Promotional materials in this collection include catalogs from more than 100 companies and include both furniture and furniture hardware. Some of the catalogs contain suites designed by Horton; others contain desgins that influenced his work. Most of the catalogs promote suites from Williams Furniture Corporation (which became the Williams Furniture Division of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation in 1967). Other companies include Bassick-Sack, Burlington Furniture Company, American Drew, Thomasville Furniture Company, Pulaski Furniture Company, and Keeler Brass Company. Price lists are available with some of the catalogs. There is also a Village Square scrapbook, which highlights the collection Horton designed for Williams Furniture Company. This scrapbook includes drawings, photographs, newspaper articles, correspondence, and references to the furniture's appearance as prizes on the game show The Price is Right in 1961.
Most of the drawings in this collection appear to be for South Carolina's Williams Furniture Corporation, but drawings for other companies, including Lexington Chair Company and Burlington Furniture Company of North Carolina and Pulaski Furniture Company of Virginia, are also included. Other drawings are from Williams Furniture Corporation's Ashley River,Casual Oak,Stoneleigh Manor,Vive La,Wedgefield Court,Village Square, and Bunk House lines.
The collection also contains books, including The Charm of Sovereign Wood, Then and Now in Furniture: Early American, Kensington Furniture, A History of American Furniture, and The Berkey & Gay Style Book.
This collection is divided into four series:
The nature of the NC State University Libraries' Special Collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The NC State University Libraries claims only physical ownership of most Special Collections materials.
The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.
[Identification of item], Charles Horton Papers, MC 00324, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC
Donated by Briget Horton, of Raleigh, N.C.; Adelaide Horton of New York, N.Y.; and Martha Horton Hart of Raleigh, N.C.; September 2002.
The collection is organized into five principal series:
This series contains furniture catalogs, reference catalogs for furniture hardware supplies and period ornaments, advertisements, and photographs from more than 100 furniture companies. Horton's The Village Square scrapbook is also included in this series.
The majority of the furniture catalogs come from Williams Furniture Corporation (which became the Williams Furniture Division of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation in 1967), but also includes companies such as Burlington Furniture, Henredon Furniture Industries, Inc., Drexel, Thomasville Furniture Industries, Inc., American Drew, and Pulaski Furniture Corporation. Furniture suites designed by Horton include Burlington Furniture's Halifax Square and Wlliams Furniture Corporation's The Nordic Collection,San Simeon,Fenwick Hall,Carriage Mark,Sunset Pine,Casual Oak,Chavala,La Mancha,Country Life,King's Tree, and Village Square. Horton is perhaps best remembered for the the Village Square line. The Village Square scrapbook includes photographs, clippings, letters from distributors, photocopies of advertisements from newspapers nationwide, and newspaper interviews with Horton that record the significance of this line. Also included in the scrapbook are letters and pricelists pertaining to the use of the furniture as prizes on the gameshow The Price is Right in 1961.
Some of the companies included in this collection are closely related. For example, Henry T. Link split Dixie into four companies in the 1950s and 1960s: Link-Taylor, Young Hinkle, and Henry Link. These companies are now known as Lexington Home Brands.
Reference catalogs include Period Furniture Hardware by Keeler Brass Company, Carvings by John Walter & Sons, and brass hardware catalogs from Bassick-Sack.
14 archival boxes
Arrangement: alphabetical by company
This series consists of correspondence and financial documents.
Correspondence from the 1940s includes letters between Horton and A. F. Lenart of Lee Radio Manufacturing Corporation in New York City; Bonner Thompson of Thomason Plywood Corporation in Fayetteville, North Carolina; Abe Mann of Abe Mann Furniture Sales Agency in New York City; and John S. Creech of Unique Furniture Makers of Winston-Salem, North Carolina Also included is a letter from Turner Manufacturing Company's J. M. Wagner to Jimmy Horton.
Correspondence from the 1950s includes letters between Horton and Joseph Brunner of Wholesale Furniture in New York City; Abe Mann and Max Levy of Abe Mann Furniture Sales Agency; C. A. Troutman of Universal Company in High Point, North Carolina; F. P. Shockey of Shockey Company in Lexington, North Carolina; Ray Trogdon and Corbin Smith of Trogdon Furniture Company, in Toccoa, Georgia; W. E. Covington of Williams Furniture Corporation; and Margaret Hammersley of Home Furnishing Industry Committee. There are also many letters written to W. E. Covington regarding Williams Furniture Corporation's Casual Oak suite (No. R-3300).
Correspondence from the 1960s includes letters between Horton and Dean of North Carolina State College's School of Desgin Henry L. Kamphoefner; and J. Clyde Hooker, Sr. of Hooker Furniture Corporation in Martinsville, Virginia; as well as a letter from Leonard Eisen of Interior Product Design to Fred Stanley of Pulaski Furniture Company.
Correspondence from the 1979 and 1980 includes letters to Horton from Stanley DuBose of the Georgia-Pacific Corporation in Sumter, South Carolina; as well as memos from Royce A. Jones of Jackson, Mississippi to DuBose.
Undated correspondence includes a letter from Horton with drawings for the Spanish Provincial suite. Also included are office memos mentioning the Casual Oak and Today and Tomorrow suites.
Financial documents include a ledger dated from 1932 to 1934, as well as invoices and estimates dated from 1949 to 1977. There are numerous Companies mentioned in these documents, including Webb Furniture Company in Galax, Virginia; Conover Furniture Company in Conover, North Carolina; and Forest Furniture Company in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina
0.5 archival boxes
includes drawings
The majority of the drawings in this collection appear to be for South Carolina's Williams Furniture Corporation, but drawings for other companies, including Lexington Chair Company and Burlington Furniture Company of North Carolina and Pulaski Furniture Company of Virginia,are also included. Drawings from Williams Furniture Corporation include the Ashley River,Casual Oak,Stoneleigh Manor,Vive La,Wedgefield Ct.,Village Square, and Bunk House suites.
Drawings in this collection typically are in pencil and do not have any color; however, Horton added color to many. Colored drawings are typically done brown colored pencil, with yellow and red added to some. Most of the drawings are originals, altough a few are reproductions.
Many drawings are labeled, making it clear which suite they belong to. Of these drawings, some can be matched with furniture pictured in catalogs. Of the drawings that cannot be matched to catalogue picutres, some were either discontinued or not included in the suite.
Other drawings, however, are either not labeled at all or have not been clearly identified with any furniture suites. Some include suite numbers, but do not appear to clearly match photographs in the furniture catalogs. These drawings have been labeled as unidentified.
11 archival boxes
Sketches.
Blueprints.
Blueprints.
Blueprints.
Blueprints.
Blueprints.
Sketches.
Includes plans for nightstands.
The books in this collection are The Charm of Sovereign Wood: Volume II (Memphis: Hardwood Manufacturers' Institute, 1918); Then-and Now in Furniture: Early American (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Waddell Manufacturing Co., 1928); The Berkey & Gay Style Book (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Berkey & Gay Furniture Co., 1929); A History of American Furniture (East Stroudsburg, Penn.: The Towse Publishing Company, 1936); and the Kensington Furniture (New York: Kensington Mfg. Company)
2 archival boxes
This collection is open for research; access requires at least 48 hours advance notice. Because of the nature of certain archival formats, including digital and audio-visual materials, access to digital files may require additional advanced notice.
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[Identification of item], Charles Horton Papers, MC 00324, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC
The nature of the NC State University Libraries' Special Collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine despite reasonable efforts. The NC State University Libraries claims only physical ownership of most Special Collections materials.
The materials from our collections are made available for use in research, teaching, and private study, pursuant to U.S. Copyright law. The user must assume full responsibility for any use of the materials, including but not limited to, infringement of copyright and publication rights of reproduced materials. Any materials used for academic research or otherwise should be fully credited with the source.
This collection may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations. Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which North Carolina State University assumes no responsibility.