ladderback chair

Ladderback chairs date back to the Middle Ages where they can be found in homes across Europe. By the 17th century, this style of chair was among the most common style in England. By the middle of the 17th century, luxury furniture makers began to make ladder-back chairs out of walnut, rather than the more common sycamore or maple and added refined decorations and engravings. The chairs became staples in homes across colonial America. They still remain among the most popular types of chairs. The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased a ladder-back chair, which was considered a peasant's chair, and was dated between the 17th and 18th centuries, in 1908. It owns a pair of them made in Philadelphia between 1785–95 that resembles chairs made by Philadelphia furniture maker Daniel Trotter (1747–1800).

Production of the several different parts of the chair required a different set of tools than other chairs popular during the 18th century in colonial America like the Windsor chair and formal sidechairs. Creating the cylindrical pieces of a ladder-back chair, such as the legs, occasionally the uprights, or the spindles, were most easily created using a turner's chisels and gouges as the wood spun on a lathe. Meanwhile, the slats along the back of the chair required several different sizes of saws and a plane. The ladderback chair's seat was formed using a drawknife when the seat was made of wood, otherwise, it was woven using cane or rush.