On March 24, 1927, two cousins, Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker, left their steady, secure employment to start a furniture company. Knabusch was a woodworker and Shoemaker was a farmer. Shoemaker became interested in woodworking after learning about all of tools Knabusch used. They began building furniture in Knabusch’s father’s garage for their new company, the Kna-Shoe Manufacturing Company. With Shoemaker’s building talent and Knabusch marketing skills, the company began to grow.
The cousins changed the name of the company to Floral City Furniture. Borrowing money from the community, a manufacturing plant was built. It was here that the owners began designing novelty furniture. One of their first designs was for a telephone stand with a build-in seat. The product was very popular but another company soon started copying and selling the piece. Another design was a chair built for “nature’s way of relaxing.” It was an outdoor wooden chair with a reclining mechanism shaped to the contour of a person’s body. The first prototype for this chair was designed from orange crates.
Knabusch and Shoemaker believed they had another product with huge potential and they began to market their new chairs. Their plans and the way people all over the world relax was changed however by the suggestion of a furniture buyer. Arthur Richardson suggested that they upholster their chair and the first recliner was born. On January 24, 1929, the pair applied for a patent on their new product. They received U.S. Patent 1,789,337 on January 20, 1931 for a Reclining Chair.
The recliner quickly became popular. But the product needed a name. The cousins ran a contest to name their chair. Among the entries were The Sit-N-Snooze,” and “The Slack Back.” The winner was La-Z-Boy and the name was trademarked in 1931.
The company and the popularity of the chair continued to grow. Even during the financial hardships of the Great Depression, people continued to buy the chair. The cousins took many things as forms of payment included coal and farm animals. Then as television also became popular, people realized that the La-Z-Boy and a TV were a perfect combination. Today, the chair is still synonymous with the idea of relaxing