A Murphy bed (also known as a pull-down bed, fold-down bed, or wall bed) is a bed that is hinged at one end to store vertically against the wall, or inside a closet or cabinet. Since they often can be used as both a bed or a closet, Murphy beds are multifunctional furniture.
The Murphy bed is named after William Lawrence Murphy (1876–1957), president of the Murphy Bed and Door Company. [1] [2]
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Under the name "bureau bedstead" the fold-up bed appeared in the 18th century, but never gained popularity. When closed, the bed looked like a bureau with fake drawers, hence the name. Gloag points to three 18th century pieces: one manufactured by Gillows of Lancaster and London in 1788, another one advertised by John Taylor[ which? ] in 1769, and the third one with a description published in the Prices for Cabinet Work in 1797. [3]
Foldup beds were offered in the US through the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalog, [4] [ obsolete source ] before Murphy's inventions.
Murphy applied for his first patents around 1900. According to legend, he was wooing an opera singer, but living in a one-room apartment in San Francisco, and the moral code of the time frowned upon a woman entering a man's bedroom. Murphy's invention converted his bedroom into a parlor, enabling him to entertain. [5] [ obsolete source ]
Murphy introduced pivot and counterbalanced designs for which he received a series of patents, including one for a "Disappearing Bed" on June 18, 1912, [6] and another for a "Design for a Bed" on June 27, 1916. [7]
Murphy beds are used for space-saving purposes, much like trundle beds, and are popular where floor space is limited, such as small houses, apartments, hotels, mobile homes and college dormitories. In recent years, Murphy bed units have included options such as lighting, storage cabinets, and office components. They saw a resurgence in popularity in the early 2010s due to the weak economy, with children moving back in with their parents and families choosing to renovate homes rather than purchasing larger ones. [8]
In 1989, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the term "Murphy Bed" had entered common usage so thoroughly that it was no longer eligible for trademark protection. [9] [10]
Few Murphy beds have box springs. Instead, the mattress usually lies on a wood platform or wire mesh and is held in place so as not to sag when in a closed position. The mattress is attached to the bed frame, often with elastic straps to hold the mattress in position when the unit is folded upright. Pistons-lifts or torsion springs make modern Murphy beds easy to lower and raise.
Since the first model several other variations and designs have been created, including: sideways-mounted Murphy beds, Murphy bunk beds, and solutions that include other functions. Murphy beds with tables or desks that fold down when the bed is folded up are popular, and there are also models with sofas [11] and shelving solutions. [11] [12]
If not secured or used properly, a Murphy bed could collapse on the operator. A 1945 court case in Illinois found that a tenant assumed the risk of injury from a wall bed installed in a rented inn room. [13] In 1982, a drunk man suffocated inside a closed Murphy bed, [14] and two women were entrapped and suffocated by an improperly installed wall bed in 2005. [15] A 2014 lawsuit alleged that a defective Murphy bed led to the death of a Staten Island man. [16] [17] In April 2022, Bestar Wall Beds of Quebec, Canada, recalled 129,000 beds in the United States and 53,000 beds in Canada after a 79-year-old woman was killed and 60 others injured by falling beds. [18] Later that year, Cyme Tech, also of Quebec, Canada, recalled 8,200 beds after 146 reports of falling beds resulting in 62 injuries. [19]
Murphy beds were a common setup for comic scenes in early cinema, including in silent films. The earliest known film to feature a Murphy bed is the lost 1900 Biograph Company film A Bulletproof Bed, which was remade in 1903 by Edison Pictures as the extant film Subub Surprises the Burglar. [20] It was a recurrent slapstick element in many Keystone Studios productions of the 1910s, including Cursed by His Beauty (1914), Fatty's Reckless Fling (1915), He Wouldn't Stay Down (1915), and Bath Tub Perils (1916). [20] Charlie Chaplin's 1916 One AM also features an exaggerated encounter with a Murphy bed.
Later films which use Murphy beds as comic props (often to cause injury or frustration, or to hide a clandestine guest) include Laurel and Hardy's Be Big (1930), Jimmy Stewart and Ginger Rogers's Vivacious Lady (1938), Buster Keaton's Spite Marriage (1929) and Nothing But Pleasure (1940), Abbott and Costello's Hit the Ice (1943), several Three Stooges shorts (including 1952's Corny Casanovas ), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World , the Popeye cartoon Shuteye Popeye, Bob Hope's Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number (1966), the James Bond film You Only Live Twice , The Night They Raided Minsky's , Mel Brooks's Silent Movie , The Pink Panther Strikes Again , The Great Muppet Caper , Police Academy 2 , Who Framed Roger Rabbit , Spy Hard , and Freddy vs. Jason . Murphy beds have also been used in television series; for example, an episode of Laverne and Shirley (re-creates scenes from Chaplin's One A.M.) and Love American Style ("Love and the Murphy's Bed"), Australian prime time soap opera, Number 96 , and Caroline Channing's Murphy bed in 2 Broke Girls . Murphy beds were a routine enough feature of comic film to invite commentary from retailers; one store based in Vancouver, British Columbia remarked in an advertisement, "Gone are the days of Laurel and Hardy where the beds were portrayed as a fold away trap for your worst enemies." [20]
In comics, the Murphy bed is depicted in the Tintin book Red Rackham's Treasure as being an invention of Professor Calculus.
Allan Jaffee was an American cartoonist. He was notable for his work in the satirical magazine Mad, including his trademark feature, the Mad Fold-in. Jaffee was a regular contributor to the magazine for 65 years and is its longest-running contributor. In a 2010 interview, Jaffee said, "Serious people my age are dead."
Max Fleischer was a Polish-American animator, inventor, film director and producer, and studio founder and owner. Born in Kraków, Poland, Fleischer immigrated to the United States where he became a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios, which he co-founded with his younger brother Dave. He brought such comic characters as Koko the Clown, Betty Boop, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen, and was responsible for several technological innovations, including the rotoscope, the "follow the bouncing ball" technique pioneered in the Ko-Ko Song Car-Tunes films, and the "stereoptical process". Film director Richard Fleischer was his son.
A waterbed, water mattress, or flotation mattress is a bed or mattress filled with water. Waterbeds intended for medical therapies appear in various reports through the 19th century. The modern version, invented in San Francisco and patented in 1971, became a popular consumer item in the United States through the 1980s with up to 20% of the market in 1986 and 22% in 1987. By 2013, they accounted for less than 5% of new bed sales.
An air mattress is an inflatable mattress or sleeping pad.
Metamorphic library steps are a type of archaic dual-use furniture, consisting of a small folding staircase that can be transformed into chair or desk form. In desk form, it can also be considered a mechanical desk.
Upholstery is the work of providing furniture, especially seats, with padding, springs, webbing, and fabric or leather covers. The word also refers to the materials used to upholster something.
A mattress is a large, usually rectangular pad for supporting a lying person. It is designed to be used as a bed, or on a bed frame as part of a bed. Mattresses may consist of a quilted or similarly fastened case, usually of heavy cloth, containing materials such as hair, straw, cotton, foam rubber, or a framework of metal springs. Mattresses may also be filled with air or water.
A bed is an item of furniture that is used as a place to sleep, rest, and relax.
A table is an item of furniture with a raised flat top and is supported most commonly by 1 to 4 legs. It is used as a surface for working at, eating from or on which to place things. Some common types of tables are the dining room tables, which are used for seated persons to eat meals; the coffee table, which is a low table used in living rooms to display items or serve refreshments; and the bedside table, which is commonly used to place an alarm clock and a lamp. There are also a range of specialized types of tables, such as drafting tables, used for doing architectural drawings, and sewing tables.
An infant bed is a small bed especially for infants and very young children. Infant beds are a historically recent development intended to contain a child capable of standing. The cage-like design of infant beds restricts the child to the bed. Between one and two years of age, children are able to climb out and are moved to a toddler bed to prevent an injurious fall while escaping the bed.
Upholstery coil springs are an important part of most modern upholstery. The consumer usually never sees the construction features of an upholstered piece. The overall quality of the materials and construction dictate the comfort level of an upholstered piece and its ability to satisfy the consumer over the long term. A basic upholstered piece may be composed of a frame, springs, foam, cushioning, padding, and textiles.
A sofa bed or sofa-bed is a multifunctional furniture typically consisting of a sofa or couch that, underneath its seating cushions, hides a metal frame and thin mattress that can be unfolded or opened up to make a bed. A western-style futon differs from a sofa bed, although sofa beds using futon mattresses are common.
The Simmons Bedding Company is an American major manufacturer of mattresses and related bedding products, based in Atlanta, Georgia. The company was founded in 1870. Simmons' flagship brand is Beautyrest. In addition to operating 18 manufacturing facilities in the United States and Puerto Rico, the company licenses its products internationally. According to a Simmons press release, net sales for 2005 were $855 million, and its revenue was $1.13 billion in 2007 and $1.228 billion in 2013. In 2011, Simmons ranked in third place among U.S. mattress manufacturers, with a 15.7 percent market share. In 2012, Simmons and its sister company Serta International were acquired by American private equity company Advent International. As of 2022, Simmons is a subsidiary of the American company Serta Simmons Bedding, LLC of Doraville, Georgia. On January 23, 2023, Serta Simmons Bedding filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Sarah Elisabeth Goode was an American entrepreneur and inventor. She was one of the first known African American women to receive a United States patent, which she received in 1885 for her cabinet bed.
The Sin of Harold Diddlebock is a 1947 American comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, starring the silent film comic icon Harold Lloyd, and featuring a supporting cast including female protagonist Frances Ramsden, Jimmy Conlin, Raymond Walburn, Rudy Vallee, Arline Judge, Edgar Kennedy, Franklin Pangborn, J. Farrell MacDonald, Robert Dudley, Robert Greig, Lionel Stander and Jackie the Lion. The film's story is a continuation of The Freshman (1925), one of Lloyd's most successful movies.
A bed base, sometimes called a foundation, is the part of a bed that supports the mattress. The bed base can itself be held in place and framed by the bedstead. In the United States, box-spring bed bases are very common. In Europe, sprung slats are much more common.
François Louis Castelnaux Darrac was a French master upholsterer who lived c. 1779 to 1862. Darrac was one of the most important upholsterers of his generation. He was upholsterer for the French Court. He was first an apprentice of Michel-Jacques Boulard (1761–1825). Darrac's work can be found in the Chateau de Versailles.
Harriet Ruth Brisbane Tracy (1834-1918) was born on December 6, 1834, in Charleston, South Carolina. She was a prolific and successful inventor who is credited to have received 27 patents from 1868 to 1915. These patents were in a multitude of fields such as elevators, sewing machines, and crib attachments. Of the 27 patents, six were for elevators and seventeen were for sewing machines. Ten of these patents came during a very productive period from 1890 to 1893. Of her inventions, the most renowned was her Tracy Gravity Safety Elevator. Tracy’s other notable innovations were her Sewing machines and Crib attachments. She died on May 30, 1918, at the age of 83; according to her obituary she was also "gifted as a writer of verse and prose", contributing frequently to "magazines and periodicals."
Judy Woodford Reed was an African-American woman alive during the 1880s, whose only record is known from a US patent. Reed, from Washington, D.C., is considered the first African American woman to receive a US patent. Patent No. 305,474 for a "Dough Kneader and Roller" was granted September 23, 1884. The patent was for an improved design of existing rollers with dough mixing more evenly while being kept covered and protected.
