Who invented the first hideaway bed

His invention allowed him to stow his bed in his closet, transforming his one-room apartment from a bedroom into a parlor. Today, the Murphy bed , a bed that can be folded into a cabinet, is a household brand. Einhorn researched the bed's place in American history for her second master's thesis. And who invented them? With your curiosity piqued, look into the history of the Murphy bed below.

Foldaway type beds have existed for hundreds of years before the invention of the modern Murphy bed, as we know it today. Thomas Jefferson had a version of the stowaway bed installed in his famous residence Monticello, in fact. The beds there hung from ropes and hooks in bedroom alcoves.

In , Leonard Baily received a folding bed patent, but an earlier and more notable inventor would be Sarah E. Goode, whose folding cabinet bed earned her the first US patent awarded to an African American woman. Modern-day murphy beds were invented by a man named William Lawrence Murphy Murphy was the son of a gold rush 49er, who held a variety of interesting positions prior to striking gold with his invention of the Murphy bed pun intended. Murphy was a horse-breaker, a stagecoach driver, and even a pioneer town sheriff before he moved to San Francisco where he rented a one-room apartment on Bush Street and became infatuated with a young, female opera singer.

The bed is named for William Lawrence Murphy — , who applied for his first patents around Murphy beds are used for space-saving purposes, much like trundle beds, and are popular where floor space is limited, such as small homes, 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 have seen a resurgence in popularity in the early s due to the weak economy, with children moving back in with their parents and families choosing to renovate homes rather than purchasing larger ones. Most Murphy beds do not have box springs. Instead, the mattress usually lies on a platform or mesh and is held in place so as not to sag when in a closed position.