Clothes Rack
A recreated clothes rack based on historic descriptions.
Claims that Thomas Jefferson invented the clothes hanger are unfounded, although he did have a "convenient contrivance" for hanging clothes in his closet at Monticello. His grandson-in-law called it a "turning machine."[1] Another guest reported: "In a recess at the foot of the bed was a horse with forty-eight projecting hands on which hung his coats and waistcoats and which he could turn round with a long stick, a knick-knack that Jefferson was fond of showing with many other little mechanical inventions."[2]
References
- ^ Joseph Coolidge to Nicholas P. Trist, [January 5, 1827], Nicholas P. Trist Papers, Library of Congress. Transcription available at Jefferson Quotes and Family Letters.
- ^ Augustus John Foster, Jeffersonian America: Notes on the United States of America, ed. Richard Beale Davis (San Marino, CA: Huntington Library, 1954), 144. Foster was secretary to the British Legation in Washington in 1805-07.