Louey Chisholm

Louise Brigham (January 1, 1875 – March 30, 1956) was an American early-20th-century designer and teacher. She was a pioneering champion of the use of recycled materials in furniture design. A system she invented for building furniture out of packing crates represents one of the earliest to adopt a modular approach to the design of individual units. She also founded one of the earliest ready-to-assemble furniture companies, as well as the Home Thrift Organization (HTA) to teach woodworking to New York City boys. In 1940, she received a medal from the HTA in honor of her quarter century of service to the organization.

Early life and education

Louise Ashton Brigham was born in Boston, the fourth of five children of William Cleveland Brigham (b. 1840) and Maria Wilson Sheppard Brigham (b. 1845). She had an older brother, Waldo (b. 1869), and an older sister, Lucy (b. 1873). Another sister, Emma, was born four years before Louise but died in infancy. The final child of the family, Anna, was born a year after Louise. When Louise was only two years old, her mother died, and she was to lose her father when she was just 19.

Brigham studied art and design in New York at the Pratt Institute and the Chase School of Art (which became the New York School of Art in 1898 and is known today as Parsons The New School for Design), as well as at art schools in Europe.

Career

At some point in the late 1890s, Brigham became involved in the settlement house movement and established Sunshine Cottage in Cleveland, Ohio. The 1900 census lists her as a teacher and "settlement worker" in Cleveland, living at Hiram House, a settlement house founded by George A. Bellamy. In the early 1900s, she founded another settlement house in Cleveland, Sunshine Cottage.