Collection of the U.S. House of Representatives, Gift of Mrs. Kathleen Rutledge
Object Details
In the 19th century, the fate of furniture in the Capitol could be fickle. Albert Pillsbury, a House Page from 1862 to 1867, took this chair, which he used while he worked at the Capitol, with him when he left Congress. Although the exact origin of this Gothic Revival piece, with a hinged seat for storage, is undocumented, its first use in the Capitol was not for Pages. The piece matches a hallway hat tree, reportedly dating from the 1840s. Pillsbury’s descendants donated the chair back to the House in 2015.