Wheelchair

Object Details

Title: Wheelchair

Designer: Franklin D. Roosevelt

Maker: Unknown

Date: ca. 1921

Medium: Oak, steel, rubber

Dimensions: 38 x 20 x 36 in. (96.5 x 50.8 x 91.4 cm)

Catalog Number: HOFR 1554

 

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History

In 1963, Eleanor Roosevelt told her readers in McCalls magazine, “I think the most original innovation was Franklin’s own invention: He converted several kitchen chairs into wheelchairs. Being armless and light of weight, they were extremely easy for my husband to manipulate.” Compared to the wheelchairs in the collection by the Wakefiled Rattan Company and the Colson Company, this chair is much smaller and omits many features of early 20^th century wheelchair design. Although FDR himself once described his wheelchair to a reporter as "a little kitchen chair on wheels," the oak seat of this chair is made from a modified Arts & Crafts style task chair popular in the 1920s. Similar chairs made by Gustav Stickley's Craftsman Workshops were called occasional or dining chairs. Remnants of the sawn legs are evident. According to family tradition, FDR designed this wheelchair and had it assembled by the local blacksmith. The reduced size of this wheelchair facilitated movement through the narrow passageways of FDR’s house, or train cars designed to transport him on his campaign tours.

 

FDR in his wheelchair with a group assembling on the terrace of Springwood in Hyde Park, New York, before the start of cruise down the Hudson River to Bear Mountain bridge and back aboard the USS Potomac. September 12, 1937. Photo courtesy of Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library & Museum.