Worktable

Worktables were one of several gender-specific forms produced in the Federal period. The silk fringed bag was for storing sewing supplies, the upper drawer, fitted with compartments, held items for writing. The leaf-covered turret cornices and tapering turned and reeded legs with a drum at the top and elongated, swelled feet are characteristic of Salem Federal-period table forms. The earliest documented use of the word “worktable” in Salem is in 1807, when the cabinetmaking partnership of Elijah and Jacob Sanderson paid Samuel McIntire three dollars for “Reeding & Carving 4 legs for [a] worktable.”

Credit: Gift of the Members of the Committee of the Bertha King Benkard Memorial Fund, 1946