Who invented hideaway bed

He broke in horses for a while, drove a stagecoach, and even served as sheriff of a little pioneer town. At the turn of the 20th century, he made his way to San Francisco and rented a tiny one-room apartment on Bush Street, which inspired his leap into the bed business.

Murphy wanted to entertain his friends at his home, so he began toying around with the folding bed idea. Desperate for some quality courting time with the woman, Murphy was inspired to find a way to instantly turn his bedroom into a more innocent living room.

That same company continues to make them today, almost years later. Murphy beds with tables or desks that fold down when the bed is folded up are popular, and there are also models with sofas, TVs, cabinets, and shelving add-ons. Skip to content. History of the Murphy Bed. Murphy Bed Designs. Murphy Beds in Cartoons, etc. The Murphy Bed in Music. Foldaway type beds have existed for hundreds of years before the invention of the modern Murphy bed, as we know it today. Thomas Jefferson had a version of the stowaway bed installed in his famous residence Monticello, in fact.

The beds there hung from ropes and hooks in bedroom alcoves. In , Leonard Baily received a folding bed patent, but an earlier and more notable inventor would be Sarah E. Goode, whose folding cabinet bed earned her the first US patent awarded to an African American woman. Modern-day murphy beds were invented by a man named William Lawrence Murphy Murphy was the son of a gold rush 49er, who held a variety of interesting positions prior to striking gold with his invention of the Murphy bed pun intended.

Murphy was a horse-breaker, a stagecoach driver, and even a pioneer town sheriff before he moved to San Francisco where he rented a one-room apartment on Bush Street and became infatuated with a young, female opera singer. Unfortunately for Murphy, social mores of the day made it very clear that young women were not to be alone with a man in a room with a bed, which made the courtship process for Murphy a rather difficult prospect, in his one-room apartment.

Being the resourceful man that he was, Murphy created the modern day foldaway bed using door hinges and an old closet doorjamb to create a pivot, turning his room into a prudent parlor by day and allowing him to sleep on his bed at night.