horse hair stuffing question

How many years was horse hair used as stuffing? Does anyone know what year they stopped using it?

Quote from: Fraziercrew
How many years was horse hair used as stuffing? Does anyone know what year they stopped using it?

IIRC, horsehair is known to have been used since the late 1600s to pad chair backs, and from the 18th century on was also used to stuff seats and arms. It is still used today by better upholsterers and in restoration/conservation upholstery. If I have some time later tonight or tomorrow, I will hunt down my references volumes on historic upholstery and get some more specific info re dates.

Following up (with apologies for the delay; I'm have some troubles with my computer); per Upholstery in America & Europe from the Seventeenth Century to World War I, edited by Edward S. Cooke  (emphasis mine):

Easy chairs were seen in luxurious Paris Apartments by the 1690s. The great sofas of the period were merely double-seated version of these easy chairs. These upholstered forms were at first to be found primarily in bedchambers and grands cabinets... , rather than in the more formal withdrawing rooms and salons.

The great comfort of these late seventeenth-century easy chairs and sofas came with the use of huge, down-filled seat cushions ["squabs"] set in wells formed by padding in the underseat. For padding backs, [curled] horsehair was used because of the ease with with it could be secured in place by stitches.  The invalid chair of Philip II of Sapin had a back padded with horsehair, and the bill for some chairs made for Charles II of England in 1660 & 1661 included the item "curled haire to fill the chaire backs." Horsehair became a common back stuffing around 1670, but only in the eighteenth century was horsehair used all over chairs.

The book is a compendium of papers delivered at a 1979 symposium, and remains a standard reference on the topic. For information on 19th century upholstery technology, I highly recommend Katherine Grier's wonderful Culture & Comfort: People, Parlors and Upholstery 1850-1930; originally published in 1988 in conjunction with a superb exhibit at the Strong Museum in Rochester, NY; it was reissued in the late '90s in a smaller, "university press"-ish format, sans color illustrations.

Thanks for this suggestion ThePeacockRoom. As I read this site it is apparent that I am not the only one trying to recreate original styles of upholstery. I do have a couple of British published books on traditional upholstery techniques and, in fact, just finished a small "mooresque" gilt chair this morning (my first attempt at a ruched border - didn't turn out too bad once I got the swing of it). I have bought more than my share of ratty old chairs in order to pull out the horsehair to reuse on better items. Some folks tell me horsehair is no longer available for purchase in the US. All that I run into, and it isnt a bad alternative, is rubberized hoghair (no spring to it, though). The horsehair really is wonderful to work with - that must be why its been used for centuries.