International Housewares Association.

The International Housewares Association is a trade association representing manufacturers of home furnishings and appliances in North America, Europe and Asia.

The International Housewares Association traces its beginnings to 1927 when members of the National Home Furnishing Manufacturers Association organized a Chicago exposition to display the kitchenware and appliances manufactured by more than 115 regional firms. The New York Housewares Manufacturers Association organized a rival trade show in New York in 1932. The two associations merged in 1941 to form the Housewares Manufacturers Association, which held a unified trade show at the Palmer House in Chicago. The shows were then suspended during the war, and in 1946 the Housewares Manufacturers Association merged with the New York Housewares Association to form the National Housewares Manufacturers Association (NHMA). The first postwar trade show was held in Philadelphia in 1947.

By the early 1950s, the annual housewares show had grown to nearly 600 exhibitors with an increasing European and Japanese presence. The show increased in scale with the proliferation of consumer goods that followed. The NHMA began taking a more active role in promoting good design in the 1960s and in 1966 initiated the juried Housewares Design Awards. In 1993, NHMA and the International Design Society of America began offering a National Student Design prize and an incentive for design students to think creatively about housewares. NHMA began sponsoring international expositions in the 1970s, and in 1981 it organized the Household Products Export Council with the cooperation of the U.S. Department of Commerce. To reflect its enlarged scope, the NHMA changed its name to the International Housewares Association in 2000. It currently has over 20,000 members representing a broad spectrum of consumer product manufacturers and distributors.