Kaplan Furniture Co.

The Kaplan Furniture Company was established in a tiny shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1905 by Isaac Kaplan, who had emigrated from Russia, via England, with his wife and children just the year before. Isaac quickly gained a reputation for building quality furniture, much of his work being reproductions and adaptations of antique pieces which he sold under the name Beacon Hill Collection. Later, the company acquired the Old Colony Furniture Company and continued to make pieces under that name as well. At the 1939 World's Fair in New York City, the Kaplan company showed an exhibit of three rooms of miniature furniture, designed by someone named Dexter Spaulding. This exhibit subsequently traveled to other venues. The company made furniture for W. & J. Sloane and also, under contract, for the United States government. After the Kaplan company left Cambridge it was located in Medford, Mass., and after Isaac's passing other generations of the Kaplan family ran the company. It closed in 1972.

In addition to the Kaplan company, records of the Robert W. Irwin Co. and Cooper-Williams, Inc., both of Boston, are included. These may have been furniture companies acquired by Kaplan, just as it had acquired the Old Colony Furniture Co. of Nashua, New Hampshire, and Medford, Massachusetts. Further informatin about Isaac Kaplan and the Kaplan Furniture Co. is available on the finding aid.