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The Adirondack chair is an outdoor lounge chair with wide armrests, a tall slatted back, and a seat that is higher in the front than the back. Its name references the 
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains (; a-də-RÄN-dak) form a massif in northeastern New York with boundaries that correspond roughly to those of Adirondack Park. They cover about 5,000 square miles (13,000 km2). The mountains form a roughly circular ...
.
The chair was invented by Thomas Lee between 1900 and 1903 in Westport, New York
Westport is a town in Essex County, New York, United States overlooking Lake Champlain. The population was 1,312 at the 2010 census.
The town is on the eastern border of the county and is south of Plattsburgh and south of Montreal, Quebec, Cana ...
, but was patented by his friend Harry C. Bunnell, who added some minor adaptations to make it more suitable for convalescents. The chairs were popularized in nearby tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
sanatoria
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...
, where they were favored for the way the armrests help open up the sitter's chest. The Lee-Bunnell chair, however, had a single plank for the chair back, and it was not until 1938 that the fan-shaped back with slats was patented by Irving Wolpin.
Adirondack chairs are now often made by injection moulding
Injection moulding (U.S. spelling: injection molding) is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting molten material into a mould, or mold. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials mainly including metals (for ...
and can take any form. Since the 1980s, they have sometimes been marketed in Canada as Muskoka chairs, despite the fact that the design did not originate in Muskoka.
See also
*List of chairs
The following is a partial list of chairs with descriptions, with internal or external cross-references about most of the chairs. For other chair-like types (like bench, stool), see
0-9
* 10 Downing Street Guard Chairs, two antique chairs used ...
References
{{Authority control Chairs American design Adirondacks