History
The company was started as a housewares manufacturer in 1932, then bought a bankrupt furniture factory in Beecher Falls, Vermont in 1936. The firm adopted the name "Ethan Allen" for its early-American furniture introduced in 1939. It was named after the Vermont Revolutionary leader.
In 1972 Ethan Allen moved its headquarters from New York City to Danbury, CT. The Ethan Allen International Headquarters Complex includes the Ethan Allen Hotel, corporate headquarters offices, and an interior design center. The firm was sold in 1980 to Interco for $150 million, though Ancell remained an advisor. The company was sold again in 1989 to a management group headed by current Chairman, President, and CEO Farooq Kathwari. In 1993 the company went public to help raise $156.9 million through the sale of common stock.
In 2008, the company announced plans to close a dozen Design Centers. The decision was made to consolidate the Design Centers with others that were currently serving the same market area.
More than seventy percent of its cherry, maple and alder wood pieces are crafted in the United States. Towards the end of 2008 Ethan Allen began selling their products online.
In 2009, the company laid off 238 workers from Beecher Falls, Vermont. 93 workers remained. Later in the year, the plant ceased operation. In 2009, Ethan Allen closed the Eldred, PA manufacturing plant.
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Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)
“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.”
—Henry Ford (1863–1947)