Friday Favorite – The Jenny Lind Bed

In 1851 the Swedish singer Jenny Lind made her American debut in a P.T. Barnum production that included a whopping sixty-one stop tour across the U.S. Not unlike today’s cult of celebrity with its news flashes and product endorsements, Barnum promoted the hell out of the Jenny Lind craze with the introduction of Jenny Lind hats, gloves, pianos, tobacco and even a spool bed modeled after the one the singer purportedly slept in during her tour.

Even without knowing its history, I’ve been a fan of the Jenny Lind bed and have scoured many a flea market and antique fair in search of examples. I needn’t have gone that far. There’s a version of the bed from Land of Nod (though I suspect Lind never slept in a pink one) as well as a recently introduced model from Portland, Oregon based Schoolhouse Electric.

Whitney Bed from Schoolhouse Electric