“Yeeha / Birthing Bed”

Few iron beds have the unusual and puzzling design that this one does. We came across this bed in New Orleans Louisiana. The “picker” that we got it from, told the story of it coming out of a very popular house of ill repute  in the infamous Storyville red-light district. It wasn’t unusual for such houses to commission the foundries in Baton Rouge to produce unusual “one of a kind” iron beds to impress their patrons. This particular iron bed has a very unique design that has integrated brass bars that set at 45 degree angles on all four corners. Can you imagine why an iron bed would have such “handles”………… Hence we named it the “Yeeha / Birthing Bed. The thought was it was used for either……”Yeeha”…….. or ……….”Birthing”. Back in the 1800’s most of our population were being born at home, and a bed of this configuration gave a convenient place for the expectant mother to hang on while in labor. The handles also gave a convenient place for a patron of  Storyville to hang on while ……….. I think you get the picture. Either way, this particular bed is a particularly good example of a well crafted Victorian piece. The scrolls are beautifully integrated into the interior iron design and the casting are of a very good quality with high definition and clarity. It’s a thick wall heavy tube bed with over sized tubing. Nearly 85% of all iron beds were made with thick wal 1″ tubing. This bed was 1 1/8th ” dia. thick wall tubing. It was quite heavy and each piece  weighed approximately 75 lbs. Iron beds of this caliber comprised less than 1% of the iron bed market.