Rattan is a collective name for about 600 species of climbing palms native to the rainforests of Southeast Asia, India, and parts of Africa. Unlike bamboo, which is hollow and segmented, rattan is solid, flexible, and fibrous, making it ideal for bending and weaving. It grows rapidly, twisting around trees to reach sunlight, and can stretch hundreds of feet long.
Unlike bamboo, which is hollow and jointed, rattan is solid, fibrous, and astonishingly strong. When steamed or heated, it softens enough to be bent into sweeping curves, then hardens again into a form both resilient and graceful. Each part of the plant serves a purpose. The inner core, called reed, is pale and porous, ideal for weaving or wrapping. The glossy outer bark, or cane, is peeled away in thin, gleaming ribbons used to bind joints, weave chair seats, or add decorative patterning. And the pole—the entire vine itself—is the backbone of rattan furniture: steamed, bent, and coaxed into frames.
Rattan entered global trade networks in the 17th and 18th centuries through European colonial routes. The British and Dutch East India Companies exported it from their Southeast Asian colonies to Europe, where craftsmen used it for chair caning and decorative arts.
By the Victorian era, rattan symbolized both exoticism and refinement. European furniture makers, particularly in England and France, used it for lightweight seating and sunroom pieces, prized for its “tropical” aesthetic. Rattan reached the United States in the early 19th century as ship ballast. Around 1840, Boston entrepreneur Cyrus Wakefield recognized its potential, importing it and developing machinery to process and weave it.
Rattan furniture flourished as part of the broader rise of American middle-class domestic culture in the Victorian period. By the 1860s, rattan furniture became a fashionable symbol of refinement. Its lightweight, ventilated qualities suited parlors, porches, conservatories, and later, resort hotels. Cyrus Wakefield founded Wakefield Rattan Company, by then based in South Reading, Massachusetts (later renamed to Wakefield to honor the company’s founder) was producing an extraordinary range of goods: chairs, cradles, carriage bodies, settees, and even railroad seats woven in cane for “coolness, cleanliness, and durability.”
By 1865, Wakefield’s factory employed over 200 workers, making it among the world’s largest producer of rattan products. His contemporary, Levi Heywood in nearby Gardner, Massachusetts, was mechanizing wooden chair manufacture at the same time. When the two companies merged in 1897, the result was the Heywood Brothers & Wakefield Company.
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked the golden age of American rattan and wicker furniture. Advances in steam-bending and reed-weaving machinery made it possible to create elaborate, curvilinear designs inspired by the Aesthetic and Art Nouveau movements.
Rattan in the 1930s occupied a fascinating in-between moment—transitional, modernizing, and increasingly tied to the emerging idea of leisure. By then, rattan was no longer the ornate, curlicued material of the Victorian veranda but had become a symbol of relaxed, cosmopolitan living, reflecting changes in design, technology, and culture. Rattan suites appeared in tropical resorts, winter gardens, and movie sets—especially in Hollywood, which helped popularize the material as chic and informal.
During World War II, Heywood-Wakefield’s rattan operations came to an abrupt halt as global trade routes collapsed. Most commercial rattan had been imported from Indonesia, which fell under Japanese occupation, cutting off supplies of cane, reed, and rattan almost overnight. Factories that once turned out wicker and reed furniture were quickly retooled to produce military goods instead.door” and “outdoor” styles. It was tropical enough to feel new, but polished enough to feel respectable.