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The origin of these New England Factory Racks have been traced to the very early part of the 1900's. They were commissioned by shoe and textile factories from New England hardwoods to function in early assemble line procedures.  Used in East Coast Mills from 1900 into the 1970's, these racks maintained the production capacity for these industries for over a half century.
Early conveyor belt systems were later installed in the factories that carried the racks from station to station, replacing manual labor involved in rolling the racks. Many of the turn of the century scoop and roller castors were unfortunately replaced with rubber as the cast iron castors had damaged the wooden factory floors after many years of use. Some original castors have been located at an East Coast antique company and have a price of $20.00 per castor in addition to shipping.
 Due to the limitation of the castors, we offer castors on the refinished tall, narrow racks as well as the rarer larger racks that are cross slatted with oak and maple. Click here to view castors.
As we have restored and refinished 100's of these racks to date, we have found that very few knots appear in the wood and almost all of the posts and rails were made of clear hardwoods.
As the racks were designed for industrial uses, they are solidly constructed of various hardwoods. Oak, maple and even some cherry have been used in a single rack. Our assumption is that the contract to the mill specified only hardwood and that smaller pieces of wood remaining from other non industrial projects such as furniture were utilized for the manufacture of these racks. Although we have the ability to interchange pieces on racks that we disassemble to refinish, we keep all original parts specific to each rack to maintain the original history and appearance.
In the acquisition of the inventory of factory racks, Antique Racks, LTD also acquired a large quantity of oak and maple peg rails and shelf ladders that have multiple decorating and functional uses. These are also restored and recycled for multiple uses in the home, cottage, garden and garage.
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