The armchair on display in the “Polyarny, the Town of Glory” section of the main exhibition “The History of the Town and the Fleet” of the Polyarny Museum of History and Local Lore most likely belonged to the captain of the convoy vessel that delivered vital military cargo to Murmansk under the Lend-Lease Act.

In 2019, the museum staff requested information regarding the armchair from one of the largest museums in the world — the Mariners’ Museum and Park located in the city of Newport News in Virginia, USA. The following is a summary of the information provided by the American colleagues. The world’s first all-aluminum office chair was developed by Alcoa in 1924. In 1929, the General Fireproofing Company (GF), located in Youngstown, Ohio, began manufacturing its own aluminum chairs, the first of which were shipped in 1930. Initially, GF was engaged in the production of building materials, but during the financial crisis of 1907, when all construction almost stopped, the company decided to turn to producing metal office furniture. In 1910, they built their first steel filing with four compartments arranged vertically, and their first fireproof safe was introduced in 1912. In 1923, GF produced the first unified steel table.

The chair presented in the museum’s exposition was made by the General Fireproofing Company. It belongs to their Goodform line of chairs which was first released in 1932. At the beginning of 1940, the American government ordered thousands of such chairs to supply warships and military departments. With the outbreak of World War II, the production of chairs was discontinued and reorganized to manufacture aircraft parts. Unfortunately, the US Navy did not put identification marks on each seat, so it is impossible to determine for certain on which ship this exhibit was used. Often the chair wandered from ship to ship, since many ship parts and equipment were universal and were moved to other watercraft when the ship was damaged.