La-Z-Boy
Monroe, MI
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La-Z-Boy was founded in 1927 by cousins Edward Knabusch and Edwin Shoemaker in Monroe, Michigan, who invented a wooden slat porch chair that could recline, and their reclining chair design became so closely associated with the company that its name became a generic term for recliners generally. The company's recliner became a fixture of mid-20th-century American living rooms and a widely recognized symbol of domestic comfort in American popular culture, frequently referenced in film and television as visual shorthand for a relaxed, homey living space. La-Z-Boy expanded from its original reclining chair into a full furniture manufacturer, and its name's transformation into a genericized trademark, used informally by many people to describe any brand's recliner, reflects a level of cultural market penetration few furniture brands achieve. La-Z-Boy's combination of inventing the modern recliner and its resulting genericized-trademark status in American culture has made it one of the most culturally recognizable furniture brands in the country.
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- Top 6 Furniture Brands of All Time
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