A hope chest, also called dowry chest, cedar chest, trousseau chest, or glory box is a piece of furniture traditionally used by unmarried young women to collect items, such as clothing and household linen, in anticipation of married life.
The term "hope chest" or "cedar chest" is used in the United States; in the United Kingdom, the term is "bottom drawer"; while both terms, and "glory box" are used by women in Australia.
Social context
Using her own needlework skills to construct a trousseau and stock her glory-box "was for the working girl the equivalent of planning and saving for marriage on the part of the provident and ambitious young man." The collection of a trousseau was a common coming-of-age rite until approximately the 1950s; it was typically a step on the road to marriage between courting a man and engagement. It wasn't always collected in a special chest, hence the alternative UK term bottom drawer, which refers to putting aside one drawer in a chest of drawers for collecting the trousseau undisturbed, but such a chest was an acceptable gift for a girl approaching a marriageable age.
Contents of a "hope chest" or "glory box" included typical dowry items such as clothing (especially a special dress), table linens, towels, bed linens, quilts and occasionally dishware. As a bride would typically leave home on marriage, hope chests were sometimes made with an eye to portability, albeit infrequently. Examples of hand-made items made between 1916 and 1918 for a trousseau by a prospective bride are on display in the National Museum of Australia. In this case, the trousseau—never used because its creator's fiancé was killed in World War I before the marriage took place—was stored in calico bags rather than in a chest.
The hope chest was often used for the firstborn girl of a family. Instead of just having sheets and household linen in the bottom drawer, this box would transport these goods and dowries and then later be used as a standard piece of furniture for the lady of the house to use. This dowry chest was often richly decorated, however over time dowry chests gradually became smaller, with jewelry boxes emerging instead of large dowry boxes.
By contrast, a "bridal chest" was given to a bride at her wedding, by her husband, and so is not a "hope chest" in this sense.
Historical origins
Cassone of renaissance Italy
Large decorated and showy chests, forming part of dynastic marriages in 15th and 16th century Italy. These were prized displays of wealth, of even more value than their contents.
Dutch kast or German Schrank
These are tall wardrobe-like chests with double doors. These are larger than most hope chests, intended for regular service in the home after marriage, and so were constructed as to partially dismantle for transport.
American settlers
The peak of the hope chest as folk art came with the waves of European immigrants to America. Many of these, from Scandinavia to the Northern Midwest and Germans in Pennsylvania (Amish, had long traditions of plainly constructed chests with extensive painted decoration.
Arabic origins
These chests were also known as "dower chests" in the Middle East. "The more than 300,000 surviving documents in the Cairo Genizah are one of our richest sources of insight into daily life in Egypt from the ninth to the 19th centuries. Among them are numerous marriage contracts, and almost all refer to a dower chest. For it, we see two names used: The muqaddimah was specifically for the bride’s personal possessions; sunduq, which normally came in matching pairs, were for other goods. They were not usually elaborately decorated, except in the case of the ruling class."
Suffocation hazard to children
There have been several instances of child deaths due to suffocation inside hope chests, due to the piece's traditional design which can trap children under a heavy and sometimes self-locking lid. In 1996, following reports of at least six child suffocation deaths, the manufacturer Lane Furniture recalled 12 million hope chests, the lids of which latched shut automatically, and could not be opened from the inside. Specifically, the recall applied to the locks of all "Lane" and "Virginia Maid" cedar chests manufactured between 1912 and 1987. As part of the recall, they provide new lock latch configuration replacement parts. However, they estimated that 6 million chests still used the recalled lock latch. As of 2023 this recall is no longer available, and owners are encouraged to permanently remove the latch and lock.