Globe-Wernicke Barrister Bookcases
Barrister, or lawyer, bookcases are characterized by their stackable modular construction and glass paned lift-doors designed to keep books free of dust. The bookcases are found in as few as two and as many as seven stackable shelving units, usually in oak (plain or quarter-sawn), but occasionally in mahogany or imitation mahogany. Higher-grade units often have an Arts & Crafts flavored leading to the glass doors with beveled or colored glass accents. Separate platform bases, molded cornices and drawers are commonly found. The lift-doors featured early “roller” glass, named for its manufacturing process and distinguished by regular parallel lines of distortion and glass bubbles in the finished panes. The bookcases, some with integral desk units, were manufactured in the Sheraton, Arts & Crafts and Mission styles.
These hugely popular bookcases were the product of two innovative office furnishings companies in the late nineteenth century that together formed the Globe-Wernicke Company.
A Cincinnati businessman, Henry C. Yeiser, founded the Globe Files Company with $60,000 in 1882. Among its many office products, this company introduced the first means of filing papers vertically – the precursor of today’s filing systems – at a time when most business records were handwritten and kept in leather bound ledgers and cubbyholes. Nine years later Otto Wernicke, a German immigrant, founded the Wernicke Company in Minneapolis. He ran straight into the economic panic of 1893, which left 4 million unemployed, but he survived and moved the company to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to be near the heart of America’s furniture manufacturing center. It was during these early years that Wernicke invented and introduced what he called the “Elastic Bookcase”. In 1892 he received a patent for this “Sectional Stock-Case”, which eventually evolved into a whole system of interchangeable bookcase units of varying sizes, fold-out desk sections, bases and cornice elements
which could be combined to meet the customer’s needs and stylistic interests.
Yeiser was so impressed with Wernicke’s system that he “bought the whole company” in 1899. The combined operation was renamed the Globe-Wernicke Company and operated from a large factory in the Norwood suburb of Cincinnati. The bookcases were wildly successful with businessmen and professionals throughout the world and the company eventually opened factories or licensed operations in England, Canada, France, Belgium and Austria.
Another important business furniture company of the time was the Fred Macey furniture company in Grand Rapids. It was merged into the Globe-Wernicki Company circa 1905. This acquisition was known for two years as Macey-Wernicke, before being renamed Macey in 1907. The Macey company was the second leading maker of barrister bookcases in the early twentieth century. The two company’s products were similar and, if lacking labels, may be distinguished by the mechanism used to slide the door when it is raised; Globe-Wernicke used rollers and equalizer scissors while Macey used a geared track. Numerous other smaller companies copied the stackable system design to one extent or another.
Globe-Wernicke was forced into receivership during the Great Depression but once again survived economic hard times to emerge as an important wartime producer of wing flaps, troop seats, nacelle doors, tail cones and ship furnishings during the 1940′s. Today the name lives on as the Globe-Weis division of Cardinal Brands Inc. It’s mission remains to “make organizing easy”.
Stackable bookcase systems are still manufactured today both in the United States and abroad, some still carrying the proud Globe-Wernicke label.
Cautionary Note: Collectors should be advised that most of the glass-fronted barrister-type bookcases are made of oak. Oak exudes tannic acid fumes, which can cause lead rot. This has been known to damage or destroy lead collectibles, including miniature military figures, antique trains and mechanical models.