ABSTRACT
In 1892, the Yorkshire Herald announced, ‘The twin-bed seems to have come to stay, and will no doubt in time succeed the double bed in all rooms occupied by two persons’. The Herald was ahead of the game, for this way of sleeping and the name ‘twin beds’ itself were new enough still to be making news in both Britain and the United States. To investigate twin beds as a significant cultural phenomenon starts from the premise that this distinctive way of sleeping achieved a substantial degree of acceptance and adoption. The available evidence, drawn from a multitude of sources, from novels and films to advice books, advertising materials and the press, testifies unequivocally to the spread of this sleeping arrangement in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Having reported the opinions of the American salesman and British furniture makers, the Mirror turns to someone outside the industry for comment on the relative merits of doubles and twins.
