While the furniture industry was becoming increasingly mechanized by the 1850s, wealthier, fashionable buyers might purchase a suite of hand-carved furniture like this one by the German-born New York cabinetmaker John Henry Belter. However, even Belter needed the help of steam-pressing machines to produce the deeply undulating curves and pierced, carved edges characteristic of his furnishings. He achieved the necessary construction strength for his designs by laminating thin sheets of hardwoods into a plywood—a process Belter patented in 1849.