About the Chattanooga Industrial Art Desk: 

"The infamous Chautauqua Industrial Art Desk was invented in the 1800's in the New York county of Chautauqua. Chautauqua was not only a county and a lake, it was the location of an original and unique school and learning center, called "Mother Chatauqua," Founded by inventor Lewis Miller and Methodist bishop John Heyl Vincent, it was first used as a school for educating Sunday school teachers. One can imagine that these pious educators were the first to sit at the Chatauqua art tables."