Assembly Furniture
Merchant
c.1952-1985
Assembly Street
Columbia, SC
FAMILIES: Daniel
Assembly Furniture was established by Charles Bernard “Dan” Daniel (1913-1999) around 1952. Dan was raised in an entrepreneurial family in Camilla, Georgia and married fellow Georgia native Evelyn Halprin (1920-2006) in 1942. Together the couple moved to Columbia, South Carolina where Dan opened Assembly Furniture at 1210 Assembly Street and then moved to the adjacent storefronts at 1214 and 1216 Assembly Street around 1954. Four years later, he reacquired 1210 Assembly and began operating out of all three storefronts. In 1959 or 1960, he relocated to 1220 Assembly Street. At his various locations, Dan bought and sold home furnishings and appliances like beds, baby carriages, stoves, sewing machines, and vacuums as well as office equipment like typewriters, filing cabinets, registers, and safes. In 1967, he relocated his shop for the final time, taking up residence at 1337 Assembly Street, a former power plant for Columbia’s streetcar system. There, he ran his business for another eighteen years before announcing the closure of Assembly Furniture in 1985.
Main Image: Photograph of Assembly Furniture, 1979. Image courtesy of Russell Maxey Photograph Collection, Richland Library, Columbia, SC.
Above Image: Early advertisement for Assembly Furniture. Reprinted from The Columbia Record, November 7, 1952.
Above Image: Newspaper clipping for Assembly Furniture’s going out of business sale. Reprinted from The State, September 18, 1985.