W. & J. Sloane was a luxury furniture and rug store in New York City that catered to the prominent, including the White House and the Breakers, and wealthy, including the Rockefeller, Whitney, and Vanderbilt families. After a long period of prosperity and prominence, the firm went through a short period of decline and was forced to file for bankruptcy in 1985. History On March 2, 1843, the company was founded as a rug importer and seller by William Sloane, who had just emigrated from Kilmarnock, Scotland, a town famous for expensive furniture, fine carpets and rugs. Its teak and jute resources came from East Bengal (present day Bangladesh). In 1852, his younger brother John W. Sloane joined the firm, upon which it was renamed W. & J. Sloane, followed by William's son William Douglas Sloane. It was the first company to import oriental carpets into the United States. It soon expanded to include furniture and other home furnishings, and quickly became the choice of the elite in New York. In the late 19th century, the company added an antiques department, started producing furniture, and became the first home furnishings store in the country, billing itself as "W. & J. Sloane Interior Decorators and Home Furnishers." Its flagship store was originally located at Broadway and 19th Street, in "Ladies' Mile", relocating later to 414 Fifth Avenue at 38th Street, the former flagship of Franklin Simon & Co. Taste-setter for America In 1891, W. & J. Sloane incorporated and set the national decorating taste of the United States, and over the next sixty years decorated the homes of the most prominent people in the country, including the Breakers and the White House, created Hollywood movie sets, and even designed and decorated interiors of automobiles. It opened a branch in San Francisco, California originally to furnish pavilions at the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition (it also furnished the model homes at the 1939 New York World's Fair). It later acquired other upscale firms such as the California Furniture Company, and in 1925 a subsidiary, the Company of Master Craftsmen was founded by William Sloane Coffin Sr. (the father of Rev. William Sloane Coffin) to create colonial revival furniture. During World War II the company worked with the Newport News Company and the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company on shipbuilding contracts for the United States Navy fitting out the interiors of liberty ships under the direction