Hope chest

A trousseau was a common coming-of-age rite until approximately the 1950s; it was typically a step on the road to marriage between courting a man and engagement.

As a bride would typically leave home on marriage, hope chests were sometimes made with an eye to portability, albeit infrequently.

Instead of just having sheets and household linen in the bottom drawer, this box would transport these goods and dowries and then later be used as a standard piece of furniture for the lady of the house to use.

[8][9] In 1996, following reports of at least six child suffocation deaths, the manufacturer Lane Furniture recalled 12 million hope chests, the lids of which latched shut automatically, and could not be opened from the inside.

This was aided by strong advertising, using a teenage Shirley Temple as a model, in a campaign targeted at GIs and absentee sweethearts of World War II.