SNIPPET: William Lawrence MURPHY was born in Stockton, CA in 1876, and while living in a cramped one-room apartment in San Francisco with his wife, he began tinkering with a folding bed. In 1900, MURPHY perfected his folding bed and applied for a patent. The Murphy Door Bed Company was born that year and soon became the leading manufacturer of folding beds. In the 1920s, as the popularity of the bed soared, the company moved to NYC. Its fortunes rose with the invention of the compact kitchen, which was named the Murphy Cabrinette. WW-II produced a housing shortage that further benefited the company. MURPHY's son took over the business in the 1950s and guided it through a period of slack sales due to the postwar suburban housing boom. In the 1970s sales began to rise again and continued to do so. The Murphy Bed Co., as the family business came to be know, was run by William MURPHY's grandson, Clark MURPHY. William L. MURPHY died in 1959.