Sofa bed
also known as a sleeper sofa
A sofa bed or sofa-bed (in the US often called a sofabed, hide-a-bed, bed-couch, sleeper-sofa, or pullout sofa) is a multifunctional furniture typically consisting of a sofa or couch that, underneath its seating cushions, hides a metal frame and thin mattress that can be unfolded or opened up to make a bed. A western-style futon differs from a sofa bed, although sofa beds using futon mattresses are common.
History
Leonard C. Bailey filed a patent for the first "folding bed" on July 18, 1899. The metal bed frame could be folded, and the bent mattress could be closed for use if needed. Later, it was known as a "hide-a-bed".
Rudolf Coopersmith filed a patent for the Davenport bed in 1905. Between 1905 and 1947, Coopersmith filed over 30 patents for mechanical parts of sofa beds, mattresses, and mattress manufacturing machinery. In 1925, he took out a patent for the sofa bed, the precursor of the modern-day pullout sofa.
William Lawrence Murphy took out a patent for making "In-A-Dor bed", which is known as a "Murphy bed" today. The folded space-saver into a wall closet characterizes it.
“Sofa bed” enters the record as also known as a sleeper sofa. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sofa, known and sleeper can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Sofa bed” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sofa, known and sleeper provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q19953097. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1905, 1947 and 1925.
Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sofa bed” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.