Back in 1903, a man named Charles H. Nielsen of Kreischerville, NY filed a patent for the design and production of simple picnic tables.
Little did he know that more than 100 years later, his simple yet brilliant invention would still be used today in thousands of locations around the world. In hindsight, the portability of Nielsen's table was less significant than its innovative frame. He borrowed the X-shaped leg from another icon of American furniture design, the 18th-century sawbuck table, and added integrated seating.
The story of the checkered picnic blanket goes back centuries to a simple fabric you know as gingham. Gingham is easy to make, durable, and inexpensive. Both sides are identical, so you can flip it over when some barbecue sauce drips on it. Northern British fabric mills began producing it, with its recognizable two color pattern, at a fast pace in the 18th century.
By the 1900s it went from a fast produced cloth to a utilitarian fabric, gingham was the obvious choice for a picnic blanket or tablecloth. It was easy to wash, stood up to many uses, and inexpensive enough that it wasn’t a big loss if it got ruined.
Would a picnic really be a picnic without a few uninvited guests? You know who we're talking about. Ants! How do they always know when you're going to have a picnic? If you asked ants, they'd probably tell you that they don't crash picnics uninvited. They would argue that it's you who decides to have a picnic on their turf!
It's really not your fault, though, since it would be very hard to find a picnic spot without ants nearby. Why? Because they're everywhere. Well, not Antarctica, which is weird since it’s named after them.
The first recorded use of the term “no picnic” was in 1888. The English author Rudyard Kipling used the term several times in his short story, WEE WILLIE WINKLE: “I got my 'ead chipped like a egg; I've got pneumonia too, 'an my guts is all out o' order. 'Taint no bloomin' picnic in those parts I can tell you.”