The famous Eames plywood chairs are a design staples that will always mark a fantastic era in design and the definition of design classics, and ofcourse they were 99% plywood and about 1% hardware. What made the designed pieces by the Eames such an exciting moment in design history was the birth of molded Plywood as a large scale industry. Laminated thin pieces of wood, crisscrossed and glued together for optimum performance and beautiful sculptural malleability. We designed and manufactured our Bookseat and more recently the much smaller production of our Architectural Scaled Rulers with the exact same principles as this historical and inspiring methods of the Eames duo. With the only difference that we use a much finer grade of wood such as Walnut and Hard Maple. 
Here in Canada, the origin of plywood and the plywood industry goes back to 1950's when the MacMillan Bloedel company (Vancouver BC, 1908-1999) invested in the infrastructure for production and sales of plywood across Canada. Here is a little video to give you an idea of what it must have been like back in the day!
More info on the history of Plywood in Canada:
http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/prof/sijpkes/abc-structures-2005/Lectures-2005/lecture-6/plywoodpart1.html
An article on the Eames from Time Magazine 1950: http://time.com/3754246/charles-and-ray-eames-simply-genius/