The carpet industry in the United States began in when William Sprague started the first woven carpet mill in Philadelphia. Others opened during the early s in New England. In , Erastus Bigelow permanently reshaped the industry with the invention of the power loom for weaving carpets.
He continued to devote his life to innovation — 35 separate patents were issued to him between and Bigelow introduced the first broadloom carpet in The power loom with Jacquard mechanism was developed in , and Brussels carpet was first manufactured by the Clinton Company of Massachusetts. The Brussels loom was slightly modified, making possible the manufacture of Wilton carpet. In , four brothers brought 14 looms from England and established manufacturing facilities as the Shuttleworth Brothers Company in Amsterdam, New York.
In , the company introduced a new carpet, Karnak Wilton. Its instant success was phenomenal. Flooded with orders, a new building had to be constructed to exclusively handle Karnak production.
Weavers worked four and five years without changing either the color or pattern on their looms. He and Alexander Smith combined, forming a very successful carpet company. Alexander Smith was elected to Congress in but died on the evening of Election Day. Sixteen hundred people were employed at his factory at the time of his death. During World War I, the carpet looms were converted to make supplies for the war effort.
Alexander Smith, Bigelow, and Karastan are companies continuing today as divisions of Mohawk Industries, headquartered in Georgia. Through the late s, Dalton, Georgia, struggled with cotton mills and steel manufacturing works to forge a small town in the north Georgia hills.
Northwest Georgia, with its hard-packed clay, poor farmland, and rolling hills was among the last areas of Georgia settled. Rich in a heritage of Cherokee Indians and Civil War battles, that northern corner of the state was rugged and spawned people who were independent and self-sufficient. Those were the people who brought forth and nurtured the tufted textile industry.
The industry began in a simple way, around the turn of the century. A young, Dalton woman, Catherine Evans Whitener, recreated a bedspread in a hand-crafted pattern she had seen, for a wedding gift. Copying a quilt pattern, she sewed thick cotton yarns with a running stitch into unbleached muslin, clipped the ends of the yarn so they would fluff out, and finally, washed the spread in hot water to hold the yarns in by shrinking the fabric.
Often, entire families worked to hand tuft the spreads for 10 to 25 cents per spread. Bedspread income was instrumental in helping many area families survive the depression. The very first carpet were rugs made from sheep wool or goat hair. They came onto the scene as early as 2, or 3, B. Carpets are believed to have originated somewhere in the Middle East, although exactly where is still unknown. These early carpets were primarily used to make sitting on the ground more comfortable.
The oldest known carpet is the Pazyryk carpet dated back to 5 th century B. Rudenko believed that the carpet was a part of the Achaemenid Empire, but the actual source of it is still unknown. The reason it survived 25 centuries was because the grave site was robbed and left open, causing the carpet to turn into a block of ice which helped preserve it until it was discovered.
Also, the images on it tell a story of the Scythian people. They were known as excellent horsemen with an empire ranging from Eastern Europe to Western Asia. The images woven in the carpet are of griffins, deer and riders on horseback. The history of carpet in the United States begins with William P. Sprague, who started the first carpet mill in Philadelphia in In , a man named Erastus Bigelow reshaped the carpet industry by inventing the power loom to weave carpets, which can now be found in the Smithsonian Institution.
This invention doubled carpet production during its first year of creation, then tripled by Erastus continued his life with many more inventions that he received about 35 patents for and even introduced the first broadloom carpet in A year after Bigelow brought us the broadloom carpet, four brothers came from England with 14 looms and established manufacturing facilities known as the Shuttleworth Brothers Company in Amsterdam, New York.
To add more to this growing industry, they introduced a new carpet in called Karnak Wilton. It was immediately popular and to keep up with the flood of sales, they had to construct a new, bigger building just for that carpet. They decided to call the new joint company Mohawk Carpet Mills because of the Mohawk River that flows through the city.
While all of the popular activity was going on up north, the activity down south was about to steal the thunder. The art of making carpets was probably developed on the plains of Central Asia several thousand years ago.
The nomads needed some protection from the cold winters, something more easily handled than the sheepskin coverings. At the same time they were also making decorations for their tents. The materials used for the warp, weft and pile came from the herds of goats and flock of sheep. The looms, in their simplest form, were made of two wooden ribs which were secured to the ground and between them the warp was fastened.
These horizontal looms, which are still used today by the nomads, have the advantage that they fold easily and can be moved to the next camp ground. The handmade carpets are made of transient materials and very old discoveries are rare.
The oldest known carpet was found in the year of at excavations in Siberia. After its place of discovery the carpet is named the Pazyryk-carpet or the Gorny-Altai carpet. It measures x cm and has a knot density of approximately knots per square meter. Its making is tremendous and the carpet has a higher knot density than most carpets seen in stores today. The pattern is very interestering, the middle consists of a ribbon motif, in the border you can see a procession with deers and in another border warriors on horses.
This carpet was probably manufactured in Armenia or Persia around B. When it was found it had been deeply frozen in a block of ice, which is why it is so well-preserved. Petersburg, Russia ".
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