Rugs and Carpets More History

During the Middle Ages, Italian merchants imported Oriental rugs to Europe, where they were usually hung on the walls; Europeans continued to cover their floors with rushes and straw.

Moorish weavers were probably taken from Spain in the 13th century to set up the looms at Aubusson in France. Eleanor of Castile introduced Spanish rugs to England in 1255, and carpets imported from Turkey in the 15th century encouraged the development of an English rug-weaving industry.

By 1600 French carpet weavers had formed a strong guild, and in 1608 Henry IV set up looms in the Louvre. During the reign of Louis XIV, carpet manufacture was revived at Aubusson, where it had suffered from the religious wars of the 16th century, and was established at Beauvais, in Normandy. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes, that had guaranteed religious and civil freedom to French Protestants, drove French and Walloon Protestant artisans into England and Germany, where they contributed to the development of spinning and weaving techniques.

English carpet weavers were chartered at Wilton and Axminster in 1701, and in 1740 the Earl of Pembroke brought weavers from France to perform Brussels and Wilton weaving. At about the same time, carpet weaving was also established at Kidderminster, and the trade extended to northern England and Scotland. In 1830 a Parliamentary paper noted that carpet wool comprised one-twenty-eighth of the wool produced in the United Kingdom.

In the 18th century Richard Arkwright and others invented machinery that radically improved textile manufacture and together with the steam engine led to the development of the power loom, first applied to carpet making in 1839. The so-called Jacquard mechanism, which employed punched cards to control the warp yarns, gradually began to replace the complicated harness of the hand loom for the production of designs. The tapestry process of printing patterned carpets was evolved in Edinburgh in the 1830s, and in 1839 a chenille Axminster process, which was patented by James Templeton of Glasgow, gave increased colour range to carpet designs.

The U.S. carpet industry began by adapting the British system on a modest scale. Largely a cottage industry, it was organized by agents who marketed the small amount produced, until the first half of the 19th century. By 1830, the use of carpets had become popular throughout the eastern U.S., and factories were being established in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania.

The continued dominance of the U.S. market by British carpets led U.S. manufacturers to encourage the development of power equipment, and a power loom first appeared in 1841. In 1876 an Axminster loom was invented. This development stimulated the carpet industry by permitting an unlimited range of colour and design with an economy of pile.

Loom widths increased from the formerly conventional 18, 27, or 36 inches (46, 69, or 91 centimetres), to the broadloom, usually 12, 15, or 18 feet (4, 5, or 6 metres) wide, resulting in large economies in weaving costs and producing larger and more convenient unseamed areas for laying. After World War II, needle tufting developed, employing a prewoven backing for the basic construction, and the major portion of carpeting manufactured in the U.S. was produced by this system. Some tufted carpet manufacturers even began to produce outdoor carpets and imitation lawns.