Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/293

CARPET. 245 CABPET. they established carpet-factories in those coun- tries where as fugitives they settled. At this time (1685). and by this means, the English carpet industry began. In 1735 the manufac- ture of ingrain carpeting had become a nourish- ing industry in the town of Kiddenninslcr, after which this style of cari)eting is sometimes called Kidderminster. In 1831 Kichard Whytock in- vented the process of making tat)estry and velvet carpets which is described below. This was an important event in the history of the carpet in- dustry, for it put upon the market a compara- tively inexpensive pile carpet dilFering entirely .in appearance from the Scotch ingrains. The history of carpet manufacture in the Inited States begins with the ragcarj)et indus- try, which continued to be of considerable im- portance until toward the close of the last cen- tury. Each village had its weavers, to wliom the thrifty housewives brought their balls of lags, carefully sewed together and brilliantly dyed. So late as 1890 there were in the United States 854 rag-carpet weavers' shops, with an annual output valued at .*1.7U.480. The first factory for the manufacture of yarn carpets was built in Philadelphia in 1791. The .Tacquard ap- paratus for weaving designs was introduced in 1829, and in 1841 Erastus Biglow perfected the first power loom for weaving cariJets, which saved 33 Vy per cent, in the cost of labor. There were then about thirty carpet-factories in the United States, most of which made ingrain car- pets. Ten years later Biglow devised a power loom for weaving Brussels carpets. an<l thereby greatly increased the extent of their manufac- ture. The United States is now the greatest pro- ducer and consumer of carpets in the world. Most of the wool used in the manufacture of American carpets is imported, as the home- grown product is of too fine a quality to be durable. Excluding the Oriental rugs (see Rugs), the principal varieties of carpets in commerce are the Axminster, the Brussels, the Wilton, Mo- quette. Tapestry Brussels, Velvet, Ingrain, and Venetian. The French Savonnerie carpets are woven at the same factory in Paris where the Gobelin tapestries are made. They have a velvet pile, and are made by hand in one piece, the looms being large enough for several workmen to work at one time. The surface is formed bv knotting the woof and warp threads together in a com- plicated maimer, and then shearing the surface. Aubusson carpets are made at the famous tapes- try factories in Aubusson, and are a species of tapestry carpet. The centre design of an Au- busson carpet is usiuiUy a medallion. The Sa- vonnerie and Aubusson carpets, being of fine material and hand-made, are among the most expensive of tloor-covcrings. The real Turkey carpet is made in one piece. The patterns con- sist merely of curved and angular strips, of variegated but dark and unobtrusive colors. The warp is of strong linen or cotton, to which bunches or tufts of colored worsted are tied ac- cording to the pattern, a drawing of which is placed before the weaver to copy. The colored worsteds are tied very rapidly by young girls. The Axminster carpet is merely the English- made Turkey cari)et. first produced in Axmin- ster, England, in 1755, by Thomas Whitty. They are usually made to order, of the size required for the room. From the tediousness of the proc- ess of manufacture and the large amount of wool required, they are verv expensive. The Berlin car- pets, made in German.- and in the United States, are similar to the hand-made .xminsters. In making ehenillc Axniinsters, the chenille is first woven, cut into strips, and bound into thick tufts, which are held finnly together in a row by the binding thread. The clienille is then woven into a carpet, being used as the weft thread. Chenille Axmiusters over 27 inches wide are woven on a hand loom. The machine Ax- minster is made like a moquette, described be- low, but is usually finer and of better quality. The body Brussels carpet is a mixture of lineu and worsted: but. like the Turkey carpet, the worsted only is shown on the upper surface. The basis or cloth is a coarse linen fabric, and between the ujjper and imder threads of the fill- ing several worsted threads of different colors are firmly bound in. The pattern is [)roduced by drawing to the surface, between the reticulations of the cloth basis, a portion of the worsted thread of the color required at that spot to pro- duce the pattern. These updrawn portions are formed into loops, by being turned over wires, which are afterwards withdraw-n, and the loops thus left standing above the basis form the figured surface of the carjjet. The Wilton carpet is made like the Brussels, but the wire has a groove in its upper surface, and instead of being drawn out, it is liberated by passing a sharp knife through the worsted loop into this groove, and thus making a velvet pile surface instead of the looped thread. The loops are made longer than in Brussels carpet- ing, and it usually contains about 50 per cent, more wool. In the United States, the carpet called moquette is a machine-made imitation of a carpeting made by hand at Ximes, France. The machine moquette was first manufactured in 1856, on a loom invented by Halcyon Skinner. It is a pile carpet, but the pile is not formed with wires, but by cutting off little pieces of woolen thread and fastening them in tufts to the warp tliread. Carpets known as tapestiy Brussels and velvet are veiy extensively used as a cheap substitute for Brussels and Wilton, which they are made to re- semble very closely in the brilliancy and variety of pattern. The manufacture of this kind of carpet is curious and ingenious. Instead of sev- eral colored yai-ns, only one of which is drawn to the surface at any one place, while the others remain buried between the upper and under threads of the cloth basis, a single colored yarn is used, and the variety of color produced by dyeing it of various colors at intervals of its length. The yam is coiled upon a drum, and printed by means of rollers in such a manner that when the threads that encompass the roller are uncoiled and laid in line side bv side, they present an elongated printing of the pattern: so that a rose, for exami)le, the outline of which should be nearly circular, will l)e an oval, with length equal to four times its breadth. Wlien, however, the thread is looped over the wire, four inches of yarn being used for an inch of the carpet pattern, the elongation is exactly com- pensate<l, and the rose appears in its proper pro- portions. The machinery required for this is.