CARPET AND RUG INDUSTRY. Like many American industries, the manufacture of carpets had its beginnings in the Old World.
Probably the first carpetings made on a large scale were made in an establishment founded by Henry IV, King of France, at the Louvre in 1607. This establishment was followed in 1627 by one called the “Savonnerie at Chaillot, the building having previously been used as a soap factory, and by one at Beauvais,. established in 1664 by Colbert, minister of Louis XIV. Many of the weavers employed in these factories were Protestants and the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused a tremendous emigration Of these people to other countries, more particu larly to England, Holland and Flanders. Thus in England in 1735 we find that in the town of Kidderminster the manufacture of ingrain car petings had been established, and although car pet-making had been attempted as far back as the reign of Edward III at Bristol, it did not gain a permanent foothold in the country until after the immigrations from France. In 1745 the Earl of Pembroke established a factory at Wilton in which he employed only French weavers, and this was followed in 1750 by an establishment founded at Fulham by a Capuchin friar for the manufacture of Savonnerie carpet ings, but this was a failure.
The manufacture of Brussels carpet was in troduced into England from Flanders, where it undoubtedly originated, by John Broom, who put the first loom into operation in 1749. This loom, though the secret of its operation was carefully guarded, was copied, and within a short time there was a number of similar looms in operation, and so successful were the makers of this kind of carpet that Kidderminster rapidly became the centre of trade for this class of goods.
With the opening up of trade with the colo nies, the carpet manufacturers of the Old World began to look westward for new markets, and along with the early settlers came men who had learned the art of weaving and were seeking new fields in which their energies might have full sway.
Of the early carpet dealers in this country the first records are meagre, but in Parker's New York Gazette, issue of 30 June 1760, an advertisement appeared reading as follows: "J.
Alexander and Company have removed their store to Mr. Kayne's house on Smith Street, where Mr. Proctor, watch-maker, lately lived, where they sell check handkerchiefs, linens of different kinds, lawns and minonets, Scot's car pets, broad and narrow cloths, shoes of differ ent kinds, undershirts, hats, stockings, with several other goods; Fine Scot's barley and herrings. Also a choice parcel of Old Madeira in pipes?) Thus we see that carpets were sold in this country as early as the middle of the 18th century, but the manufacture did not com mence until many years after the introduction.
The history of carpet-making in America may be divided into two periods, the first cover ing the times when all carpets were made on hand looms, and extending up to the year 1841, when the perfected power loom was introduced; the second period extending from 1841, when Erastus B. Bigelow of Boston, Mass., brought forth his perfected power loom and completely revolutionized' the methods of carpet-making, up to the present time.
The earliest records show that W. P.
Sprague was the pioneer in the weaving of car pets, and in 1791 opened a in Philadel phia for the manufacture of Axminster carpet ing. It was the importation of this style of carpet that first suggested the principle of the protective tariff duty. At the time Alexander Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, trans mitted a message to the House of Representa tives in which he recommended that a duty of 454 per cent be laid on all imported carpets "to which the nature of the articles suggests no ob jection, and which may at the same time furnish a motive the more to the fabrication of them at home, toward which some beginnings have been made.* This factory was followed in 1804 by one at Worcester, owned Peter arid Ebenezer Stowell, in which were six .loons invented and constructed by themselves. ,.