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In
1608, King Henry IV of France
established weavers in the
Louvre.
About 20 years later an old soap works,
the Savonnerie, near Paris,
was
converted to carpet weaving,
and its name remains attached
to
one of the finest types of handmade carpet,
now made at the Gobelin
tapestry factory.
Tapestries for walls and floors were made
at
Aubusson at an early date.
In
1685 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes
scattered skilled
Protestant carpet makers
over Europe. Centers of weaving were
established in England, first at
Kidderminster (1735) and later at
Wilton and Axminster. Cheaper, more easily
manufactured floor
covering soon
came into demand, and the making of
ingrain, or
reversible, carpets began
at Kidderminster. The weavers of
Flanders
had made a loom that produced
a pile by looping the worsted warp
threads, and this loom, although guarded,
was copied by a
Kidderminster weaver;
soon many looms in England were
making
Brussels carpet. Axminster was
England's headquarters for imitation
Oriental, or tufted-pile, carpet.
Until
about 1840 all carpets were made on
handlooms with such devices and
improvements as could be operated
by hand or foot power; then
Erastus Bigelow's power loom (first used in 1841),
which made it
possible for carpets to be
mass produced, revolutionized the
industry. Although handmade rugs
are still produced in some
countries, e.g.,
Turkey, carpet manufacturing has
become a highly
mechanized industry,
notably in the United States, Great Britain,
Canada, Belgium, and Japan.
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