3-011-440 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The International Exhibition: Smith's power-loom for weaving tufted pile carpets, 1862. Loom for Axminster carpet, '...invented by Mr. Alexander Smith, an American...Axminster carpet...has always been considered the most elegant as well as the most durable of all the carpetings manufactured, but, on account of the slow method of producing it by hand, the cost of it has always hitherto been so great as to place it beyond the reach of all but the most affluent...the loom automatically inserts, weaves in, cuts off, and completes one whole range of figuring tufts across the whole width of the fabric in less time than is required for the making of a single tuft by the handloom...The production is twenty-five yards per day, at a cost for labour not exceeding 2 per cent of the cost of production by the handloom... any medallion design can be woven in parts, which, when united, will have the appearance of having been woven in one piece...As the mechanism for forming and cutting the tufts is readily adjusted to any desired depth of pile, and as the strain on the material used is but nominal, there can be substituted for the fine worsted and high pile with which the loom is now operated worsted or woollen yarns of any quality'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.