Sunday’s New York Times featured a Christopher Payne Photo Essay about the history of the textile industry in America.
American made carpets make a statement. Why wouldn’t you want the same carpet that cover the floors of the country’s most powerful buildings?
The essay discusses the milestones in American textiles, from 21 year old Samuel Slater’s infamous immigration from England in 1789. Through the beginning of the industrial revolution to a fire at a major mill in August of 2013.
The photos in the essay are a study of historic textile mills in the USA, including the giant kettles at G.J. Littlewood and Son in Philadelphia, a matrix of creel with tubes for one of the carpet looms at American carpet manufacturer Bloomsburg Carpet of Bloomsburg, PA and even a beautiful light and shadow study of cutting dies used to stamp shirt collars from the New England Shirt Company of Fall River, Mass.
A historic recreation of the woven carpet from the US House of Representatives is featured in photo 10 of The Times Essay. For more information about this Carpet made in the USA see our December 5 blog “Made in the USA, for the USA!“.