Power loom

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Some of the 1200 power looms at the Plevna factory building, completed in 1877 , at the Finlayson & Co cotton mills in Tampere, Finland

The first power loom, a mechanized loom powered by a drive shaft, was designed in 1784 by Edmund Cartwright and first built in 1785, later to be perfected by William Horrocks. It allowed textile making to be done far faster than if a human had done the same work. By 1850, Cartwright's designs were used in over 250,000 machines in England. In 1894 James Henry Northrop emigrated to the USA from Keighley, Yorkshire, England he worked for the Draper Corporation of Hopedale, Massachusetts. His invention of the automatic "weft replenishment" loom revolutionized the weaving industry. Some 700,000 "Northrop" automatic looms were sold worldwide.

Though it eventually became one of the most important inventions in the industrial revolution, it was initially limited by its reliance on water power, which required workshops equipped with power looms to be located near a source of running water. By the start of the 19th century, however, steam power had advanced enough to allow the use of this technology anywhere. Cartwright profited greatly from this, selling hundreds of his looms to Manchester firms. This technology first spread in the U.S. in Uxbridge, Massachusetts,^[1] in the Blackstone Valley, where Samuel Slater established the first American Cotton Mill in 1793 at Pawtucket, Rhode Island after memorizing the workings of a British one. The power looms used in Uxbridge were made by a Cumberland, Rhode Island machine shop, and were the first ever constructed in America.^[1]

Originally, power looms used a shuttle to throw the weft across, but in the early part of the 20th century the faster and more efficient shuttleless loom came into use. Today, advances in technology have produced a variety of looms designed to maximize production for specific types of material. The most common of these are air-jet looms and water-jet looms. Computer-driven looms are now also available to individual home weavers.

[edit] See also

• Textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution
• Timeline of clothing and textiles technology

[edit] References

v • d • e Weaving Weaves: Basketweave · Double weave · Evenweave · Pile weave · Pique · Plain weave · Satin weave · Twill Components: Textiles · Warp · Weft · Yarn Tools and techniques: Coverlet · Heddle · Ikat · Inkle weaving · Jacquard weaving · Kasuri · Loom · Navajo rug · Shuttle · Tablet weaving · Tāniko · Tapestry Types of looms: Dobby loom · Jacquard loom · Power loom

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