Firms such as Bigelow-Hartford produced lavish catalogs and advertised products direct to consumers in the early twentieth century, bypassing the traditional commission agents who had dominated marketing in the nineteenth century. Sales ballooned to more than 83 million square yards by 1923. Large rugs became a staple in upper-middle class American homes by the early twentieth century. This resulted in a decline in the production of the cheapest carpets as consumers moved toward higher quality goods as the price of higher quality weaves declined. Boom and Bust in the First Half of the Twentieth CenturyĪfter 1870, refinements in power loom technology allowed manufacturers to produce reasonable substitutes for higher quality handloom woven goods. Power looms were expensive and manufacturers had great difficulty in matching the quality of goods produced with handlooms. Handloom production outweighed power loom production as late as the 1870s in the Philadelphia area. Though Bigelow’s idea – the use of power looms in carpet production – would eventually result in great productivity gains, Bigelow’s own looms were not the primary source of the gains, nor did those gains materialize overnight. Erastus Bigelow introduced power loom technology for various types of carpeting in the early 1840s, and others quickly followed with competing designs. With the hardwood floor came a declining demand for wall-to-wall carpets and an increasing demand for smaller rugs to provide stylistic accents.Įmployment and production figures indicate that, although there was an incremental increase in productivity, production effectively rose in concert with the number of workers. The mid-nineteenth century saw the introduction of the varnished hardwood floor.

A commentator wrote in 1872 that the “general use of carpets was a necessity some few years ago, from the fact that the floors of our houses were generally built of such poor material, and in such a shiftless manner, that the floor was too unsightly to be left exposed” (Greeley, 1872). In the nineteenth century Americans used carpet to cover poor quality, soft wood floors. carpet mills numbered 215, wove more than 20 million square yards, and employed 12,000 persons. By 1850, a government survey found 116 mills producing 8 million square yards of carpets and rugs (employing more than 6,000 workers). In an early survey of the industry conducted in 1834, Timothy Pitkin found 20 carpet mills producing about 1 million square yards. industry, along with textiles generally, in 1816 and raised protective tariffs in the 1820s. In its early years, American carpet makers encountered the same problem as other textile manufacturers – imports. Skilled weavers produced carpets and rugs with handloom technology. carpet industry emerged at the end of the eighteenth century. The second industry also came along at just the right time to ride the boom in consumer spending associated with the economic golden age that followed World War II. The second American carpet industry grew from deep southern roots and utilized locally developed technology and skills. The early American carpet industry was, like other textile segments, a product of borrowed (from the United Kingdom) technology and skill that struggled throughout its existence against imports. carpet industry as two distinct industries with different trajectories. Indeed, it is probably useful to conceptualize the U.S. carpet industry also exemplifies the southward drift of textile production within the United States during the twentieth century. While many segments of the textile industry have struggled in the post-World War II era, carpet makers have prospered. industry accounts for about 45% of the world’s carpet production. Today, carpet mills located within a 65-mile radius of Dalton, Georgia, produce about 85% of the carpet sold in the U.S. There are few better examples of highly concentrated economic activity than the U.S. is surely concentration” (emphasis in the original). 5) has written that “the most striking feature of the geography of economic activity….

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