Part 38

A quarter of a century ago many homes had rugs woven by the housewives with their spinning-wheels, or no floor coverings, except crude cloths made of rags. These homes, of course, were those of families in moderate circumstances, which to-day can have their attractive and comfort-giving rugs of the less expensive grades of tapestry carpet, Axminster or of the various other grades of carpet manufactured at a range of prices within the financial reach of people of modest means.

It is only a step from the ancient weaving of rugs, with all the color, glamor and romance that attached to rug-weaving in the ancient days, to the manufacture of rugs in America to-day. There is no romance attached to the making of rugs and carpets in America, except the romance of industrial achievement; but the American rug-maker is as careful of the quality and beauty of his product as was the ancient weaver, and the best standards of ancient weaving have been realized in the manufacture of rugs and carpets in America to-day.

Why Did the Ancients Make Rugs?

It is only a rug, several yards of woven threads, a design that few can understand--a simple thing, to be sure; yet what a lot of history and memories and traditions it carries! Merely a strip of carpet, with strange figures, beautiful though meaningless, a product of modern invention like many another, some may think. But the story of a rug may go back through many centuries to ancient times of opulent splendor, when wars were waged and kingdoms created and shattered for the beauty of a woman; when gorgeous palaces were raised and great spectacles of art were shown to inspire the world for thousands of years.

Only a rug, but a relic of a rich and glowing past! For in those distant days of war and pageantry, an era more classic than our own, history and romance were woven into the rug. The patterns and designs told great stories of wars and loves that swept nations away and created great new empires and related vivid accounts of intrigue and tragedy that determined history and inspired the immortal works of poets and dramatists. The rug in the ancient times was also used for religious symbolism, and sacred doctrines were inscribed in the woven figures.

Of all the arts none has been as close to the lives and history of the peoples of the earth as the art of weaving. Songs and stories of these peoples and their national achievements have been immortalized through their woven fabrics. Generations have learned of the great deeds of their forefathers through the historical accounts woven into rugs. And in the days of the early Greeks, Hebrews and Egyptians and on through the succeeding centuries until the middle ages the rug was used as a symbolical part of state, religious and romantic ceremonies.

What Makes Some Rugs so Valuable?

The reason many rugs are valued at so high a price in money is largely due to the skill of the artist or designer, just as a painting becomes valuable because the artist who painted it has succeeded in producing a remarkable result. The question of rarity also enters largely into the value of rugs. The great artist weavers of the past who worked for love of their art rather than for the money they might secure by disposing of their masterpieces, are dead, and they have had no successors. Then, also, the rug becomes valuable by reason of the amount of time and labor put into it. Many valuable rugs take years to produce, because the artist must do all his work by hand practically and tie his different colored yarns together just so, or the pattern will not come right. These knots may occur every inch or sometimes even less than an inch, and there will be thousands of hand knots in one rug.

The above is a typical Chinese rug, containing symbolical emblems.

This is an antique and is of a class that sells sometimes as high as $5,000, its rarity of design, beauty in colors, and scarcity enhances its value.]

This antique Persian was made in the district of Kurdistan, in Western Persia. The general effect is handsome, although the design is crude. The ground is of a deep rich red, and top colors of dark blue and ecru.

The most valuable Persian rugs come from Kurdistan, Khurasan, Peraghan and Karman. The most highly prized come from Kurdistan. The pattern does not show a uniform ground of flowers or other objects, but looks more like a field of wild flowers in the spring, which is very appropriate as a design for anything that is to be walked upon. It is astonishing what wonderful artistic ability is displayed by some of the members of these wild nomadic Persian people. The carpets and rugs are woven on a simple frame on which the warp is stretched. The woof, or cross threads, consist of short threads woven into the warp with the fingers and without the use of a shuttle. Then a sort of comb is pressed against the loose row of cross threads to tighten it. The weaver sits with the back of the rug towards him, so that he depends entirely on his memory to produce a perfect pattern.]

This Tabriz reproduction has all the characteristics of the genuine rug in both design and color. The ground is of a soft rose with figures olives, ivory and deep blue.]

The Making of Carpets

How Are Modern Rugs and Carpets Made?

The best way to learn of this is for us to take a brief visit to one of the largest carpet factories, where we will assume we have already arrived.

There is a sharp whistle, then an outlet of steam, the clang of a bell and a locomotive rolls around the curve of the spur-track into the factory yard. Attached to it are several freight cars that only the day before received their cargoes at the New York docks fresh from steamships coming from foreign lands. Inside the yard, the engine comes to a stop alongside a warehouse. Sturdy men unlock the doors of the cars and begin pulling out bales of the imported wool.

This is the first step in the evolution of a rug. Between the arrival of the rough wool at the warehouse and the placing in the stock room of the finished rug, splendidly woven after an artistic design shown in attractive colors, many interesting processes are followed. It is sufficient to state that few people looking at rugs of the Saxony, or Axminster or Tapestry type realize the high degree of mechanical science and artistic perception that have been brought to bear in the manufacture of these rugs.

After the arrival of the wool there are many steps to be taken until the skeins of yarn receive their coloring treatment in the dye-house and, at the bidding of the great machine, assemble themselves in the beautiful designs that the artists have created. Though there are many details of work in the development of a rug, they have been so well mastered that the employes in charge of every stage of the rug’s evolution give to their work a nicety of attention in little time that careful training and scientific understanding alone can supply.

The travel-stained covers of the bales are removed. The heavy bulk is broken and the tightly-compressed bales loosened. Then the wool is fed into the washing-machine, and after that goes into the picking-machine. The process of cleansing the wool is an elaborate one, for it is so full of dirt and grease that several waters and several operations are necessary to its final appearance in a white and fleecy condition. After the last washing the wool is lifted to a drying-room, where the heat from steam-coils is forced through it by means of blowers.

The wool now passes to the sorting-room, where the blends are carefully made before it goes to the machine which tears the wool fibers apart, and gets them in shape for the carding and combing processes. Next the wool is blown into a spinning mill. The wool is now ready to be converted into yarn. It passes through a picking-machine, which blends the different grades of the raw material, selecting the strands as to fiber and color. Then it is refined and purified.

Through tubes the wool is forced to the carding-room by means of air pressure. In passing through the cards it is carefully weighed to secure evenness in the yarn. Leaving the carding machine, the wool is taken to the floor above, where the big spools of yarn reach the combing machine for the next process. This machine separates the long from the short fibers. The strands of wool are still thick and must go through another process before they are ready to be made into yarn. They are finally united and given sufficient strength to stand the weaving process. As the visitor sees the strands of yarn first appear on the machine they resemble rolls of smoke.

~HOW THE YARN FOR CARPETS IS DYED~

The yarn next appears on rows of spindles in the mule-room, six hundred feet long, where the yarn is twisted and brought to its final stage. The yarn now is ready for the dye-house. Here the atmosphere is very dense. Clouds of steam rise from the many vats of boiling dyes. The yarn receives the coloring for which it is intended, or is bleached in an adjoining department, and then is transferred on poles to the drying-room, after passing through a steaming process which sets the color. Next it passes on an electric conveyor to the weave-shop.

Considerable skill is required in the weaving process. The assembling of the yarns and matching of colors require expert attention. The skeins of yarn are wound on spools, which are put in sets back of the looms, each color or set representing one “frame” of color in the rug. By the famous Jacquard motion of cards each color wanted in the surface of the rug is pulled up in its proper place, the other frame color laying in the back of the rug. The mechanical process is a remarkable sight. As the pattern forms itself from the mechanical devices, the onlooker is struck with the wonder of it.

WEAVING A RUG BY MACHINERY]

This picture shows the plant of one of the largest carpet factories in the United States at Thompsonville, Conn. From the looms of these mills are annually produced ten-million yards of the twenty-five different grades of carpet manufactured by this concern.

Imagine a strip of carpet across the United States at its widest part, the Forty-second latitude--a strip of “Hartford Saxony”, say, stretching from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific coast; and then another carpet strip the length of the United States, where this country is the longest--i. e., from the Northern boundary of the state of Minnesota to the Southern boundary of the state of Texas; then imagine one more strip stretching from Chicago to New Orleans, and finally a connection between the two latter strips at about the vicinity of St. Louis.