About early American rug making
Philadelphia became the center of quite a thriving floorcovering business. Several small factories were in operation as early as 1800.
The Lowell Company in Lowell, Massachusetts, and the Hartford Company in Thompsonville, Connecticut, were started before 1830.
Equipment for spinning and looms for all the various types of carpet were copies and improvements of those developed in Europe.
They were either operated by hand, or by water power which had been first harnessed to run machinery by an Englishman, Richard Arkwright, in 1771.
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