instead of being woven as an integral part of the 

 foundation, was knotted to the threads which formed 

 the foundation. In other words, Axminster-type 

 carpets were the domestic Oriental carpets, for they 

 were made by hand-knotting in the same way as 

 Oriental pile rugs. 



Carpet-knotting had, of course, been practiced 

 in England at an earlier date, primarily in connection 

 with the so-called Turkey work. The technique had, 

 however, fallen into disuse by the second half of the 

 17th century. ^^ As a consequence when carpet- 

 knotting was revived a century later it was looked 

 upon as a new industry. Initial efforts to manufacture 

 knotted-pile carpets were made between 1750 and 

 1 755 by Peter Parisot, first at London in association 

 with two French emigrant weavers who had applied 

 to him for help when they had "run themselves into 

 Debt" attempting to make a large carpet, and later 

 at Fulham about 1753 where he employed other 

 foreign as well as domestic workers in the production 

 of floor coverings.'' 



Although Parisot's enterprise failed, it provided 

 Thomas Whitty of Axminster, who visited the Ful- 

 ham manufactory in 1755 — the year it closed — with 

 the necessary stimulus and ideas to carry out his own 

 scheme for manufacturing knotted-pile carpets. 

 Whitty's experiments in carpet-knotting had begun 

 in 1754 when he saw some Oriental carpets. One 

 in particular, measuring 36 by 21 feet, led him to 

 wonder how "a carpet of so great a breadth could 

 be woven in figure without a seam in it." Up to the 

 time of his visit to Fulham, Whitty's ideas "went no 

 farther than a horizontal loom" which for commercial 

 purposes, he later wrote, "would have been a very 

 spare and tedious way of working." This "difficulty" 

 was "removed" after seeing the manufactory at 

 Fulham.** 



Presumably Parisot's looms were vertical like the 

 ones used in the Near East, because this was the way 

 Whitty set up his own looms. The carpets at Ax- 

 minster "are wrought in perpendicular looms, by 



females, whose fingers move with a velocity beyond 

 the power of the eye to follow," noted Samuel Curwen, 

 an American who, in 1777, saw the workshop some 22 

 years after Thomas Whitty had begun his first 

 knotted-pile carpet.'* Some idea of how the manu- 

 factory was run and the carpets made at Axminster 

 is provided by Mrs. Abigail Adams, who visited 

 Whitty's workshop during her husband's appoint- 

 ment as American minister to England. In a letter 

 addressed to her sister and dated September 15, 1778, 

 the future mistress of the White House wrote ; 



It [Axminster] is a small place, but has two manufactures 



of note; one of carpets, and one of tapes; both of which 



we visited. The manufactory of the carpets is wholly 



performed by women and children. You would have 



been surprised to see in how ordinary a building this 



rich manufactory was carried on. A few glass windows 



in some of our barns would be equal to it. They have 



but two prices for their carpets woven here; the one is 



eighteen shillings, and the other twenty-four, a square 



yard. They are woven of any dimensions you please, 



and without a seam. The colors are most beautiful, 



and the carpets very durable.'^ 



Writing in her diary on July 26 at the time of the 



visit, Mrs. Adams was more explicit about the quality 



and appearance of Axminsters. "The carpets are 



equally durable with the Turkey, but surpass them 



in coulours and figure." •" 



At the same time that Whitty was beginning to 

 weave carpets at Axminster, a number of other people 

 were also attempting the commercial manufacture 

 of knotted-pile carpets in England. The infant in- 

 dustry soon received recognition as well as encourage- 

 ment because in 1756 the Royal Society for the En- 

 couragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce 

 offered premiums for the best carpets measuring not 

 less than 15 by 12 feet made after the manner of 

 Turkish carpets, that is, using the knotting technique. 

 The winners were the principal makers of knotted- 

 pile carpets in England, Thomas Moore of Moor- 

 fields in 1757, Claude Passavant of Exeter in 1758, 

 and Thomas Whitty of Axminster with whom the 



»2 Kendrick, op. cit. (footnote 52), pp. 139-141. 



»' Peter Parisot, An Account of Ihe New Manujaclory of 

 Tapestry and nj Carpets (London, 1753). Quoted in C. E. C. 

 Tattersall, .-1 History of British Carpets (Bcnfleet, England: 

 F. Lewis, Ltd., 1934), pp. 60-62. 



"Thomas Whitty's recollections written in 1790. In James 

 HiNE, "The Origin of Axminster Carpets," Reports and Trans- 

 actions of the Devonshire Association for Ihe Advancement of Science, 

 Literature, and Art (1889). vol. 21, pp. 331-37. 



»5 The Journal and Letters of Samuel Curwen, An Ameiican in 

 England, from 1775 to 17l<3, edit. George .Atkinson Ward (4th ed.; 

 Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1864), p. 172. 



96 Letter from Mrs. .Abigail .Adams. London, to Mrs. Mary 

 Cranch, Braintree, Ma.ss., Sept. 15, 1787. In The Letters of 

 Mrs. Adams, op. cit. (footnote 33), p. 332. 



«' Abigail Adams' Diary of a Tour from London to Plymouth, 20-28 

 July 1787. In The Adams Papers, op. cit. (footnote 20), vol, 3, 

 p. 206. 



PAPER 59: FLOOR COVERINGS IN 18TH-CENTURY AMERICA 



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