A Brief History
In the American colonies, most fabrics that weren't imported were woven at home. Since the afghan was "displayed" on a bed it provided decoration as well as warmth and gave the weaver a chance to show off her weaving skills. Not every home had a loom but most had spinning wheels, and a household with no loom could spin, dye and provide thread for her neighbor to weave. There were also professional weavers who traveled from place to place and wove on looms that were available at each community.
Inventions such as the Cotton Gin and improvements in spinning mills allowed a stronger cotton thread to be produced which led to a boom in the production of hand-woven afghans in the early 19th century. Household weavers traded patterns and professional weavers added more and more shafts to their looms so they could weave fancier and more complicated patterns.
Then, in 1824, the first Jacquard loom mechanisms were imported from Europe. Joseph Marie Jacquard invented a "head" that was attached to the upper part of a loom and used cords, rods, hooks and punched cards to control the weaving of a pattern into the fabric. The jacquard head allowed very elaborate and pictorial designs to be woven.
The principles of the Jacquard machine led to development of the first modern tabulating machine used to tally the census of 1890. This machine electrically read the data on punched cards and accumulated that data on separate registers. In the early 1940's this technology led directly to the development of the modern computer which input data by means of punched cards. While some Jacquard looms are still driven by punched cards today, many are now run by computers. Our afghans are woven on looms run by computers. Our afghans are 100% cotton and are approximately 50 x 70 inches.
