The Jacquard loom consisted of a mechanism installed on an electric loom that allowed the manufacture of textile products to occur in a simpler way. It allowed making more complex patterns, such as brocade, damask or matelassé.
The inventor of this loom was the Frenchman Joseph Marie Loom in 1804. His idea was to control the loom with a set of cards that had perforations and followed a sequence. These cards were the ones that allowed the construction of sequences of different lengths.
A Jacquard loom. Source: Musée des Arts et Métiers, via Wikimedia Commons.
Previous machines existed that allowed Jacquard to perfect his invention. An example of this could be observed in the works of the also French Basile Bouchon, Jean Baptiste Falcon and Jacques Vaucanson.
The Jacquard loom is still considered one of the most important inventions for the textile industry. Its relevance lay in the possibility of producing textile products in a more automated way, without the limitation of patterns.
The Jacquard name was not given to a specific model of loom. Rather, it refers to the control device that made it possible to automate the work. The use of punch cards also represented a step forward at the computer hardware level.
History
Previously, textile production was slow and dedicated work. Very complicated patterns or designs were often discarded because they were not practical or cost-effective because of the time and effort they required.
Formerly the patterns were created on adjustment looms. A second operator was required to perform some tasks manually. In addition to the weaver, there was a drawing manager.
The first advance that made it possible to improve the work of the loom occurred in 1725 thanks to Basile Bouchon. At that time the bases were established to use a strip of paper. In this case the paper band was hit with the hand; it was the principle that allowed Jacquard to raise his invention.
Jacquard adopted Bouchon's idea, used a Vaucanson-like arrangement, and replicated Falcon's idea of the cards and the prism or cylinder.
The differences that Jacquard brought to his loom were that he used a greater number of rows with needles. In total there were eight, while Vaucanson used two.
Creator
Joseph Marie Charles was a French merchant and weaver. Jacquard was really his nickname. He created the Jacquard loom and this in turn gave way to other mechanisms based on programming. Jacquard's proposed device was an early model of the mechanism IBM used to create the computer.
Biography
Jacquard was born in Lyon, France, on July 7, 1752. He was one of nine children that Jean Charles and Antoinette Rive had. Only Jacquard and his sister Clemenceau reached adulthood.
The data on Jacquard's professional beginnings are not exact. There is data that affirms that he dedicated himself to making straw hats. Other information tells that he was a soldier, a lime burner, among other roles.
He died on August 7, 1834.
Functioning
The Jacquard loom featured a series of cards that were held together by a fixed chain. This row of cards pierced a square box. The box also fulfilled the function of pressing the bars that control the mechanism.
The bar then passed through the perforations of a card. When it did not find a gap, the bar would go to the left. In addition, it had rods that served to move hooks. When the rods moved to the left, the hook stayed in place.
Then there were beams that could not move the hooks that were previously displaced by the rods. Each hook, in turn, could have several cables, which served as a guide. This guide was attached to a barrier and a load that served to make a return.
If a Jacquard loom had 400 hooks, each hook could work with four threads. This allowed to manufacture products with 1600 threads wide and with four repetitions of the fabric when crossing it.
Evolution
The first jacquard looms used to be smaller and therefore did not make pieces as wide. For this reason, the procedures had to be repeated in width to complete the textile production.
When the larger capacity machines appeared, there was more precise control of the process, fewer repetitions were done to achieve the desired width and the designs began to be larger.
Jacquard looms were originally mechanical mechanisms. In 1855 it was adapted to be used with electromagnets. Although this adaptation generated a lot of interest, it was not very successful when it was put into practice.
In Milan, in 1983, the first electronic Jacquard loom was created. Bonas Machine was the company in charge of the successful evolution.
The technology made it possible to reduce downtime or optimize production time. All thanks to computer control.
Importance
The Jacquard loom used punched cards that could be replaced and served to control a set of operations. From the beginning it was seen as an important step in the development of hardware in computing.
Being able to change the patterns, thanks to the exchange of cards, served to lay the foundations of the programming of modern computers. It was also a first step in dealing with data entry.
Scientist Charles Babbage planned to repeat the experience of the loom and use cards to store programs in its analytical mechanism.
Later, towards the end of the 19th century, Herman Hollerith also wanted to use cards to store information. The difference was that he invented a tool to tabulate them. Hollerith used his variant to save data on the 1890 census in the United States.
Data processing then became a huge industry. IBM (International Business Machine Corporation) dominated the first half of the 20th century with recording equipment.
A system similar to the jacquard loom card series was used to develop the first computers. These devices received instructions thanks to a paper band that had holes.
Computers evolved from this idea to what is known today. But really punch cards were present in the area of computing until the 80s.
References
- Barnett, A. (1997). Examining Textiles Technology. Heinneman.
- Bell, T. (2016). Jacquard Looms - Harness Weaving. Read Books Ltd.
- Essinger, J. (2010). Jacquard's web. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Fava-Verde, J. (2011). Silk and Innovation: The Jacquard Loom in the Age of the Industrial Revolution.
- Publishing, B. (2010). The 100 most influential inventors of all time. New York.