Carpets
In 1839 he contracted to produce a power-loom capable of weaving two-ply ingrain carpets, such as had been hitherto woven exclusively by the handloom, which only produced eight yards a day. With his first loom he succeeded in obtaining ten or twelve yards daily, which he increased by improvements until a product of twenty-five yards was regularly obtained. Afterward he invented a power loom for weaving "Brussels" (i.e. pictorial tapestry) and velvet tapestry carpets, his most important invention, which attracted much attention at the World's Fair in London in 1851. The town of Clinton, Massachusetts, owed its growth and manufacturing importance to him, as it contained the coach-lace works, the Lancaster Quilt Company, and the Bigelow Carpet Company, all of which were direct results of his inventive ability. The carpet loom made his name widely known.
Bigelow and his brother Horatio are credited with founding the town of Clinton, which was originally part of the town of Lancaster. Bigelow was elected a member of the Boston Historical Society in April 1864, and in 1869 presented to that society six large volumes entitled Inventions of Erastus Brigham Bigelow patented in England from 1837 to 1868 in which were gathered the printed specifications of eighteen patents granted to him in England. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1866.
In 1862 Bigelow formulated a scheme of uniform taxation for the United States by means of stamps, and he published The Tariff Question, considered in regard to the Policy of England and the Interests of the United States (Boston, 1863).
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Famous quotes containing the word carpets:
“The heart of Paris is like nothing so much as the unending interior of a house. Buildings become furniture, courtyards become carpets and arrases, the streets are like galleries, the boulevards conservatories. It is a house, one or two centuries old, rich, bourgeois, distinguished. The only way of going out, or shutting the door behind you, is to leave the centre.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)