OCR Text |
Show HE INVENTED THE LOOM, j The Life and Work of Joseph' M. Jacquard. 1 t HIS MACHINE REVOLUTIONIZED WEAVING. ' With it One Man can do the Work of, Ten People, and do it Better. J Joseph Marie Jacquard will always be 1 regarded as oue of the foremost inventors in the testile world, aii-l his loom as one of the most brilliant of industrial invention. inven-tion. Few have ever accomplished such a revolution iu industry, and Btill fewer have by so doing alleviated the sufferings and improved the condition of their fellow fel-low laborers to the extent realized by ' J acq nard, J acq n ard was in the full sense of the word a self made man of the people, and it is this fact that makes the study of his life particularly interesting inter-esting to an American. Born at Lyons July 7, son of a 61 lk weaver, he assisted his father at the loom from bis earliest years, acting as a "draw boy," as those workmen were termed who pulled the strings by which means the warp was manipulated on the old looms so as to weave figured goods, i Here he became familiar with all the woes of the "draw boy's" life, and bo deeply did they impress themselves on his mind that the desire to do away with this drudgery continued to be his leading lead-ing thought throughout life. The boy's i health gave way at the loom, so he was apprenticed to a bookbinder aud later to I a type founder. But the demon of in-i in-i veutive genius had already seized upon ! him, and he spent most of his time in tinkering, and was regarded as hopelessly hopeless-ly lazy by those around him. When Jacquard was twenty years of age his father died, leaving him a small patrimony, with which the young man began weaving brocades on his own account, ac-count, and soon after married. But he devoted most of his time to tinkering around on his looms, and this, with his inexperience, brought about his business failure within a few years. In 1700 the idea of a loom that would do away with the "draw boys" assumed definite shape in Jacqnard's mind, but : his extreme poverty rendered it impos i sible for him to construct a model at that time. However, he did not de-Bpair, de-Bpair, and a copy of "Poor Richard's Almanac," Al-manac," which came into his hands about this time, encouraged him all the more to persevere and to try to triumph in spite of his poverty. Domestic afflictions now overwhelmed him. Having enlisted in the army for the national defence with his young son. he saw the latter fall at his side in an engagement on the Rhine. Returning to Lyons, Jacquard arrived just in time to bo at the deathbed of his wife. He was employed as day laborer in a factory, and devoted his evenings with great teal to the modeling of his favorite i idea. Most of tbe work was done with ajackknife. In 1800 his loom was finished A model sent to the industrial exposition expo-sition in 1801 brought him a bronze medal and a call to Paris to repair the looms of the "Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers," at a salary of 3,000 francs per annum. While there he saw the loom with which Vancauson had vainly tried to solve the question which occupied Jacquard, and from this loom our inventor in-ventor gained some new ideas. He returned re-turned to Lyons, and after two years' faithful work succeeded in bringing forth a loom which effectively solved tho difficulty, and enabled a single weaver to weave figured goods. The govem- j ment at once granted him a pension of 3,000 francs and a royalty of fifty francs per loom. To understand exactly the value of this invention it must be borne in mind that up to this time the weaving of figured fig-ured goods required from five to ten workmen to each loom, most of them being employed in pulling the strings, by which means the warp was opened for the passage of the shuttle. A string had to be drawn for every passage of the shuttle. Thua the "draw boys" had to work rapidly, the pulling was heavy, necessitating a strained position and requiring re-quiring the most painful exactness, as a 6ingle mistake would mar the figure. For this clumsy apparatus of strings and pedals, requiring the attention of a num- ber of workmen, Jacquard substituted a contrivance as simple as ingenious, enabling en-abling a single workman to execute the most complex patterns as easily as plain goods. Not only were the "draw boys" dispensed with, but the goods were made with a finish and exactness which before was not even dreamed of. However, in spite of Jacqnard's complete com-plete success, his loom was neither generally gen-erally taken up by manufacturers at once nor the invention hailed with delight de-light by the weavers. Every new loom threw four or more workmen out of worlc Even the "draw boys" preferred a life of torture and deformity to starvation. starva-tion. Jacquard was publicly assaulted by his enraged fellow workmen and almost al-most precipitated into the Rhone. Even the "Conseil des Prud'hommes" at ono time ordered the destruction of the new loom to appease the wrath of the weavers. weav-ers. But Jacqnard's loom, like every truly great invention, was bound to triumph, tri-umph, and by 1812 it had firmly established estab-lished itself throughout the Lyons workshops. work-shops. Numerous lucrative offers wore now made Jacquard from abroad, particularly particular-ly from England, but he preferred remaining re-maining in Lyons, giving himself up entirely en-tirely to his native town. Later on he purchased a small estate at Oullins, near Lyons, where he died Aug. 7, 1834, aged eighty-two years. It may bo said that to Jacqnard's invention in-vention is due not only the greatness of Lyons in the silk world, but the tremendous tre-mendous expansion of the silk industry the world over as well. Its influence, has, however, not been confined to the silk world, the weaving of cotton, linen, wool, jute, etc., having been affected almost al-most as much as that of bilk. Cor. Dry Goods Economist. The Boy Didn't Smoke. While wo were lying around tho camp fire ono evening after supper a boy some 13 or 14 years old came along driving some cows, and stopped for a short calL Briar had been for some time meditatively watching the smoke of bis pip curl up and mingle with that of tho firo, when ho turned to tho boy and said: "Won't you have a smoke f I've got an extra pipe in my pocket, and here's some tobacco. to-bacco. " "I don't never smoke," replied tho boy. "That's right," replied Briar. "I supposed you did or I wouldn't have asked you. I wouldn't try to induce any boy to use tobaccoit's to-baccoit's a bad habit I wish I had never began its use myself you jtwt keo;j lcMiiiT It alone; Haven't-you sometimes found it hard to keep from smoking when around nn tho farm where nearly every man has a pipe in his mouth C "No, I ilunno as I have very," replied the boy. "You see, I've chawed ever since I was 7, so that has kinder helped to keep me from wantin' to smoka If you've got any good eatin' terbacker handy I wouldn't mind takin' a bite dork plug is my style fino cut Is only about right for babies 1"' Fred H. Carruth in Chicago Tribune. : |