Tufted Carpets

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The history of tufted carpets is very colorful and interesting. It started in the 1890s with a woman from Georgia named Catherine Evans Whitener. From there, the craft gained popularity until, by 1920, it had spread throughout Tennessee, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. It soon progressed from a hand woven craft to a thriving mechanical process. By the 1930s, Singer had adapted an industrial sewing machine for use in the mass manufacture of tufted bedspreads, robes, toilet tank and seat covers, area rugs and small scatter rugs. At the end of the 1940s, the tufted-textile industry had become a multi-million dollar industry.

The popularity of the tufted carpet grew so quickly that manufacturers and machine developers quickly found it necessary to adapt the tufting machines used for making bedspreads to have the ability to mass produce rugs that were room sized and to make wall-to-wall carpeting. Mohawk, out of New York, largely dominated the high-priced carpet industry until the 1950s, using power looms and expensive natural wool fibers.

During the 1950s, companies like E.T. Barwick Mills and Cabin Crafts, based in Georgia, started using their tufting machines and large pieces of backing material to create a new era of less expensive carpeting. Instead of the expensive wool fibers, these manufacturers were using the less costly fiber of cotton. This enabled them to produce carpets and rugs that resembled the expensive woven products. Efficiency was the greatest benefit to the new tufting process and enabled manufacturers to sell new carpets and rugs for half the price of the woven wool rugs.

Manufacturers of tufted carpets ran into problems with the manufacturers of wool carpets, however, when they began deriding their carpets as being of poor quality because of the cotton fibers used in the manufacturing process. That problem was resolved in 1957 when DuPont developed the bulked, continuous filament nylon. This nylon proved to be as inexpensive as cotton, but with the performance of wool. This new technology was the start of a boon to the textile industry in Georgia. The average price per square foot was literally cut almost in half. In the 1960s, the carpet industry became one of the fastest growing industries.

By the year 2000, there were only four companies that controlled almost 80% of the carpeting industry in the United States. Mohawk, Shaw, Beaulieu and Interface were all based in Georgia. While Mohawk, Shaw and Beauliea concentrated mainly on the residential industry, Interface, the newcomer in the group, work to develop their name in the commercial industry. They began providing what they called "modular carpeting" for use in institutions and offices. Floor mats became a whole new concept in the tufted carpets industry.

Knowing that you need to better understand this topic I recommend that you take 5 minutes to read what we have to say.