Punch Cards
Punch cards have been used to control the operation of machinery from the early nineteenth century, when the Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard patented an attachment to a loom in which a series of punched cards (one for each row of the weave) controlled the threads raised in producing the pattern. Versions of the Jacquard loom were adopted only in France but Great Britain, United States, and around the world. The Textiles collection at NMAH contains extensive materials relating to Jacquard-style loom attachments. These include designs for fabrics woven with them, cards and sets of cards, a machine for cutting such cards, and related patent models. In addition, Textiles has coverlets, shawls, and fabric samples woven with such looms.
One of Historic Palmyraâs five museums, the Alling Coverlet Museum in Palmyra, New York, displays an impressive 500 bed-sized coverlets, along with a few quilts. A coverlet is a loom-woven bed covering usually made of cotton or linen.
Bonnie J. Hays, executive director of Historic Palmyra, said that equipment developed in 1804 by Frenchman Joseph Marie Jacquard, the Jacquard loom attachment, enabled people to make coverlets in whatever creative design they wished. By inserting punched cards into the attachment, they could make coverlets in custom designs, which launched a whole industry of traveling coverlet makers.
âYou would have to lay it out with graph paper,â Hays said. âItâs kind of like needlepoint. Before that time, people could weave them. People wove baskets during Jesusâ time.â