On a more somber note, Mohawk’s sales director Z.L. Potter wrote that the local mills were suffering from hard times, “But I pledge you personally and for all members of the sales organization that we will leave no stone unturned that will bring in business, start all Mohawk looms up again and give you the security of employment you desire.”

Selling Amsterdam carpets

By Bob Cudmore

Amsterdam rugs made it at least twice to the White House. The Liberty Rug was one of 20 Axminster carpets woven in Amsterdam by the Shuttleworth mills to mark the initial floodlighting ceremony at the Statue of Liberty in New York in 1916. The rug was then presented to President Woodrow Wilson for his bedroom at the White House.  In 1947 a Chenille rug from Mohawk Carpet showing the Presidential seal was produced for President Harry Truman’s Oval Office.

Following the recent column on Mohawk’s Wheel of Life carpet, woven for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, retired Amsterdam educator Gavin Murdoch has provided Mohawk Carpet publications from his family’s collection.

A 1930 in house publication called the Mohawk Courier contained praise from a New York City theater for a Mohawk rug and described how the Amsterdam firm’s sales force was expanding around the country to fight the Great Depression.

A Chenille carpet from Amsterdam had been installed in 1927 at the Roxy Theatre in New York.  Manager C.W. Griswold was lavish in his praise, “The writer is positively amazed at the life and durability of this rug, subjected to daily traffic for over three years.  It is really remarkable when you consider that we have entertained 25 million persons during this period.”

On a more somber note, Mohawk’s sales director Z.L. Potter wrote that the local mills were suffering from hard times, “But I pledge you personally and for all members of the sales organization that we will leave no stone unturned that will bring in business, start all Mohawk looms up again and give you the security of employment you desire.”

The opposite page described a going away dinner at Saltsman’s Hotel in Ephratah for regional sales managers who were being dispatched to San Francisco, Philadelphia and St. Louis to promote the company’s line.

Colonel G.H. Durston was assigned to San Francisco, and J. Ralph Blocher drew the Philadelphia assignment.  “Invited but not present at the dinner because he was already enroute for his new home in St. Louis was John Smeallie,” wrote the Courier.

A picture showed Smeallie, his wife and daughters standing in front of an automobile pulling an impressive trailer.  Smeallie reported the car and trailer made the 1100 trip without a “mar or trouble.”

Smeallie said, “I snaked the trailer along at 45 and 50 miles per hour on straight concrete stretches and had absolutely no trouble in traffic, even in Cleveland, Indianapolis or St. Louis.  We stopped for some meals and prepared others in transit, Mrs. Smeallie walking about the car and kitchen just as if she were at home.  She claimed it rode much more comfortably than any sedan she was ever in and read a book enroute as well as drinking in the scenery.”

COMPUTER PREDECESSOR

Amsterdam’s former carpet mills produced several kinds of floor coverings—Axminster, Chenille and Wilton.  Wilton carpet has interested me the most, partly because that was what my father, Clarence Cudmore, wove for Mohawk and partly because of its connection to modern days.

Wilton is a wool carpet that can have as many as five colors per pattern. The name derives from Wilton, England.

Wilton was woven on Jacquard looms, invented by Joseph Jacquard in France in 1801  The pattern was determined by hundreds if not thousands of paper punch cards that controlled what color yarn the consumer saw on top of the carpet. 

The Jacquard loom’s punch card system is frequently described as an industrial prototype of early computer hardware.  Since the punch cards could be used multiple times, Jacquard looms even predicted the concept of computer programming.

Tomorrow

The saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater...

Episode 448

Bruce Henderson, author of “Bridge to the Sun: the Secret Role of the Japanese Americans Who Fought in the Pacific in World War II.”

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II—kept hidden for decades—even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives—a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller, historian, and New York Times best-selling author of Sons and Soldiers—the saga of the Japanese American U.S. Army soldiers who fought in the Pacific theater, in Burma, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, with their families back home in America, under U.S. Executive Order 9066, held behind barbed wire in government internment camps.

Saturday, November 12, 2022- From the Archives- Episode 139, November 25, 2016-T Martin Bennett, author of “Wounded Tiger”: The true story of the pilot who led the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose life was transformed by an American prisoner and by a girl he never met. 

Sunday, November 13, 2022 Focus on History from Daily Gazette and Amsterdam Recorder. Stories from Amsterdam’s Guy Park Manor.

Mohawk Valley Weather, Thursday, November 10, 2022

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