Joseph Marie Jacquard

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birth_name = 7 July 1752
birth_date = Lyon
birth_place = 7 August 1834
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known_for = Invention of the programable loom
education = Worked as apprentice and learned bookbinding
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Joseph Marie Charles "nicknamed" [Several branches of the Charles family resided near each other in Lyon. According to the following article, the branches were distinguished by nicknames. Janet Delve, "Joseph Marie Jacquard: Inventor of the Jacquard loom," "IEEE Annals of the History of Computing", vol. 29, no. 4, pages 98-102 (October-December 2007). This article is based largely on the research of Jean Huchard of Lyon, France, whose articles on Jacquard appeared in "Bulletin Municipal de la Ville de Lyon", numbers: 5104 (18 Feb. 1996), 5105 (25 Feb. 1996), 5195 (16 Nov. 1997), 5196 (23 Nov. 1997), 5219 (3 May 1998), 5220 (10 May 1998), 5267 (4 Apr. 1999), 5281 (11 July 1999), 5309 (23 Jan. 2000), 5310 (30 Jan. 2000), 5346 (8 Oct. 2000), 5368 (11 Mar. 2001).] Jacquard (7 July 1752 – 7 August 1834) was a straw hat makercite book | last = Harrison | first = Frederic | title = The new calendar of great men: Biographies of the 558 Worthies of All Ages and Nations in the ... | publisher = Macmillan | date = 1892 | location = Original from the University of Michigan | pages = Page 394 | url = http://books.google.com/books?id=M1YfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA394&dq=%22Joseph+Marie+Jacquard%22+-wikipedia&as_brr=1&ie=ISO-8859-1 | doi = | id = ] before becoming a French silk weaver and inventor. He improved on the original punched card design of Jacques de Vaucanson's loom of 1745, to invent the Jacquard loom mechanism in 1804-1805. Jacquard's device was controlled by recorded patterns of holes in a string of cards, and allows what is now known as the Jacquard weaving of intricate patterns.

Life

Jacquard was born at Lyon in France. From age ten onward, he worked as a draw boy, working on the loom for master weavers. It was a miserable and tiresome job. On the death of his father, who was a working weaver, he inherited two looms, with which he started business on his own account. He did not prosper though, and was at last forced to become a limeburner at Bresse, while his wife supported herself at Lyons by plaiting straw. In 1794 he took part in the unsuccessful defense of Lyons against the troops of the Convention; but afterwards served in their ranks on the Rhone and Loire. After seeing some active service, in which his young son was shot down at his side, he again returned to Lyons. There he obtained a situation in a factory, and employed his spare time in constructing his improved loom, of which he had conceived the idea several years previously. In 1801 he exhibited his invention at the industrial exhibition at Paris; and in 1803 he was summoned to Paris and attached to the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. A loom by Jacques de Vaucanson on display there suggested various improvements in his own, which he gradually perfected to its final state. Although his invention was fiercely opposed by the silk-weavers, who feared that its introduction, owing to the saving of labour, would deprive them of their livelihood, its advantages secured its general adoption, and by 1812 there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in use in France. [This claim has been challenged: Initially few Jacquard looms were sold because of problems with the punched card mechanism. Only after 1815 — after Jean Antoine Breton had solved the problems with the punched card mechanism — did sales of looms increase. See: Jean Huchard, "Bulletin Municipal de la Ville de Lyon", numbers: 5219 ("Entre la légende et la réalité: Les tribulations de la mécanique de Joseph Marie Jacquard" [Between legend and reality: The problems of the Joseph Marie Jacquard mechanism] ), 3 May 1998; and 5220 ("Entre la légende et la réalité: Le véritable inventeur de la mécanique dite à la Jacquard" [Between legend and reality: The true inventor of the so-called Jacquard mechanism] ), 10 May 1998. See also page 100 of Janet Delve's article cited above (footnote 1).] The loom was declared public property in 1806, and Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and a royalty on each machine.

Jacquard died at Oullins (Rhône), 7 August 1834. [Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition] Six years later a statue was erected to him in Lyon, on the site where his 1801 exhibit loom was destroyed.

Jacquard loom

The Jacquard Loom is a mechanical loom that has holes punched in pasteboard, each row of which corresponds to one row of the design. Multiple rows of holes are punched on each card and the many cards that compose the design of the textile are strung together in order. It is based on earlier inventions by the Frenchmen Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean Falcon (1728) and Jacques Vaucanson (1740) [http://www.coe.uh.edu/courses/cuin7317/students/museum/slong.html] .

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