Joseph Marie Jacquard facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Joseph Marie Jacquard
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born | 7 July 1752 Lyon, Lyonnais, Kingdom of France
|
| Died | 7 August 1834 (aged 82) Oullins, Rhône, Kingdom of France
|
| Nationality | French |
| Education | Worked as apprentice and learned bookbinding |
| Occupation | Merchant, weaver, inventor |
| Known for | Programmable loom |
| Signature | |
 |
|
Joseph Marie Charles (nicknamed Jacquard) was a French weaver and merchant. He was born on July 7, 1752, and passed away on August 7, 1834. Joseph Jacquard played a big part in creating the first programmable loom. This invention, called the Jacquard loom, was very important. It also helped in the development of other programmable machines, including early versions of computers.
Contents
Joseph Jacquard's Life Story
Early Life and Family
Joseph Marie Charles was born in Lyon, France. His family had lived in the area for generations. To tell different family branches apart, people gave them nicknames. Joseph's family was called "Jacquard." So, his grandfather was known as Bartholomew Charles dit (called) Jacquard.
Joseph was one of nine children. His father, Jean Charles, was a master weaver. Sadly, only Joseph and his sister Clémence lived to be adults. Joseph did not go to school and couldn't read until he was 13 years old. His brother-in-law, Jean-Marie Barret, taught him. Jean-Marie owned a printing and book-selling business. He also introduced Joseph to smart people and learning groups.
Learning New Skills
Joseph first helped his father with weaving. But the work was too hard for him. So, he became an apprentice to a bookbinder. Later, he worked for someone who made printing types.
In 1772, Joseph's father died. Joseph inherited his father's house, looms, and workshop. He also got a vineyard and a quarry. For a while, he worked in real estate. By 1778, he was listed as a master weaver and silk merchant.
On July 26, 1778, Joseph married Claudine Boichon. She was a widow from Lyon who owned property. Joseph faced some financial problems. He had to sell his inheritance and use his wife's money to pay off debts. They lived in a house his wife owned in Oullins. On April 19, 1779, their only child, a son named Jean Marie, was born.
Developing Inventions
Around 1800, Joseph started inventing new machines. In 1800, he created a loom that used foot pedals. In 1803, he made a loom for weaving fishing nets. Then, starting in 1804, he worked on the "Jacquard" loom. This loom could weave patterned silk automatically. His first inventions were not perfect and didn't work very well.
In 1801, Jacquard showed his invention in Paris. He won a bronze medal for it. In 1803, he was called to Paris again. He worked at a place called the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. There, he saw a loom made by Jacques de Vaucanson. This gave him ideas to make his own loom even better.
Success and Challenges
The French government declared Jacquard's loom public property in 1805. Jacquard received a pension and a royalty for each machine sold. Many silk weavers were against his invention at first. They worried that the new loom would take away their jobs because it saved so much labor. However, the loom's benefits were clear, and it became widely used. By 1812, there were 11,000 Jacquard looms in France.
Initially, not many looms were sold because of issues with the punched card system. Sales increased after 1815, once Jean Antoine Breton fixed these problems.
Joseph Jacquard passed away in Oullins on August 7, 1834. Six years later, a statue was built in his honor in Lyon. It stands where his 1801 exhibit loom was once destroyed.
How the Jacquard Loom Works
Weaving Basics
The Jacquard Loom is a special mechanical loom. It uses pasteboard cards with holes punched in them. Each card controls one row of the design being woven. Many cards are strung together in order to create a complete design for the fabric. This invention built upon earlier ideas from French inventors like Basile Bouchon (1725), Jean-Baptiste Falcon (1728), and Jacques Vaucanson (1740).
To understand the Jacquard loom, it helps to know a little about weaving. Weaving involves two sets of threads. The "warp" threads run lengthwise on the loom. The "weft" thread is passed across them. For simple cloth, every other warp thread is lifted. The weft thread goes through the space created (called the "shed"). Then, the lifted warp threads are lowered, and the other warp threads are raised. The weft thread passes back through the new shed. Repeating this many times creates the fabric.
Creating Patterns with Punch Cards
By lifting different warp threads and using colored weft threads, weavers can create amazing textures, colors, and patterns. Doing this by hand is slow and difficult. Jacquard's loom was designed to make this process automatic.
This portrait of Jacquard was woven in silk on a Jacquard loom. It needed 24,000 punched cards to create it in 1839. One of these portraits inspired Charles Babbage to use punched cards in his early computer design, the Analytical Engine. This portrait is now at the Science Museum in London, England.
Jacquard was not the first to try to automate weaving. In 1725, Basile Bouchon invented a device for looms. It used a wide strip of punched paper to choose which warp threads would be lifted. Bouchon's idea used hooks that would either catch a string to lift a warp thread or slip through a hole in the paper. His loom wasn't very successful because it could only handle a small number of warp threads.
By 1737, Jean Falcon, a master silk weaver, improved on Bouchon's idea. He replaced the paper strip with a chain of punched cards. These cards could control many rows of hooks at once. Falcon's loom was more successful, with about 40 sold by 1762.
In 1741, Jacques de Vaucanson, a French inventor known for mechanical toys, also tried to automate weaving. His mechanism used pins that pressed against a punched paper sheet. Depending on whether a pin hit solid paper or a hole, it would control which hooks lifted the warp threads. Vaucanson's loom also wasn't very successful, likely because it couldn't control enough threads for complex patterns.
Jacquard's Improvements
To help France's textile industry, Napoleon Bonaparte ordered a lot of silk from Lyon in 1802. In 1804, Jacquard studied Vaucanson's loom. By 1805, Jacquard had made his own improvements. He went back to using Falcon's chain of punched cards, but made the system much more effective.
The potential of Jacquard's loom was quickly recognized. On April 12, 1805, Emperor Napoleon and Empress Josephine visited Lyon to see Jacquard's new loom. Just three days later, the emperor gave the patent for the loom to the city of Lyon. In return, Jacquard received a lifelong pension and a royalty for each loom sold.
See also
In Spanish: Joseph Marie Jacquard para niños
