The Jacquard machine was named after Joseph Marie Jacquard. Jacquard
was born in Lyons, France, on the 7th of July, 1752. His parents
were employed in the manufacture of silk fabrics. The first trade
Jacquard learned was book-binding; type-founding and cutlery following
successively. He was 20 years of age when his father died, leaving him
a small house and hand-loom in the village of Cauzon, near Lyons. He
commenced to invent different improvements in the line of weaving, but
without other success than accumulating debt, compelling him to earn
the living for himself and family, first in a plaster quarry at Bugey,
near Lyons, afterwards by working at cutlery, type-founding and weaving
in Lyons.
In 1792 he joined the Revolutionists, and after his return in the
following year he and his son assisted in the defence of Lyons against
the Army of the Convention, but left when his son was killed near him
in battle.
Lyons Council offered him a room, for working on improvements for
weaving at the “Palace of the Fine Arts,” with the condition that he
should instruct scholars free of charge. During his stay there the
Society of Arts, in London, offered a reward for a machine for making
fishing nets. Jacquard succeeded in perfecting it, but had to travel
under protection to Paris, where he had to show and explain his machine
before the “Conservatorium of Arts and Trades.”
On the 2d of February, 1804, Jacquard received 3000 francs, and the
gold medal from the London Society, and also an engagement in the
Conservatorium of Arts, in Paris. Here he found opportunity for
making improvements on his weaving machine, by the study of the older
inventions of Bouchon, Falcon and Vancanson.
M. Bouchon, in 1725, employed a band of pierced paper pressed by a
hand-bar against a row of horizontal wires, so as to push forward those
which happened to lie opposite the blank spaces, and thus bring loops
at the lower extremity of vertical wires in connection with a comb-like
rack below. M. Falcon submitted in 1728 a chain of cards, and a square
prism, known as the cylinder, in lieu of the band of paper of Bouchon.
In 1745, Jacques de Vancanson suppressed altogether the cumbrous
tail-cards of the draw-loom, and made the loom completely self-acting
by placing the pierced paper or card upon the surface of a large
pierced cylinder, which traveled backwards and forwards at each stroke,
and revolved through a small angle by ratchet work. He also invented
the rising and falling griffe, and thus made a machine very nearly
resembling the actual Jacquard.
Jacquard returned to Lyons in the year 1804 to take charge of the
work-house. During his stay at this place he finished his machine. He
was an experienced workman, combining together the best parts of the
machines of his predecessors in the same line, and succeeded as _the
first person_ in obtaining an arrangement sufficiently practical to be
generally employed. In 1806 Napoleon Buonaparte changed his position,
giving him an annuity of 3000 francs, but compelling him to transfer
his invention to the city of Lyons, as well as any further inventions.
Until 1810 Jacquard had great troubles, as his machine was not
understood by the weavers. So violent was the opposition made to its
introduction that he was compelled to leave Lyons in order to save his
life. The _Conseil des Prudhommes_ broke up his machines in the public
places, and Jacquard was delivered over to universal ignominy. But
after some years had passed the machine proved to be of the greatest
value, and on the spot where the model was destroyed a statue to
Jacquard now stands. He died August 7th, 1834, in Quillins, near Lyons,
at 82 years of age. At the time of his death over 30,000 Jacquard
machines were in operation in his native city.
[Illustration]
The Jacquard Machine.--General Arrangement and Application.
If a fabric contains a great number of ends of warp bound differently
in the filling, the method of guiding the warp by harness frames is too
cumbrous and inefficient; in such cases it becomes necessary to use the
Jacquard machine for raising the warp-threads separately by means of
hook and leash.
The hooks as used for raising leash, mail, lingo, and warp-thread,
consist of wires 16 to 17 inches long, with a crook on each end. On the
lower crook is fastened the leash by means of the neck-cord.
The cords of each leash are threaded through the holes of the
comber-board; the latter are separated from each other according to the
texture of the warp in reed.
On the harness-cords are adjusted the heddles, (either twine or wire),
on which are fastened the lingoes as weights. In the mails of the
heddles are drawn the warp-threads.
Now, from the foregoing explanations, it will be apparent that by
raising the hook in the Jacquard machine we raise the leash, and the
latter raises every warp-thread throughout the fabric for interlacing
with the filling.
The next point required to be known is, which hooks are to be raised,
and which are to be lowered? To regulate this, a design (pattern)
is prepared in which the floating of the warp over the filling is
indicated.
For the warp-threads required to be raised holes are punched in the
cards. In these holes the points of the needles extending through
the needle-board are pushed by a spring fastened on the rear of each
needle. The needles are adjusted in rows of different heights. The
arrangements most used are 4, 8, and 12 rows high. Each row as to
height in the machine contains a bar (knife) in the griffe. When the
griffe is down, or the machine at rest, the upper crooks of the hooks
are raised about half an inch above the griffe-bars.
The needles which control the position of the hooks, permitting them
to rise or compelling them to remain stationary, are pressed by the
springs fastened in the rear towards the cards, which are moved on
a quadrilateral and perforated cylinder. This cylinder performs a
movement similar to a pendulum towards the points of the needles. Any
needle for which a hole was punched in the card will penetrate the
cylinder; consequently, the corresponding hook will remain in its
natural position, on the crook over the corresponding griffe-bar, and
upon lifting the griffe the hook will be raised.
Again, needles for which no holes are punched in the cards will be
thrust back by moving the cylinder containing the cards towards the
needle-board; this motion forces back the corresponding hooks, pushing
them away from the griffe-bars above, and upon raising the griffe they
will remain stationary; hence, if a blank card were pressed against all
the needles of any machine, the entire number of needles the machine
contains would be pushed back, and none of the hooks would come in
contact with the griffe-bars, and, consequently, raising the griffe
would produce an empty lift. On the other hand, using a card having
every hole of the cylinder punched, (or the empty cylinder used), would
lift every needle in the machine. Pressing the needles towards the rear
compresses the springs; these will again expand as soon as the cylinder
leaves the needle-board. The hooks, which were left standing in their
position over the griffe-bars are caught by the latter at the raising
of the griffe. The elevation of these hooks raises the leashes fastened
to them, thus causing the lifted warp-threads to form a shed with those
not lifted.
Jacquard machines are made of different sizes and descriptions, some
having only a few hooks and others a large number. The sizes most often
used are 100, 200, 400, 600, 900, 1200 hooks. The number or size is
always indicated by the number of needles and hooks which it contains,
without counting the reserve rows, of which there are generally two.
These reserve rows are used for various purposes, such as raising the
selvedge; raising the front harness; raising the shuttle-boxes on
hand-looms; guiding the take-up motion on hand-looms; indicating a
certain card through ringing a bell on hand-looms, etc.
Sometimes a few of the needles and hooks from the reserve are added to
the main part of the needles and hooks. For example: Take a design in
which the ground weave repeats on 12 ends; working a 400 machine, we
find: