Fun Historical Facts About Carpet

Fun Historical Facts About Carpet – Carpet has been used in homes for several thousand years. Though the earliest carpets looked much different than they do today and required a bit more laborious care, they were still needed essentials for everyday life.  

Here are some fun historical facts about the carpet that you may even find interesting and educational: 

• The word carpet is from the Latin root word carpet. It means to pluck. The first carpet makers used a technique of plucking unraveled fibers to make carpets. The phrase carpe diem, which is also Latin and uses the same root means to seize (or pluck) the day.  

• The practice of rolling out the red carpet is as old as 458 BC. Kings, politicians and dignitaries would walk across red carpets to mark out their path in crowded cities. The first record of this was Agamemnon.  
•  The earliest American carpets were large wool rugs made to cover most of the floor surface in homes of the American settlers. 
• These first American carpets were not cleaned often with the use of vacuums. Before vacuums were invented wall to wall carpet didn’t exist, most homes had large area rugs that they would take outside and beat clean with a wire carpet beater once a year during spring cleaning.  
• Carpets were woven by hand until the first woven carpet mill showed up on the scene in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1971. The mill was opened by William Sprague. 
• The idea for the wall to wall carpet actually came out of a blanket factory. Catherine Evans Whitener of Dalton, Georgia made bedspreads out of muslin cloth with tufted yarn sewn into it. The blankets became so popular it started a new cottage industry in the surrounding region. This led to mill produced tufted carpets based on the original bedspread pattern Whitener invented.  

• The first wall to wall carpet factories were located in the same town of Dalton where Catherine Whitener first sewed her bedspreads. Today, the town of Dalton, Georgia is still considered the carpet capital of the world. They produce 70% of the world’s carpets.  
• This one just might be our favorite because it gives us a little bit of a laugh. When the Hoover company first produced its original prototype vacuum, they had a hard time selling it because people became offended at the thought of someone telling them their carpet might be dirty.   

For more fun and useful information about carpets and professional carpet cleaning, please browse our website. For the best professional carpet cleaning in Mill Creek and surrounding areas make an appointment online or over the phone any time.