Jacquard, Joseph-Marie

Joseph-Marie Jacquard, (born July 7, 1752, Lyon, France—died August 7, 1834, Oullins), French inventor of the Jacquard loom, which served as the impetus for the technological revolution of the textile industry and is the basis of the modern automatic loom.

Jacquard first formed the idea for his loom in 1790, but his work was cut short by the French Revolution, in which he fought on the side of the Revolutionaries in the defense of Lyon. In 1801 Jacquard demonstrated an improved drawloom, for which he was awarded a bronze medal. He continued his work, and in 1804–05 he introduced an attachment that has caused any loom that uses it to be called a Jacquard loom. Jacquard’s loom used interchangeable punch cards that controlled the weaving of the cloth so that any desired pattern could be obtained automatically. In 1806 the loom was declared public property, and Jacquard was rewarded with a pension and a royalty on each machine.

His machine aroused bitter hostility among the silk weavers, who feared that its labour-saving capabilities would deprive them of jobs. The weavers of Lyon not only burned machines that were put into production but attacked Jacquard as well. Eventually, the advantages of the loom brought about its general acceptance, and by 1812 there were 11,000 in use in France. In 1819 Jacquard was awarded a gold medal and the Cross of the Legion of Honour. The use of his loom spread to England in the 1820s and from there virtually worldwide. English inventor Charles Babbage adopted the punch cards of the Jacquard loom as an input-output medium for his proposed Analytical Engine, and American statistician Herman Hollerith used punch cards to feed data into his census machine. Punch cards were used as a means of inputting data into digital computers into the mid-20th century but were eventually replaced by electronic devices.