Rugs were made by the colonists in a variety of techniques: knitting; crocheting; braiding thin strips of material into small squares and then sewing them together; and embroidering on a coarse-woven foundation. Hooking (drawing material through a canvas foundation) began around the turn of the 18th century and became very popular; early examples have crude floral, geometric, or animal designs and are very colourful. No knotted carpets were manufactured by the early settlers. In 1884, however, a factory established in Milwaukee (and later moved to New York City) began to weave carpets in traditional European designs. During the 1890s a branch of the English Wilton Royal Carpet Factory made Axminsters at Elizabethport, New Jersey; and a few beautiful, flat-woven carpets in French Baroque and Neoclassical designs were produced around the turn of the century by a tapestry factory in Williams Bridge, New York. After this, machine weaving, which began in the United States in the late 1700s, gradually displaced hand weaving. (Ed.)
