If looms could talk, they would tell us of their history, their operating principles and their importance to the success of the Boston Manufacturing Company (BMC), founded on this site along the Charles River in 1813.

Francis Cabot Lowell and his chief engineer Paul Moody developed the first practical power loom in the Americas in 1813 – 1814. Together with other first of a kind innovations, in particular, the invention of the modern corporation and the automation of all stages of textile manufacture in one building (a world first), the power looms they put onto their factory floor led to the great success of the BMC in Waltham and throughout New England in the 19th century.

Daniel Eyring will use this talk to explain the basic principles of a weaving loom’s operation using three looms located in the CRMII Textile Gallery – a modern day demonstration hand loom, a 210 year old “Barn Loom” that includes a component made by the Boston Manufacturing Company in the late 19th Century, and a half size working replica of the Lowell/Moody power loom, researched, designed and built by Charles River Museum volunteers in the 2005/2006 timeframe.

Daniel Eyring is a retired Systems engineer who spent nearly 40 years working in applied engineering at a number of Boston firms – primarily in the fields of Remote Sensing and Navigation. Dan is a Volunteer at the CRMII, as well as a member of the CRMII Board of Trustees. He will tell you that “I am certainly neither a weaver nor a loom expert, but I’m married to one”. His wife Sally is an artist specializing in innovative 3-D weaving techniques. Their century old house in Watertown contains numerous looms and is daily filled with the clatter and banging of their operation – “the language of looms”.

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