As important as the printing press and the steam engine were, the weaving loom triggered an earthquake of such magnitude in Lyon, then in France and the rest of the world, that 200 years later, its aftershocks are still being felt. Here’s a look back at a machine that changed our relationship with the world in so many ways.
Joseph-Marie Jacquard, father of textiles and grandfather of the computer
The use of textiles, whether cotton, wool, linen or silk, goes back to the dawn of time. Traces of knitted fabrics have been found in Judea dating back 8,000 years. Seven millennia and half a dozen centuries later, the world, with France at the forefront, was experiencing an industrial revolution (particularly in textiles) that turned the rules upside down. Mulhouse, Roubaix, but also Lille, Roanne and Rouen. At the time, all these cities were the equivalent of the Silicon Valley of the weaving industry, not forgetting Lyon of course, which led the way in silk production. In the midst of all this turmoil, one Lyonnais stood out…
The son of craftsmen, including a father who was a master of brocaded silk, little Joseph-Marie Jacquard, like Obélix, fell into the world of silk when he was a child. And it was a magic potion when, in 1801, with the help of a carpenter, Jean-Antoine Breton, the Lyonnais invented the mechanical loom. He didn’t yet know it, but he had just perfected a machine that, like Getafix’s cauldron, would continue to make waves. Its influence will improve productivity and, later, working conditions. At first, however, the workers formally rejected this new technology, which led to the Canuts revolt, which, like all new technologies, overturned production methods.
The principle was based on a programmable mechanism with a system of perforated cards. In concrete terms, perforation of the cards guides and activates the hooks that lift the threads. Years later, this technique would influence the first work in computer science and robotics with the construction of computers, which use the same principle: processing information by reading a program. IBM used the punched card system as early as 1928 to develop and patent its first machines. Had Jacquard known that in 2025, from his workshop in Lyon, we would all be holding in our hands a tool resulting from his work, he who invented the oldest programmable machine of all time…
Lyon’s heritage in today’s world
In addition to having lived a full 84 springs, Joseph-Marie Jacquard had a major influence and all the honors. He met Napoleon Bonaparte, received numerous awards and, like Clotilde Bizolon, was named Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur. Today, fully-automated Jacquard looms continue to produce most of the world’ s patterned fabrics for clothing, furnishings and household linen.
Between the invention of the cinematograph by the Lumière brothers, veterinary medicine by Claude Bourgelat and the weaving loom, Lyon is no slouch when it comes to invention. And few cities in the world can say as much. So, let’s keep going to the movies, let’s buy our clothes locally and let’s cherish our animal friends to do credit to our beloved city of Lyon. And if we’re still hungry, let’s get together around a table at a good bouchon. Nothing is too much trouble in Lyon, and we all know it!