Jacquards' Web
Authors: James Essinger
James Essinger is a writer with a particular interest in the history of ideas that have had a practical impact on the modern world. He researched
Jacquard’s Web
over a period of three years.
His book
Spellbound: the improbable story of English
spelling
has been published in the UK and in the US.
He is currently working on a historical novel about Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace and on a novel for teenagers set in his home town of Canterbury.
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How a hand-loom led to the
birth of the information age
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by James Essinger
1
1
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford
ox2 6dp
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© James Essinger 2004
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published 2004
First published as an Oxford University Press paperback 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
ISBN 978–0–19–280578–2
Typeset in Perpetua by Footnote Graphics Limited, Warminister, Wilts Printed in Great Britain by
Clays Ltd., St Ives plc
For my talented and industrious
colleague Helen Wylie, who was there when
this book was born.
Many ingenious minds labour in the throes of
invention, until at length the master mind, the
strong practical man, steps forward…, applies
the principle successfully, and the thing is done.
Samuel Smiles,
Self-Help, 1862
Contents
8
A question of faith and funding
9
The lady who loved the Jacquard loom
A crisis with the American Census
The first Jacquard looms that wove
Howard Aiken dreams of a computer
vii
Contents
Ada Lovelace’s letter to Charles Babbage,
viii
The Jacquard portrait. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p. xii
A drawloom. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
11
A visit by the Duke D’Aumale in
1841
to the Croix Rousse studio of the master weaver M. Carquillat. This image, like the Jacquard portrait, is astonishingly enough a
woven
picture, not an engraving. It depicts the Duke receiving a copy of the woven Jacquard portrait (Lyons Museum of Textiles)
p.
41
Charles Babbage at the time when he was working on the Difference Engine. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
49
Benjamin Babbage. (Totnes Elizabethan House Museum) p.
52
A pegged wheel meshing with another in an early clock.
p.
71
A portion of the Difference Engine, completed by
Babbage and his engineer, Clement. (Science Museum/
Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
74
A modern piece-part drawing of a Difference Engine
component. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
76
Punched cards from the Jacquard loom. (Science Museum/
Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
90
Babbage’s own invoice for the Jacquard portrait.
(British Library)
p.
94
Sir Robert Peel. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
107
ix
Illustrations
A memorandum written by Charles Babbage after his
meeting with Sir Robert Peel. (British Library)
p.
109
Portrait of Ada Lovelace. (©Queen’s Printer and
Controller of HMSO, 2001. UK Government Art
Collection)
p.
120
Lady Byron’s sketch of a Jacquard punched card.
(©Lord Lytton, reproduced by permission of Pollinger Ltd and the Lovelace Papers on deposit at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford/MS DEP Lovelace–Byron 117/1,
f48 recto)
p.
139
A portrait of Charles Babbage taken in London in
1860
when he was
68
. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
147
Herman Hollerith as a young man. (Science Museum/
Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
152
The pantograph punch. (Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum) p.
166
The Hollerith counter and sorter. (Heinz Nixdorf Museums Forum)
p.
167
Thomas Watson and Charles Flint. (IBM Corporate
Archives)
p.
193
Howard Aiken in the uniform of an army commander.
(Harvard University Archives)
p.
227
The ‘Maltese Cross’ experiment. (Science Museum/
Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
242
A punched card from the
1960
s. (IBM Corporate Archives) p.
250
Digital writing from
1802
. (Lyons Museum of Textiles) p.
254
Babbage’s plans for Difference Engine No.
2
. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
266
The modern Difference Engine completed in
1991
by a team at the London Science Museum to Babbage’s plans.
(Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library) p.
267
x
Illustrations
How the Jacquard loom works. (Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library)
p.
278
The bar of the Jacquard loom against which the punched cards were pressed
p.
279
Nature depicted by mathematical analysis: the
mise-en-carte
principle in action. (Lyons Museum of Textiles)
p.
280
The Jacquard loom: the ancestor of the computer.
(Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library) p.
281
xi
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