European attempts to copy the extremely complex patterns of Indian shawls soon made the limitations of the drawloom readily apparent.  Drawlooms were operated by the weaver and a "drawboy" ("drawgirls" are known to have existed as well (1)).   The drawboy raised or lowered the harness to create the patterning of the cloth.  Unfortunately, the pieces were woven face down and the weaver saw nothing but a confused mass of floating threads.  If the drawboy, whose average age was 10, suffered a few seconds of inattention during what was often a 12-hour working day, the resulting mistakes in the pattern would not been seen until the shawl came off the loom.  The consequences were a loss in value for the shawl and, too often, harsh treatment for the drawboy.

As early as 1728, attempts were made to replace the fallible drawboy with a mechanical system.  In about 1801, a French mechanic from Lyon, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, successfully raised harnesses on a loom with a mechanism of perforated cards.  In the Jacquard loom, needles came up against each card, and if the card had a hole, the needle went in, and the harness was raised (2).   This new system required an immense quantity of expensive cards for each pattern, and the training of a new group of workers.  Both factors met with heavy resistance from the French weaving industry which did not integrate the new system until about 1818 (3).   However, when the British government attempted to buy Jacquard's invention, he patriotically replied, "I regard it a sacred duty to leave to my native town a discovery which could furnish a foreign nation with a way to ruin our industry" (4). 

Although Jacquard's inventiveness was driven by the desire to alleviate the misery of forced child-labor in the weaving industry , he was also well aware that, in a time when the textile industry was comparable in importance to our present day oil industry,  the Jacquard loom would have global economic repercussions.

The original Jacquard weaving loom with its card mechanism, 1804.
Card and cutting plate used with the Jacquard loom.
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(1) Valerie Reilly, The Paisley Pattern  (Salt Lake City: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1987), 25.
(2) Ibid, 25.
(3) Monique Levi-Strauss, The Cashmere Shawl  (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1988), 28.
(4) Frank Ames, The Kashmir Shawl (Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club Ltd., 1986), 119.
(5) Ibid, 119.