Jacquard's Web

Contemporary Review, April, 2005

Jacquard's Web: How a Hand-Loom Led to the Birth of the Information Age. James Essinger. Oxford University Press. [pounds sterling]14.99. xii 302 pages. ISBN 0-19-280577-0. The hand-loom in question was a device which wove silk threads according to a pattern determined by a series of 24,000 punched cards.

The inventor of this loom was Joseph-Marie Jacquard. Mr Essinger begins his book with a history of silk and then moves to draw-looms, which the Lyon inventor-weaver sought to improve. How he went about his work and how he came upon the idea of an automated loom which he patented in 1804 fill the first four chapters. After that the author turns to the use other inventors made of Jacquard's basic ideas including Babbage, Ada Byron (Lord Byron's daughter), the American, Herman Hollerith and the birth of IBM and with it the beginnings of our computer age. It is a fascinating story and the author deserves credit for giving proper recognition to the French weaver without whose work our world would have become a very different place. (P.J.T.)