How’d they get here? Handmade rug trade in America.
Nomads & their rugs have been on my mind a lot lately. It’s fascinating to think about people who don’t have a permanent home ~ who travel with their families, livestock, & belongings for greener pastures ~ create warmth & comfort in their (mobile) homes through the use of their handmade rugs. I suppose this feat provides both a need & a want; the need for the utility of the rugs & the want of something beautiful. And consider this; in our own country, nary a handmade rug enthusiast rests until their rug is laid down perfectly to make a room both comfortable & maybe even somewhat luxurious. Very naturally, we all want an inviting environment, & handmade rugs have been a part of that for, well, a long time.
Whether for utilitarian uses or for luxury, handmade rugs have been traded for eons. As I’ve experienced since starting to curate rugs a couple of years ago, I believe there is an abundance of handmade rugs here in the United States, ready for continued trade. But how did we get to this point? How did the handmade rugs first make their way to America?
Handmade rugs were used as decor by clergy & aristocracy on furniture as opposed to on the floor.
I recently had the opportunity to listen to a fantastic lecture by Dr. Theodore Mast, who among other credentials, has been an editor for Hali magazine. Highly knowledgeable in the area of Near Eastern rugs & the rug weaving culture, I reached out to Dr. Mast & asked him to help me better understand just how Oriental rugs made their way to America.
One of Dr. Theodore Mast’s rugs presented at ARCS
Denver, CO November, 2022
There is a long history of how handmade rugs from Persia & modern day Turkey made their way to colonial America. Sticking to the very basics, the introduction of handmade rugs made in what is now modern day Turkey (here on referred to as Turkey) to the European trade route can be traced back to the 4th Crusade (13th century). The crusaders brought back rugs from their travels & introduced them to the clergy & aristocracy of eastern Europe; this form of trade to the wealthy went on for a couple of centuries.
Shah Abbas I, Chehel Sotun, Isfahan, Persia
The next era of the trade involved the introduction of rugs made in Persia. During Shah Abbas I’s reign (16th century), the craft was elevated to a new level of standards that was desired by Europeans. It has been said that some of the finest woven art was made during this time, which included detailed & highly elaborate floral & animal motifs. It was during this time that rugs were bought & sold by Portuguese merchants & briefly by Spanish merchants. The hankering for something exotic & sophisticated was set in place & the trade was next in the hands of the British East India Company.
So, by this point (17th century), the desire to have handmade rugs was well developed in Europe & the UK. The majority of rugs at this time in Europe were small rugs woven in villages in western Turkey, though rugs from other regions were collected in Constantinople & shipped via Italian merchants to Venice. From there, rugs made their way to other port cities & taken to market in London.
Dr. Mast postulates that the first rugs in the Americas were likely brought by Spanish colonists whose leaders had that hankering for exotic items. Spaniards had an active trade with Turkey, due in part to the Moors’ influence. Large Oushak rugs were imported into Spain in the 16th century, but didn’t make their way to the colonies until the late 17th century when the colonists' homes were large enough to accommodate them.
Vintage room-sized Oushak rug, Turkihs
It’s been speculated that the first rugs from Constantinople were brought over to America on the Mayflower, which, according to Dr. Mast is possible because they were likely small village rugs & could have fit with their belongings. The first documented rug in America was owned by John Cogswell who came to the Massachusetts Colony in 1635. According to Dr. Mast there is no mention of the size or where it was from, but it was likely a small rug from western Turkey.
Remember how rugs were used on furniture as decor rather than on the floor? Well, it was about this time (late 17th century) that buyers started to use rugs on the floor rather than over their furniture. By the mid 18th century, there was a market for handmade rugs in the colonies and, naturally, European merchants honed in on the opportunities in the rug producing regions.
At this time, carpets for Persians were made for their small & narrow homes, so the layout was different from new Americans’ homes. Most of the rugs that were shipped to the west during this time were already more than 100 years old! There was a demand for their intricate designs & craftsmanship, but there were no shops that were specialized as a “rug shop”, these started to form by the end of the 19th century.
Fast forward a bit to the post Civil War era when, relatively speaking, people in the North lived a prosperous life. Dr. Mast noted that “a new economy in the North after the Civil War prompted a production exploitation in the Caucasus”. Keep in mind that Persia was an elusive destination & a place not traveled to by most westerners. Also, most of the Persian rugs & carpet production was for use in the Persian home, with limited export to neighboring regions. Once the Western market appeared, both Persian and European entrepreneurs created productions to specifically supply the West, America in particular.
Antique Persian Karajeh runner rug
Trade connections in Persia and the Caucasus were made & the new middle class American families purchased ‘apartment’ & ‘row house’ sized rugs, followed by the (still) popular 8’ length by 12’ width dimension. There were other preferred styles of floor decor, such as braided rugs, but they were actually more expensive. So, the Persian rugs were the rugs of choice & most affordable for American households.
Let’s fast forward to the first quarter of the 20th century when rug merchants (immigrants with connections to the rug producing regions of Iran, Armenia, & Turkey) categorically organized production & export, tailored to American tastes. The most popular designs were detached floral sprays; Persian Sarouk rugs were imported, stripped of color, repainted (yes, painted!), then often stripped again to match American tastes. These rugs came to be known as American Sarouk rugs, & many are still in the trade today.
Other styles of rugs were introduced during this time as well. For instance, during WWI, import had come to a near halt from Turkey & Persia & to solve this problem, Art Deco Chinese rug styles of Walter Nichols were touted as the rug to have. Then when WWII ended & Persia was a political mess, & Turkey had unreasonably high tariffs on the import of their rugs, & China was becoming a Communist country, the import of rugs wasn’t happening. Stockpiled rugs in England & New York were soon depleted & since rugs were coming over from Iran & Turkey, a new economy of rugs emerged from India.
By no means does the story end here, but stopping for now. Part II with introduction of rug companies in the US to come.
Can you imagine; the first handmade rug quite possibly came on the Mayflower? Does any of this information surprise you?