Jacquards' Web

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

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.

It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in

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Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries

© 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

List of illustrations

ix

1
The engraving that wasn’t

1

2
A better mousetrap

7

3
The son of a master-weaver

19

4
The Emperor’s new clothes

27

5
From weaving to computing

45

6
The Difference Engine

65

7
The Analytical Engine

81

8
A question of faith and funding

99

9
The lady who loved the Jacquard loom

119

10

A crisis with the American Census

149

11

The first Jacquard looms that wove

information

159

12

The birth of IBM

179

13

The Thomas Watson phenomenon

195

14

Howard Aiken dreams of a computer

205

15

IBM and the Harvard Mark
1

219

16

Weaving at the speed of light

239

17

The future

253

vii

Contents

Appendix
1
:

Charles Babbage’s vindication

265

Appendix
2
:

Ada Lovelace’s letter to Charles Babbage,

14
August
1843

270

Appendix
3
:

How the Jacquard loom worked

277

Acknowledgements

283

Notes on sources

287

Bibliography

289

Index

295

viii

Illustrations

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

●
1
●

The engraving that wasn’t

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