Power loom
Topic: The Age of Industrialisation · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The power loom is a weaving machine driven by power, such as water or steam, instead of a person's hands and feet. Edmund Cartwright patented it in 1785. It took several decades of improvement before it worked well enough for wide use. By the 1830s–40s, power looms in British cotton factories had pushed many handloom weavers into poverty.
Example
In early 19th-century Lancashire, cotton mills put in rows of steam-driven power looms. Handloom weavers in the same region saw their earnings fall sharply.
Don't confuse with
- Fly shuttle: a rope-and-pulley device fitted to a handloom that throws the weft (cross-thread) through the warp (lengthwise threads). It helped Indian handloom weavers make wider cloth faster. By 1941 over 35% of Indian handlooms had one. It did not turn the handloom into a machine.