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Glenn Looper (Born: 25 Jan 1899 – Died: 30 Aug 1970) was an American inventor and textile producer residing in Dalton, Georgia (USA). He is perhaps best known for his 1936 invention, Tufting Machine. The original purpose of this device, a modified Singer sewing machine, was to mechanize the production of chenille bedspreads. This invention played a major role in the post-depression recovery of America’s South and spawned a major textile industry when Looper’s Tufting Machine was adapted (by Looper) and improved (by Looper and other inventors) to produce rugs and carpeting, turning Dalton, GA into the Carpet Capital of the World. The original prototype of Looper’s Tufting Machine is housed in the Georgia Capitol Museum, Atlanta, GA and is periodically displayed in the rotunda of the Georgia State Capitol dome.

History
Looper earned electrical and mechanical engineering degrees from Georgia Tech. Shortly after graduation, Looper met Thomas Edison at an inventor’s conference where Edison was the guest speaker. Looper went to work for Edison shortly thereafter, working on various industrial application lighting projects. Later, after Looper returned to Dalton, where he had been raised, he invented his tufting machine and opened his own foundry, first making bedspreads, then rugs, and finally carpeting.


 * (From Wikipedia article- Dalton, Georgia)


 * The bedspread business [enjoyed a boon] to a multi-million dollar industry by the 1950s, and from this early origin, the carpet tufting industry grew in Dalton after Glenn Looper developed an adaptation that allowed the mechanism used to tuft yarn into muslin or cotton for bedspreads to tuft into jute, shifting the nation's carpet manufacturers from woven wool products in the northeast to tufted synthetic carpets in northwest Georgia.

After a fire destroyed Looper’s foundry, he opened the Glenn Looper Manufacturing Company, making and repairing carpet manufacturing equipment. It was here that Looper invented his most lucrative invention, a dispenser for glue allowing a carpet tufting machine operator to tack ends of yarn spools together while in motion so the machines could run an entire shift without having to stop-down to change yarn spools.

Legal Woes
When another carpet manufacturer opened in Dalton, GA under the name “looper Carpet Mills”, Glenn Looper sued for trademark infringement for using the name Looper in association with the carpet manufacturing industry. Ironically, Glenn Looper lost that case, and the sole right to use his name in the industry, because by that time “looper” had become a standard occupational title for a textile machine operator; a title with origins traceable to the key component of Glenn Looper’s own 1936 invention. Since “looper Carpet Mills” used a lower case ‘L’ in the name, the court ruled that the name included only the occupation, not Looper’s name, and did not violate Looper’s trademark. Further the court nullified all Looper trademark rights in carpet industry trademarks as it is confusingly similar to the occupational title for the same industry. Undaunted, Looper continued to invent improved versions of carpet producing machines and received his last carpet-related patent in 1969, just a year before his death, for the Pneumatically-fed Tufting Textile Machine (which, amusingly, was inspired by watching the way the water flushed down a toilet).

Notice of rights reserved
All photos and artifacts depicted in this article are contained the private collection of the author. All rights reserved.

Sources citations
Interviews: Compiled transcripts from conversations with family members Margaret Looper (Daughter) and Harold Looper (Son), and Looper’s patent attorney Harry Weissenberger provided to Dr. Thomas T. Denton when researching his book Bedspreads to Broadloom.

Looper archives (genealogy records and family papers)

United States Patent and Trademark Office  (Search online at www.uspto.gov/patents/process/search)

Dr. William Gray Potter, University Librarian & Associate Provost, Georgia Capitol Museum, Atlanta, GA

Thomas M. Deaton, Bedspreads to Broadloom, The story of the Tufted Carpet Industry, 1994 Color Wheel, ISBN-10: 1568880383, ISBN-13: 978-1568880389

Randall L. Patton with David B, Parker, Carpet Capital, The Rise of a New South Industry, 1999 University of Georgia Press, ISBN: 0-8203-2464-7

Carpet and Rug Institute website - https://www.carpet-rug.org/About-CRI/History-of-Carpet.aspx, retrieved March 4, 2014