Carpet Industry Started with One Woman’s Creative Idea

One Woman's Creative Idea: From Bedspreads to Carpet

She’s such an interesting figure to me, with her honest face and sensible shoes. Since coming to work at the Carpet and Rug Institute, I have frequently found myself wondering what Catherine Evans Whitener thought about the explosive success of the industry she inspired here in the northwest corner of Georgia.

The fact that Dalton, Georgia is known as the carpet capital of the world is due in large part to the fact that, prior to earning that name, the town was known as the bedspread capital. And the reason for that is embodied in the story of Catherine Evans Whitener.

Randy Patton, a professor of history from Kennesaw State University who has written two books about the carpet industry in Georgia, came to Dalton several weeks ago to talk about Mrs. Whitener and her uniquely American story of how she created a grass-roots, women-powered movement that ended up becoming a multi-million dollar bedspread industry. Here are excerpts from a story titled Carpet Just a Big Bedspread about his lecture from the Dalton Daily Citizen News:

“It started out as the bedspread capital of the world,” Patton said. “If you look at a piece of carpet, it’s just a big bedspread.”

Whitener is commonly credited as the mother of the carpet industry, but her story is one that would be incomplete without her sister-in-law, Addie Cavender Evans, Patton said. Evans was the marketing brains of the family’s home-based industry, while Whitener handled the “manufacturing” side.

It began when 15-year-old Catherine made her first candlewick bedspread after admiring a similar spread she saw at a cousin’s home. Candlewicking is a form of embroidery done with yarn, and Whitener is known for slightly changing the technique to make it more efficient. A nearly identical technique is used to make most carpet.

Bedspread with Peacock Design

 Whitener was born in Whitfield County in 1880 and began popularizing the handmade spreads as she trained other men, women and children in the region in the technique. The spreads became a popular way for families to supplement their income while working at home and were far more than a hobby craft.

‘People were always looking for ways to generate more cash income,’ Patton said. ‘This was often hard work. This was not something they did to soothe their soul ... 10-hour days devoted to craft work were common.’

Many would hang the finished products outside for passersby to purchase during the 1920s and onward.

By the 1940s, U.S. Highway 41, or Dixie Highway, was known as ‘Peacock Alley’ for the peacock designs found on many of the spreads. It’s a name Patton said was actually preceded by the less glamorous but more popular term “Bedspread Boulevard.”

Some spread makers were on contract for various department stores where the spreads were sold to the public for $5 or $6 in the early 1920s. By 1934, the process became automated, and hand-tufted spreads became less common.’”

Catherine Evans Whitener was named as a Georgia Woman of Achievement in 2001.

I like remembering that the industry I work for started with a woman who had an idea to make something lasting and beautiful for her home. In that sense at least, it hasn’t changed.

~Bethany