Mohair
Weaving and Dyeing.......
The Traditional
Way!
(Intercal Trading Group
is pleased to present the following historical profile of our exclusive
German weaver, A. Helmbold GmbH)
Pg. 1 of 2
The mountains of
Rhoen were a poor region of Germany at the turn of the century. Most
of the people living there were farmers, the land was not particularly
fertile, and many farm families supplemented their income by working for
the Rhine river textile manufactures.
It was during this
period that Adolf Helmbold took the initial steps of starting his own
textile mill. He was born on the 18th of September in 1872, the son of
a small farmer. As a young man, he attended the weaving school in
Chemnitz, Germany where he received his first formal training in textile
manufacturing. After having completed his schooling, Adolf worked in several
textile mills along the Rhine river. Although he was offered several well
paying jobs due to his education and experience, he decided to go back
to the small Rhoen-village of Oberweid, his hometown.
It was here at
Oberweid that he founded the A. Helmbold Weaving Company on
January first of the year 1900. In the
beginning, linens and other clothing textiles were manufactured on manually
operated looms. At the start of the century, as mechanization evolved in
the textile weaving business, Adolf Helmbold purchased several mechanically
operated looms between the years of 1905 and 1910. They were purchased
second hand and driven by power generated from a nearby water mill.
The first mohair
and wool fabrics were manufactured by A. Helmbold Company during these
early years. These fabrics were distributed within Germany as well as exported
to neighboring countries. In 1910 Adolf rented a former Goblin-Tapestry
mill where the looms were driven by a gasoline engine, which allowed him
not only to better the quality of the fabrics being produced, but also
to increase the production of Mohair fabrics.
Supported by bank
credits and private individuals, Adolf Helmbold built his own weaving
mill in 1912 on the same property where you can today find the present
mill. At this new mill, mohair plush was woven on eight so-called ‘double-looms’,
the looms having been manufactured by Felix Tonner and Jean Gusken. The
Rhoen area was electrified between the years 1912 and 1914, and the power
for the looms was switched from gasoline powered engines to electricity.