At Left: Wide view, rear-right side of loom. Note sectional warp beam (four rows of whittled wooden pins inserted two inches apart). At Right: Detail view of rocker. Rocker held in place with two metal rocker straps lying side by side along the length of the rocker; one end of each strap is secured to a rocker tip (one to the front tip and the other to the back tip), and the opposite end of each strap is secured to the loom base. This loom was built by Harvey Lamb, son of James Lamb and grandson of John Lamb (see Loom #1). Harvey was a cabinet/furniture maker by trade, and his fine furniture graced the homes of all his relatives.

Shortly after Harvey's nephew, John Lowery Lamb, returned from the Civil War and married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Ann Phillips (1868), he built this loom for her. He patterned the loom after the one made by his grandfather John Lamb. Sarah Lamb was an avid weaver all her adult life. The floors of her home were covered with wall-to-wall carpeting she wove on this loom. She also wove an overshot coverlet for each of her eight children, and also for a number of her grandchildren. The loom remained within the Lamb family until 1983, when it was donated to the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles. It was never placed on exhibit and, in 1994, Lamb descendant Phyllis Dean was successful in retrieving it.   Return to Loom Photograph Index