After a 35-year career in textiles, a 56-year old Georgia man is embarking on a quest to earn a doctorate in history as he and his company work to preserve historic carpet patterns and the saga of carpet manufacturing in America.

Mark Thomann of Ackworth, Georgia is Director of Historic Preservation for Mohawk Industries, whose main office is in nearby Kennesaw.

Through the twists and turns of mergers and acquisitions in corporate America, Mohawk Industries since 1993 has been the descendant of both of Amsterdam’s major carpet mills of the past—Mohawk Carpets and its successor Mohasco and Bigelow-Sanford.

Mohawk Carpets was created with the 1920 combination of the Shuttleworth Brothers mill in Amsterdam and the McCleary, Wallin and Crouse factory, also in the then Rug City. Mohawk Carpets became Mohasco when it merged with Alexander Smith of Yonkers, New York in the 1950s. Bigelow-Sanford was the result of the 1929 merger of Amsterdam’s Stephen Sanford & Sons and the Bigelow-Hartford Company of Thompsonville, Connecticut.

Bigelow-Sanford left Amsterdam in 1955 for Thompsonville. The Mohawk/Mohasco leave-taking was gradual and to the southern states—the Carolinas and Georgia. By 1968, carpet production ended in Amsterdam while corporate offices did not completely leave the city for Georgia until 1987.

Thomann recently visited Amsterdam’s Elwood Museum and the Montgomery County Department of History and Archives in Fonda to learn more about carpet making in the Mohawk Valley. He plans to do his doctoral dissertation on the history of the industry in America.

While in Amsterdam, Thomann met with retired Mohawk/Mohasco executive Herbert Shuttleworth II, who still resides in Amsterdam. And Thomann proudly related that Mohawk Industries some years ago hired Shuttleworth’s granddaughter, Alexandra Goggins, who works for the company in New Jersey.

Thomann is a graduate of the Citadel in South Carolina and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He went to work in the textile industry in 1973 and has been with Mohawk Industries for five years.

One of the big reasons the carpet industry left Amsterdam, according to Thomann, was invention of the tufting process to make carpets after World War II. Tufting produces carpet much more quickly than the weaving process used in Amsterdam. And Thomann said the tufting machines were too huge and heavy to fit into the old multi-storied mill buildings in Amsterdam.

Although tufted carpets predominate today, some carpets are still woven the old fashioned way at three locations in America—Eden, North Carolina; Landrum, South Carolina and Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.

And Thomann said Mohawk Industries has preserved over 20,000 old carpet pattern cards at its plant in Eden, North Carolina to make it possible to recreate historic designs.

In fact, one of Thomann’s main jobs with Mohawk Industries is to provide historically accurate carpets for theater renovations and other historic building projects. They have done the carpet for the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, where “Gone With the Wind” premiered. And Thomann hopes to work on restoration of the Capitol Theater in Rome, New York.

Thomann said if the pattern for the appropriate historic carpet can’t be found, old photos can lead to a computer image that can be used to recreate the carpet.

Thomann’s reputation as an authority on the artistry of old carpets is growing. While visiting the Masonic Temple in Long Beach, California, he was asked if he could tell who made an 82-year old carpet still in place at the temple.

He turned a piece of the carpet over and found the answer. The name “Mohawk Carpet” was woven on the underside.

Mohawk Industries has more information on carpet history on their Web site-- http://www.themohawkgroup.com/historic/pages/index.html