12/17/10

Olson Rug - Worn out and walked on.

Back during The War, stuff was scarce. The military demanded all the rugs it could get to defeat Jerry. American rug manufacturers shifted production away from civilian carpets to tactical assault rugs. The 9th Berber Squadron, based at the Glenview Naval Air Station, was instrumental in the Battle of Makin.

Chicago's Olson Rug company needed a way to recycle old material into rugs for the under-served civilian market. Initially, they experimented with recycling tires, but it was found that the resulting carpets had poor wet weather traction and tended to delaminate under hard cornering.

Next, Olson tried sourcing scrap glass from the Ball bottle company. Customers were unsatisfied with the overall pointyness and jaggedness of the glass-derived rugs. While stain-resistant and washable, customers were unsatisfied with the sheer number of stains the rugs were required to endure.
In the fall of 1943, the Olson Rug Co. hit upon the idea of making rugs out of rugs. Also clothing. Rugs produced from these materials were colorful and durable. A value-added feature was that they were also double-sided, allowing families to make use of the upper side while children slept underneath, for example.

The recycled rugs could be produced in eight colors, shown in the left side of the ad: Peach Polyp, Silver Cyst, Clover Clump, Red, Other Red, Blastosphere Blue, Benign Beige, and Overstock Ochre.

The models in the ad may seem to be lying on the product sample, but in actuality, their clothing has been recycled into the carpet. In order to get up, they'd need to disrobe.

Nice Disembodied Floating Head of W.E. Olson. Yes, that is his own hair. However, his eventual baldness would motivate him to choose a sculpted pile hairpiece in 1955.

[Hat tip to Dan for the ad contribution! -Mgmt.]

Ed. Note: The omission of any "carpet bombing" jokes in the early part of this post was intentional. We do not do puns.

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