Loom:Zoom Loom

In the turmoil of the 1960s, some Americans longed for a more simple, less materialistic lifestyle. These proponents of the counterculture sought to escape their urban roots, take up life on the farm, and live more "authentically" by making--with their own hands--the foods, clothing, and materials they needed. Among these counterculturists and others influenced by them, there arose an appreciation for homecrafts and handmade goods and designs--candles, textiles, pottery, leather goods, batik and tie-dyed decorations, and macrame belts, wall-hangings, and plant holders, for example. It was perhaps the influence of the counterculture's favoring homecrafts that inspired the manufacture of the Zoom Loom, an automatic weaving machine. The loom provided a homecraft aesthetic for the adults who purchased the loom, but the convenience of machinery (the zoom) ensured that the children who wove on it wouldn't neccessarily be frustrated by the tedium of the task. The loom, too, might be seen as renewing a generations-old tradition of young girls learning the textile-production and sewing skills they would need as adults and providers of the family clothing.