Betsy Amoroso, Senior Director, Corporate Communications, Mannington Mills
Still Trendy After All These Years
Innovations in Resilient Flooring Like many other home furnishings, resilient or “vinyl” flooring has evolved over the past 100-plus years thanks to innovations in both technology and design. From its humble beginnings as linoleum, invented near Kirkcaldy, Scotland, in the mid-1800s, to its current incarnations as sheet vinyl and Luxury Vinyl (LVT), resilient has come a long way.
I
t sure isn’t your grandmother’s vinyl floor with
technological innovations in resilient flooring.
its faux-brick design or avocado green florals.
Throughout the 1930s and up to the 1950s,
Today’s resilient floors are the height of fashion,
linoleum and felt-base floorcoverings were an
showcasing realistic wood looks and minimalist tile
integral part of home decorating. Many of these
designs that feature both beauty and durability all
floorcoverings were made as ‘rugs’ so they could
in one affordable product.
be laid down and taken up just as easily as today’s
In the early 1900s, the United States was man-
area rugs would be. Then, when the rug became
ufacturing a similar type of floorcovering, called
dirty or a change of style was desired, all the
oil cloth, which gave way to felt-base products
homeowner had to do was roll it up and put down
(similar to today’s traditional sheet vinyl). Some
a new one.
of that floorcovering was made by the American
In the 1950s, a company called Sandura manu-
Oil Cloth Company in a Salem, New Jersey plant
factured and marketed a new type of rotogravure
managed by John Boston Campbell. Several
vinyl floorcovering. Other companies quickly fol-
years later, that plant manager founded the J.B.
lowed and the product caught on in the market-
Campbell Mfg. Co., which today (after several
place. Rotogravure is, literally, “a printing system
iterations) is known as Mannington Mills, one of
using a rotary press with engraved cylinders.”
the world’s largest flooring manufacturers and a
Though refined over the years, this process is still
company that is widely known for its design and
used today to print vinyl floorcovering.
Left: Manitex Rugs, 1950s; center: Thrift Rugs, 1960s; at right: sheet vinyl, c. 1970s
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