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Wool Workers - A Family of Master Wool Workers by Jose Nicolas
On the banks of the Sorgue, the Brun de Vian-Tiran factory still resonates with the rhythmical harmony of the weaving industry; seven generations of blanket-makers have ensured the perpetuity of their small, working enterprise...
In Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the textile industry has for a long time been a tradition. Certainly because the place lent itself to the activity. There is a small river which circles the town: an unending flow fed by the Fontaine de Vaucluse, premier resurgence in Europe, capable of supplying enough water and motor power to a great number of blanket-makers and cloth manufacturers. There are the surrounding quarries, where once they extracted fuller's earth, the tinctorial madder and the teasel thistle. And then, above all, sheep have been bred in the region since the time of the Romans. Between the Mérinos of Arles sheep, which are pampered on the Crau plain for their thick, well-endowed fleeces, and the wools from the Levant found at the indispensable fair in neighbouring Beaucaire, the choice is vast. Since the 19th century, the wool industry thus enjoys great success and people come from far away to buy blankets, car rugs and shepherd's capes made of the finest fibers in the world.
