Penny rugs provide a historic example of repurposing
The environmentalist movement popularized the saying “Reduce, reuse, recycle” in the 1970s, but the sentiment goes back much farther than that. Historically, people avoided buying new items to save money, or simply because said new items were not as readily available to purchase as they are today. Reusing and recycling materials was done out of necessity, too, but the effect of saving resources remains the same. Rug making is one of the best examples. Throughout the 19th century, American families had many ways of transforming fabric scraps into useful rugs. The earliest were ...
