No one is sure who made the first hooked rugs, but most historians think it was the Vikings. We do know that in the early 19th century, floormats were made in the United States from 9-inch-long pieces of yarn leftover from machines that made rugs.
The first rugs to interest United States collectors were made at Grenfell Mission, a philanthropic organization founded in 1892 to help residents of Labr…