La Maison des Canuts

This guide to La Maison des Canuts in Lyon's Croix-Rousse district follows the silk weavers, or canuts, who worked hand looms in this district in the early nineteenth century for merchants who kept cutting their pay. It centers on November 21, 1831, when thousands marched down the hill behind black flags after the council's promised minimum price went unpaid, and on what happened when the National Guard met them in the streets below. Along the way it traces the years of unrest that followed and the toll of putting the city back under control. Look closely at the wooden Jacquard loom in front of you, still strung with the punch cards that once turned a craft into a class.