A narrow example from our collection's second-quarter 20th-century American hooked rugs has a crowded polychrome field with scattered stars and flowers around playful green flowering branches within an ice blue border with continuous red roundels. American rugs as Important Folk Art in the 20th Century It wasn’t until the dawn of the 20th century that the craft of making American rugs started to be considered important folk art and spread all over the country, becoming one of the favorite pastimes, as well as the object of interest of renowned artists. Certainly, classic carpets have also quite early begun to be produced in the United States. The vogue for floor coverings came around 1830 when factories started making machine-woven American vintage rugs for the rich and wealthy. However, the hooked carpets and rag rags, along with the creations by Native Americans, such as antique oriental rugs, are today synonymous with American rugs rather than any other type.