featuring

Room Vision

click here »

Company History

  1. home   :
  2. corporate information   :
  3. company history

Congoleum: More than 100 years of Progress in Floor Coverings

Congoleum Corporation, a major manufacturer of resilient sheet and tile floorcoverings, traces its origins back more than 100 years to Kirkcaldy, Scotland. It was there, during the mid-nineteenth century, that Michael Nairn expanded his family's successful sailcloth business into the manufacture of painted floorcloths. Local skeptics called the new enterprise "Nairn's Folly."

But people stopped laughing when Nairn's painted floorcloths quickly became a popular item, as they were a practical and inexpensive way of covering the swept dirt floors that were the standard in working-class homes of that period. The business grew further under the direction of Nairn's son, Sir Michael Nairn, and gradually evolved into the company that is now Congoleum Corporation.

Following the wave of emigration to the U.S. that occurred in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, the Nairn family arrived in the late 1880's looking for new opportunities in an expanding and hospitable business environment. The Nairns located in Kearny, New Jersey, and began to manufacture linoleum, a product they had developed from the original painted floorcloths.

Linoleum, the precursor of contemporary resilient floors, was a hard, smooth flooring made from a solidified mixture of linseed oil and ground cork laid on a backing of canvas or burlap. It was more durable than the canvas floorcloths and was easier to keep clean. For many people, linoleum made it possible to maintain a consistently tidy appearance in the home for the first time. Linoleum was a practical choice for a majority of people of that period, as only wealthy families could afford the luxury of wood, marble and ceramic flooring.

The Nairns continued to manufacture linoleum through the early 1900's, and their business flourished. In the early 1920's, the family joined forces with a supplier in Erie, Pennsylvania, which manufactured a three-foot wide simulated wood grain product used to border area rugs and linoleum. This product was known as Congoleum, because the asphalt materials used to make it came from the Belgian Congo in Africa. The new company called itself Congoleum-Nairn.

Congoleum-Nairn continued to sell Congoleum Gold Seal Rugs and Nairn linoleum through the late 1930's, until its researchers started experimenting with a new material called vinyl. However, further research into developing vinyl flooring was interrupted when World War II began. Following the war, the company continued to grow in the rapidly expanding housing market of that period.

In the late 1950's, Congoleum-Nairn introduced 12-foot wide sheet flooring made out of vinyl. This flooring was a totally man-made product that offered consumers more in terms of durability, convenience of installation and styling than its predecessors. Over the following decades, the company introduced a number of other technological innovations that have since become standards in the resilient flooring industry.

Congoleum Continues to Grow

Congoleum has continued to grow in order to offer its customers the best and most complete selection of flooring products. In 1993, Congoleum Corporation formed a joint venture with Amtico Floors (not to be confused with the current Amtico Company of Coventry, United Kingdom), a residential and commercial resilient tile manufacturer.

A consistent leader in the tile industry, Amtico's many product innovations included:

  • Film-type tile flooring
  • "Spatter" commercial floor tile
  • "Metallic" commercial floor tile
  • Pearlescent chip commercial floor tile
  • 12-inch x 12-inch commercial floor tile
  • Embossed commercial floor tile
  • Embossed in-register commercial floor tile
  • Urethane-coated commercial floor tile
  • 8-inch x 8-inch urethane-coated floor tile

Congoleum products now consist of both residential and commercial resilient sheet and tile. All Congoleum sheet and tile products are designed and manufactured in the United States. The company's sophisticated 513,000 square foot manufacturing and distribution facility in Trenton, New Jersey, ensures timely delivery of products to a network of more than 100 distributor locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. Satellite manufacturing facilities are located in Pennsylvania and Maryland, plus a second facility in Trenton, New Jersey where tile is produced.