Shelburne Falls, MA – Leonard Brodt was born March 15, 1926 in Burrillville, RI. He began his career in woolen and worsted mills at the age of 15, working in the same mill as his loomfixer father. In 1944 he enlisted in the US Navy and served as a gunner's mate on the USS Missouri. After his service he returned to Rhode Island, weaving in a Woonsocket mill. He became a loomfixer and worked at numerous mills for three decades. He also worked at the Rhode Island School of Design for 19 years, operating their Jacquard and dobby looms to weave student designs.
Lenny bought an industrial loom in 1982 to weave his own designs under the name Iron Horse Textiles. He moved to the Shelburne Falls, MA area in the late 1980s and wove with and mentored his friend Peggy Hart who had met him as a student at RISD. His inventive work was wide ranging, from woven checkerboards to a modification to the W-3 loom, to manufacturing small carts which he pulled behind his electric scooter in the Shelburne Falls Memorial Day parades.
Leonard died Jan. 11, 2026 at the age of 99.
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