Quilts Teach History

Contents

1. African American, Native American, and European American girls from all social classes learned to sew because commercially made clothing and bedding were not available until after the industrial revolution at the beginning of the 20th century.
   
   
2. Native American girls learned to make European American style clothing and quilts at boarding schools. Learning to quilt was designed to "civilize" Native people into European American culture during the 19th century.
   
   
3. Vicki Cornelius, an Oneida living on the Oneida reservation in Wisconsin, married a Lakota and learned to make star quilts from her mother-in-law. Even though she is no longer married to her Lakota partner, she continues to make the traditional Lakota star quilt.
   
   
4. Native people learned quilting later than African Americans and European Americans, but Plains nations, such as the Lakota, integrated quilting as an important art form within their culture. The star quilt has become significant in Lakota culture.
   
   
5. Dawn Amos, a European American, learned to make star quilts through marriage into a Lakota family.
   
   
6. African American women first learned to sew and quilt as slaves and they sewed for their owners and themselves. Although men worked with textiles in western African countries, slave owners insisted women slaves do the sewing, weaving, and quilting.
   
   
7. Women slaves dominated plantation textile production during the 18th and 19th centuries; however, they did not own the quilts they made. Slaves who became skilled quilters often enjoyed higher status, better food, clothing, housing, and more freedom of movement.
   
   
8. Larger plantations in the antebellum South had specially equipped buildings known as "sewing houses" or "loom rooms" in which all the sewing, quilting, and weaving took place.
   
   
9. Quilts were frequently made to celebrate the birth of babies in Native American, African American and European American cultures and marked other important life passages. Slaves especially needed quilts for warmth in their slave cabins.
   
   
10. Sometimes quilts followed people throughout life into death. They might choose to be buried with a quilt, decorate a grave site with a quilt, wrap the deceased in a quilt, or decorate the casket with a quilt.
    
    
11. Star quilts were used during many Lakota life experiences, including gifts at honoring ceremonies, weddings, give-aways, naming ceremonies, powwows, and veteran homecomings. They may be worn everyday as shawls or robes and worn during religious ceremonies or vision quests.
    
    
12. When Patricia Cooper and Norma Allen, authors of The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art, interviewed quilters in New Mexico and Texas, they discovered many reasons why women quilted. For one, it was a way to make something positive amidst hardships.
    
    
13. Despite the hardships for slave women, they chose to quilt for themselves after working long days in their owner's fields or house and taking care of their own families. Quilting offered a refuge from slavery, a creative outlet, and a chance to make something for themselves.
    
    
14. A quilt made by Phyllis, a slave imported from the Congo in 1818 when she was 12 or 13 years old. She became the plantation cook and quilter.
    
    
15. A rare picture of an African American woman and her quilt after emancipation, around 1890. The quilt appears to be a treasured possession; however, few slave quilts survived the heavy use and harsh laundering.
    
    
16. Native American women also quilted to express themselves and creatively modified traditional Lakota star patterns. Vicki Cornelius, an Oneida who makes star quilts, said that quilting allowed her to express her creativity and stitch good feelings into her quilts.
    
    
17. For European American women who moved with their families into sparsely settled areas of the country during the 19th century, they quilted to pass the time and ease their loneliness.
    
    
18. Quilting bees or parties were also times for socializing with friends. The host usually completed the patterned quilt top, then friends sat around a quilting frame to stitch together the quilt's three layers. Women's talk was an important part of quilting bees or parties.
    
    
19. Occasionally, slave women and plantation mistresses developed special relationships and cooperatively quilted. Jane Arthur Bond and her mistress Rebecca Bond Routt became friends and together sewed several quilts, which still exist.
    
    
20. Quilts were a method of recording friendships through album or friendship quilts. When European American families moved westward between 1840-1860, their friends often made a quilt to commemorate the family and friends left behind.
    
    
21. In more contemporary times, friendship quilts continue to be made when someone moves, retires, or marries. Each friend usually creates and signs a block, making a unique quilt for the recipient.
    
    
22. Quilts are tangible representations of women's labor. Since much of women's domestic work has been invisible and not counted in the gross national product, airing one's quilts every spring is a reminder of women's domestic productivity.
    
    
23. Quilts may also represent different cultures. This Lakota crazy quilt is not a traditional quilt pattern among the Lakota, but illustrates the integration of European American and Native American cultures.
    
    
24. The star pattern became a traditional quilt patten among the Lakota because of the importance of the morning star in Lakota culture. The morning star is a symbol for immortality and represents a new beginning and new day dawning.
    
    
25. The Eagle Star quilt illustrates the importance of the star and eagle in Native cultures. The eagle is a messenger between the earth and sky and a symbol for valor and courage.
    
    
26. Dawn Amos created the quilt entitled "The Beginnings." It also reflects two significant Lakota symbols, the morning star and the eagle.
    
    
27. Dawn Amos' pictorial quilt "Descending Visions" incorporates a portrait of a Plains Native American and the eagle. Her award winning quilts reflect her partner's Lakota culture.
    
    
28. When Patricia Cooper and Norma Allen interviewed quilters from New Mexico and Texas, they discovered women made quilts to represent their physical environments. For example, cotton at the gin ready to be processed may be shown in quilts.
    
    
29. The Diamond Field quilt is an abstract representation of a cotton crop ready for processing.
    
    
30. The Crazy Windmill quilt depicts the significance of windmills, which used wind energy to pump water from underground wells. The image of the twirling windmill reminded people of the water they needed in a dry area of the country.
    
    
31. A crop of sunflowers grown in the Texas panhandle is another part of quilters' physical environment.
    
    
32. A sunflower crop is illustrated in the Sunflower quilt pattern to portray the significance of this product.
    
    
33. For some women, remembering their father's work in building a log cabin for their family stimulated a quilt.
    
    
34. The use of fabrics in the Log Cabin quilt resembles the pattern of close-fitting logs used to build a log cabin.
    
    
35. A very different Log Cabin quilt was made by an African American professional dressmaker in 1870. This quilt integrates the log cabin pattern with pictorial representations of African Americans' everyday activities.
    
    
36. Quilts may also represent quilters' social environments. The Charleston Battery Scene, an unfinished quilt, illustrates the significance of shipping to Charleston, South Carolina around 1840.
    
    
37. This quilt also portrays the architecture of houses and the homes' contents, such as teapots, barrels for storage, and a plow.
    
    
38. The quilt illustrates the architectural heritage of 18 homes in Charleston. The quilter cleverly used various fabrics to portray different building materials used in homes.
    
    
39. Phoebe Cook made the Phoebe Cook quilt in 1872 to record her neighbors in the town of Edison, Ohio. She included 100 figures dressed in the latest fashion and engaged in everyday activities, such as churning butter and plowing.
    
    
40. In this quilt, Phoebe Cook stitched many details of people's appearance, such as hair, head coverings, jewelry, and shoes. Quilt historians speculate that the object several characters are holding may represent "the hand of God."
    
    
41. This crazy quilt is a record of the town of Centralia, Illinois at the beginning of the 20th century. The names of Centralia's four newspapers are stitched in the center star and the names of the businesses, individuals, and families are sewn in other places on the quilt.
    
    
42. The crazy quilt pattern was used to create a map of Kansas, commemorating its statehood in 1861.
    
    
43. Another quilt, "Tepees Round the Lake" portrays another place, that of a Native American community. The outer points of the star represent tepees or homes; the small red triangles symbolize the fires for cooking, warmth, and life; blue and green reflect the physical environment.
    
    
44. Quilts represent the national interests and economy of the time period. The Trade and Commerce Bedcover depicts the trade and commerce of a New Jersey port town in 1830. The quilt shows workers' activities and clothing as well as those of the well-to-do.
    
    
45. A close-up of the Trade and Commerce Bedcover. It illustrates the fashion and transportation of the wealthy and communicates an era of prosperity.
    
    
46. In contrast, during the economic depression of the late 1920s-1940s, quilters "made do" with cloth feed and floor sacks for sewing clothing, household decorating, and quilts. The Flour Mill Trademark quilt, made around 1935, illustrates women's creative recycling of flour sacks.
    
    
47. The Train quilt reflects technological change, such as the completion of the transcontinental railroad in the late 19th century.
    
    
48. Quilts illustrate women's political, moral, and religious beliefs and support for specific causes. The Jacob's Ladder quilt pattern was renamed the Underground Railroad to depict northern women's support for the anti-slavery movement.
    
    
49. A more recent and very different version of the Underground Railroad quilt, made in 1982, illustrates the efforts of the town of Oberlin, Ohio to help fugitive slaves escape along the Underground Railroad.
    
    
50. Southern women, who recognized their agricultural economy depended on free slave labor, made and sold quilts to support the Confederacy during the Civil War. The Basket quilt raised money for the southern cause.
    
    
51. The Crusade quilt reveals women's support for the temperance movement. This quilt was made as a tribute to a leader of the temperance movement in 1876 and was signed by 3,000 women who supported the Women's Christian Temperance Union.
    
    
52. Quilts also reflect women's support for political equality. The Suffragette quilt, made in 1875, depicts vignettes showing women engaged in activities considered very radical for the time period. Quilt historians question if the quilt celebrates or satirizes the women's rights movement.
    
    
53. One scene from the Suffragette quilt hints at changes in women's and men's roles if women gain the right to vote.
    
    
54. Another scene from the Suffragette quilt implies women will break out of their socially sanctioned role of traveling with a male companion. Instead, they will drive their own buggy and publicly advocate for "Woman Rights!"
    
    
55. A third scene from the Suffragette quilt illustrates the audacity for a woman to speak publicly to a male audience, who is taken aback by such an outrageous act.
    
    
56. Quilts also represent women's religious beliefs. Harriet Powers, shown here, was an African American quilter and originally a slave. She never learned to read or write, but remembered Bible stories.
    
    
57. Powers created two original applique Bible story quilts which are now on display in the Smithsonian and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Both quilts have become among the most well-known narrative quilts in the U.S. They were made in the late 19th century.
    
    
58. Quilts also call attention to the oppression of cultural groups. Dawn Amos created "Before the Crossing" to encourage people to understand the importance of the buffalo to Plains Native nations, which were destroyed by the U.S. Government and European Americans.
    
    
59. Dawn Amos made the quilt "Looking Back on Broken Promises" to encourage people to understand Native people's perspectives and experiences.
    
    
60. Dawn Amos also created the "Looking Back II: Silent Cries"quilt to illustrate Native people's thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
    
    
61. The fading images in a final quilt made by Dawn Amos, "Lost Impressions," seems to represent U.S. Government attempts to diminish Native American culture.
    
    
62. The most well-known contemporary quilt project which reflects people's values, beliefs, and support for specific causes is the AIDS quilt. It was begun by Cleve Jones in 1987 to allow people to collaborate in creating a hand-sewn tribute to those lost to AIDS.
    
    
63. Instead of using a quilting frame to sew the quilt's three layers together, volunteers for the AIDS quilt use sewing machines to stitch individual panels into larger quilt sections.
    
    
64. One of the AIDS quilt panels depicts health workers' support and concern for those with AIDS, whom they have cared for.
    
    
65. This panel was made for Jessica Hazard, an infant who contracted AIDS from a contaminated blood transfusion. The panel reminds people that AIDS kills babies and children as well as adults.
    
    
66. Yet another quilt panel offers advice for dealing with AIDS. Cleve Jones, the originator of the AIDS quilt project, recognizes that the quilt touches people so they no longer turn away from AIDS' devastation.
    
    
67. In 1987, the AIDS quilt was displayed publicly for the first time in Washington, DC. 1,920 quilt panels covered a space larger than two football fields. The Quilt continues to tour and raise funds for AIDS services.
    
    
68. Finally, quilts may summarize history, including the history of African Americans, shown on the Afro-American Heritage Bicentennial quilt in 1976. It records significant people and events in African American history from the time of Columbus to 1976.
    
    
69. The Reprise quilt celebrates interracial womanhood, including accomplished individuals, and the important roles women fill as mothers and teachers.
    
    
70. Finally, the Tree of Life quilt reminds us that quilts can teach us about the lives of ordinary people, who recorded their existence and views in their quilts.
    
    

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Last updated:
March 03, 2006 (Friday)