Quilts, Social Engineering, and Black Power in the Tennessee Valley

Abstract

Drawing on a group of quilts created by African American women who lived in the construction villages associated with the Tennessee Valley Authority during the New Deal era, this essay asserts that these quiltmakers created modernist quilts as "home beautification," as a potential source of empowerment to the Black tva staff and their families, and as a signal to white tva administrators that Black workers had much to offer the community and nation, deserving better treatment than the federal program was providing. These women attempted to disrupt the customs and traditions of the rural South by crafting quilts with equally radical aesthetics and messages, in contrast to the typical quilts of this era, which reflect the colonial revival and popular consumer culture. By giving these quilts to white tva higher-ups, African Americans associated with the tva claimed their power and potential in the face of a segregated system funded by the federal government.