American Quilts Research Articles

Ghost-Stitching American Politics

Ghost-Stitching American Politics

An exhibition: One American Family: A Tale of North and South

The exhibition One American Family: A Tale of North and South was the culmination of a multi-year project that began with a graduate student’s examination of three quilt tops that once belonged to a family that had donated over 500 objects to the University of Rhode Island’s Historic Textile and Costume Collection. This family, which had deep roots in New England, became intertwined through marriage with a family from Charleston, South Carolina. The student, Rachel May, a doctoral candidate in English, became so enamoured of the quilt tops, two related swatch books and the story behind the artefacts that she continued her research for several years, finally publishing a book in 2018 titled An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery. The book is based on documentary research, but imagines the lives of the quiltmaker, her family and the enslaved people she came to own during the antebellum period. To commemorate the publication of the book, the university sponsored an exhibition and several educational events. A graduate-level class ‘Exhibition and storage of historic textiles’ tackled the problem of how to separate the documentary evidence from the book’s fictionalized narrative, and to visualize that evidence using the artefacts in the Historic Textile and Costume Collection.

Rachel May, An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery. New York: Pegasus Books, 2018. Pp. 452. $27.95 (cloth).

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsRachel May, An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery. New York: Pegasus Books, 2018. Pp. 452. $27.95 (cloth).Cynthia PattersonCynthia PattersonUniversity of South Florida Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 105, Number 4Fall 2020 A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/710596 Views: 40Total views on this site For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Triple Oppression of African-American Women: Conceptual Metaphor Analysis of How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto

Triple Oppression of African-American Women: Conceptual Metaphor Analysis of How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto

American Quilts in the Industrial Age, 1760-1870: The International Quilt Study Center and Museum Collections ed. by Patricia Cox Crews and Carolyn Ducey

Reviewed by: American Quilts in the Industrial Age, 1760-1870: The International Quilt Study Center and Museum Collections ed. by Patricia Cox Crews and Carolyn Ducey Katie Knowles American Quilts in the Industrial Age, 1760-1870: The International Quilt Study Center and Museum Collections. Edited by Patricia Cox Crews and Carolyn Ducey. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2018. Pp. xiv, 502. $90.00, ISBN 978-0-8032-9592-6.) In this second book of a multivolume catalog of the collections of the International Quilt Study Center and Museum (IQSCM), the contributors provide in-depth analysis of American quilts ranging in date from the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth century. The book is arranged with chapters focused on style groupings of quilts. Each chapter contains essays that provide close readings of a few quilts, emphasizing the importance of careful, deep study of individual objects. The introduction is an excellent display of how such close reading can be used to create interesting data that reveals patterns when analyzing quilts. The editors give detailed information about how they thought through terminology to define objects that often cross multiple categories of analysis or that come with limited contextual information. Geographic area of origin seems straightforward, and only 5 percent of the quilts studied for this book were made in the South according to the defined regional categories. However, the slave state of Maryland, home to distinctive styles of applique quilts in the first half of the nineteenth century, is categorized under the mid-Atlantic region. The book's strength is in the individual quilt stories told throughout. For example, by examining the seams of the main portion of an early-nineteenth-century red wool quilt, researchers determined it was made from a hooded cloak that was deconstructed, with the bedcover's borders made from a recycled quilted petticoat. [End Page 154] While the authors excel in the physical reading of objects, they provide an outdated nationalist narrative of the triumphs of westward expansion and industrialization. The consequences of the first on indigenous peoples and the relationship of the second to chattel slavery are completely absent from the book. The authors note numerous times that the availability of cheap cotton in the early nineteenth century allowed for the expanding popularity of quilting. At no point do they explain that these cottons were cheap because the labor system of chattel slavery supported industrialization. The authors draw only on connections between Western European art and aesthetic movements when analyzing the quilts. The exclusion of slavery and of enslaved people from this book is striking, particularly since it is framed as a catalog representing the IQSCM's examples of American quilts. In the preface, the editors state that African American quilts are not included because they will be presented in a separate volume of the series. Yet a close reading of one quilt made in Kentucky references a second quilt of similar rococo revival style that is "[a]ttributed to enslaved 'sewing women'" from South Carolina (p. 388). The only detail about the construction of the quilt attributed to the black makers is that it is of lesser quality than the Kentucky quilt. Were the enslaved women not African American quilt makers? Were black people not making American quilts during this period? Did aesthetics such as the strip weaving techniques of West African cultures not influence pieced quilts made in the United States? These are important questions that remain understudied in textile history. This book makes valuable contributions to the field of quilt scholarship through the physical reading of the objects. But romantic stories of quilts as commendable survivors of the Confederacy or of intrepid pioneers carrying textile heirlooms across the Great Plains do not help us to fully understand the complexities that objects hold as historical sources. Katie Knowles Colorado State University Copyright © 2019 The Southern Historical Association

The Use of Quilt Imagery in Fargo’s Advertising: Embracing and Subverting a Midwestern Cultural Symbol

The Use of Quilt Imagery in Fargo’s AdvertisingEmbracing and Subverting a Midwestern Cultural Symbol Catherine Kelly (bio) Over its first three seasons, Noah Hawley’s television series Fargo (FX, 2014–) presents a surreal account of the Midwest. Notably, some of the series’ promotional materials replicate the aesthetics of celebrated folk art practices such as needlework. More specifically, the show’s print and digital advertisements spark audience interest by illustrating violent scenes with, respectively, a knitted sweater aesthetic for season one and quilt design for season two.1 These promotional materials connect to the show’s inspiration, Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 film Fargo. One of the original film’s promotional posters employs a cross-stitch design to illustrate a dark turning point in the story.2 The television series’ award-winning poster campaign for its second season is particularly noteworthy as it offers an atypical depiction of quilts that both embraces and subverts needlework’s historical significance in the Midwest (see figure 1).3 In addition, because quiltmaking has traditionally been an outlet for women’s independence, advocacy, and self-expression, the advertisement’s focus on the quilt itself implies the importance of the female characters’ roles and actions in the show. Quiltmaking’s Midwestern History and Significance In order to understand the implications of Fargo’s second-season quilt advertisement, it is important to provide an overview of how and why quilt-making is a noteworthy practice in the Midwest. The art of quilting involves sewing together three layers to form a blanket. The top layer usually includes sewn designs or patchwork (i.e., pieces of material stitched together). The middle layer is composed of batting (e.g., cotton, wool, or synthetic fibers) [End Page 127] that provides insulation and thickness, and the bottom layer is either one solid piece of fabric or patchwork pieces similar to the top layer. This art is practiced across the world, but it holds an especially strong connection to the American Midwest. Historically (especially in the nineteenth century), people migrating from eastern states to the Midwest and beyond used quilts to ease their journey as this form of needlework provided cushioning and warmth. Quilts also served as a remembrance of the families and places left behind and strengthened the relationships among those who quilted during and after their travels.4 More general and contemporary practices include the use of quilts to decorate walls and beds, as well as to commemorate a historical or family milestone. Quilts also strengthen family bonds as relatives often pass them down throughout the generations. Besides facilitating travel and upholding familial ties, quilts are particularly significant in the Midwest because some of the most renowned quiltmaking innovators and businesses originate within this region. For example, in the early twentieth century, Indiana-raised Marie Webster managed—along with family and friends—the Practical Patchwork Company, which was one of the first to mass distribute quilt patterns, tutorials, and samples. In 1915, Webster published the first book in the United States about American quilting practices, entitled Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them. This book subsequently inspired many other quiltmakers.5 According to E. Duane Elbert and Rachel Kamm Elbert, Webster’s “work was the first serious attempt to study the American quilt, and it remained the only book in the field for many years.”6 Of additional note, in the 1970s, Ernest B. Haight of Nebraska “pioneered machine-piecing methods that eventually revolutionized the use of the sewing machine in the last two decades of the twentieth century,” thus reducing the time to make a quilt by hand.7 The Midwest is also the location for the most prominent quiltmaking businesses and institutions. For instance, Stearns and Foster was established in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the mid-nineteenth century, and it “is one of the oldest and best-known quilt supply companies in the United States.”8 In regard to scholarship, the International Quilt Study Center & Museum at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln holds the United States’ most extensive compendium of quilts and quiltmaking tools, and the University of Nebraska is a leading institution in quilt studies by offering a graduate-level certificate in this subject.9...

Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center by Katherine Jean Adams

Reviewed by: Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center by Katherine Jean Adams Carolyn Mazloomi Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center. By Katherine Jean Adams. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. 322. Illustrations, notes, glossary, index.) Covering two centuries of history, Comfort and Glory is an impressive volume giving an in-depth look at 115 important and stunning quilts from the Winedale Quilt Collection at the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. With meticulous handwork, intricate designs, and graphic histories, the collection demonstrates the impact of quilts on American culture and exemplifies the importance of this beloved art form to the scholarship of women's culture and quilt history. These are among the finest quilts in America. Reflecting the material culture of Texas, the collection encompasses a broad range of styles, including masterpieces as well as utilitarian quilts made for everyday use. Extraordinary quilts made by many well-known twentieth-century luminaries, such as Pine Hawkes Eisfeller, Bertha Stenge, Emma Andres, Florence Peto, and Dr. Jeannette Throckmorton, [End Page 252] anchor the collection. In fact, two quilts, "The Garden" and "Tree of Life," made by Eisfeller, are listed among the twentieth century's one hundred best American quilts. With few exceptions, each quilt has been extensively researched, yielding valuable historic details of the women who made them, their lives, families, and the religion and politics of the era. The book is beautifully illustrated with full-page color photographs and smaller color photographs of quilt details. The writing is exemplary; Katherine Adams is clearly a researcher familiar with quilts and accustomed to communicating complex details supported by solid footnotes. One of the most intriguing histories is that of the Lone Star quilt made in 1858 by Amanda Pairalee Hammonds (Linn) of Rusk County, Texas, when she was eighteen years old. After the Civil War, Amanda married George Linn, and the young couple traveled from East Texas to South America with all their possessions, including her quilt. Adams has done a superb job of researching and documenting the quilt's eighty-nine year journey between two continents and its eventual return to Texas, including a difficult voyage from New Orleans to Brazil. In a fierce tropical storm near the coast of Cuba, the ship wrecked, submerging the quilt in the ocean for days, but the Hammonds family dried it on the beach. Amanda's daughter donated the Lone Star quilt to the University of Texas, making it the university's first. Another Texas-made quilt, "Freedom to Dream" by Marie Anita Murphy of Kountze, Texas, was exhibited at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City in 1986, where I saw it. The quilt represented Texas in the Great American Quilt Contest and Festival, which celebrated the Statue of Liberty's centennial. In addition to a full-page color photograph of Murphy's quilt, Adams also includes is a full-page photograph of the original design schematic and fabric samples used to make the contest-winning quilt from California. Comfort and Glory is an exceptional book: wonderful images, solid research, exceptional writing, and handsome production make it most impressive. I highly recommend it to those interested in women's history as well as quilt studies and collecting. [End Page 253] Carolyn Mazloomi West Chester, Ohio Copyright © 2017 The Texas State Historical Association

Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center by Katherine Jean Adams

Reviewed by: Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center by Katherine Jean Adams Laurel McKay Horton Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center. By Katherine Jean Adams. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 320. $75.00, ISBN 978-1-4773-0918-6.) Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center presents selections from the Winedale Quilt Collection, part of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. In his preface, Don Carleton, the center's executive director, indicates that this publication was originally envisioned as "a gallery of images with basic descriptions of the quilts" (p. xiii). Truly, the generous proportions and abundance of large, full-color images would earn this book a place on a coffee table, but through a particular set of circumstances the Winedale Collection "preserves extensive documentary resources on American quilt history, including ephemera, patterns, letters, photographs, research files, and countless other types of materials" (p. xiii). Carleton credits the efforts of Katherine Jean Adams not only for the current publication, but also for envisioning and implementing the development of the quilt collection. Adams has selected 115 of the Winedale's nearly 500 quilts to showcase in Comfort and Glory. Her goal is to show the breadth of the collection, and she gives "preference to quilts whose known date, maker, and/or provenance offered … opportunities for profitable research and, hence, for robust description" (p. 4). The quilts and their stories form a rich tapestry documenting the daily lives of families—their joys, sorrows, hopes, concerns, and relationships. A particular strength of the collection is its quilts related to Texas history. For example, Sterling and Mary Jones Orgain arrived in Texas with their ten children in the 1850s, bringing the quilt made for their 1818 wedding in Tennessee. In 1975, author and illustrator Betsy Warren made her first and only quilt, "Patches of Texas History," consisting of twenty-five blocks depicting historic scenes and famous Texans (p. 256). For the sesquicentennial of the founding of the Republic of Texas, Shirley Fowlkes Stevenson created a pictorial quilt to honor her great-grandfather, Captain John Files Tom, a veteran of the Texas Revolution. Comfort and Glory not only presents the individual quilts within their social, cultural, and historical contexts, but also details the development of the Winedale Quilt Collection as a whole. In 1967, a legendary Texan, Miss Ima Hogg, donated a property called Winedale to the University of Texas. The historic farmstead included land, buildings, and an extensive collection of American furniture and decorative arts. Among the textiles were seventeen [End Page 1023] quilts, which became the foundation for the Winedale Quilt Collection in 1995. Once established, the collection attracted individual donations of family quilts, typically accompanied by information about the makers. The collection also drew the support of influential figures, notably Karoline Patterson Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes, cofounders of the International Quilt Festival and numerous other events and organizations. Curator Katherine Adams envisioned the collection would include not only the textiles themselves but also related documentary resources. This effort began in earnest with the acquisition of the Kathleen H. McCrady Quilt History Collection, which includes contemporary and historical quilts, related textile objects, and publications. In 2008, the Briscoe Center acquired the voluminous Joyce Gross Quilt History Collection, a library and personal archive accumulated over a period of nearly forty years that includes iconic quilts made by important twentieth-century fabric artists such as Bertha Stenge, Pine Hawkes Eisfeller, and Jean Ray Laury. Comfort and Glory offers a sampling of two hundred years of American quilts and shares stories of families migrating to the Texas frontier, while simultaneously establishing the Winedale Quilt Collection as an important research resource. The reader comes away with a clear recognition of a succession of passionate and dedicated individuals' efforts to collect, preserve, and document quilts as significant cultural expressions, individually and collectively, of the lives of American women. Laurel McKay Horton Seneca, South Carolina Copyright © 2017 The Southern Historical Association

Creators and Consumers: Women and Material Culture and Visual Art in Nineteenth-Century Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest

Reviewed by: Creators and Consumers: Women and Material Culture and Visual Art in Nineteenth-Century Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest Cynthia Brandimarte Creators and Consumers: Women and Material Culture and Visual Art in Nineteenth-Century Texas, the Lower South, and the Southwest. (Houston: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens, the Museum of Fine Arts, 2016. Pp. 140. Photographs, notes.) This collection of seven papers represents the proceedings from the fifth (2015) symposium named in honor of David B. Warren, founding curator of Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend Collection. The essays in Creators and Consumers have in common a focus on women as the primary actors in the creation and consumption of visual and material culture. The volume [End Page 230] contains papers on subjects ranging from a southern woman fashioning an elaborate hair wreath as an act of Confederate memory-making to a Louisiana plantation owner and widow on the eve of the Civil War purchasing on credit a set of stylish Rococo Revival parlor furnishings, a luxury purchase likely never paid for in full. The 2015 symposium attracted both veteran and new scholars to participate. Paula Mitchell Marks, who first wrote about Texas women and their material worlds in Hands to the Spindle: Texas Women and Home Textile Production, 1822–1880 (Texas A&M University Press, 1996), leads the volume with an overview of the range of women's art activities in Texas, and she makes lively use of sources to make the historical record speak to her topic. Katherine J. Adams, author of Comfort and Glory: Two Centuries of American Quilts from the Briscoe Center (University of Texas Press, 2016), selects textiles included in her book to talk about the cultural factors that influenced the aesthetic decisions of the women who made the quilts. Drawing from her book, The Sunbonnet: an American Icon in Texas (Texas Tech University Press, 2009), Rebecca Jumper Matheson, presents rich visual and textual sources to convey, expertly, the rich meanings of the handmade sunbonnet. New scholars joining the foregoing veterans are Mel Buchanan, Katherine Burlison, Lauren Clark, and Whitney Nell Stewart. Buchanan studies the parlor of Harriet Flower Mathews, which remained in situ until 2014 when it was installed in the New Orleans Museum of Art, where its interpretation has changed. Burlison writes about Mary Bella Prague Brice and her dilemma of being a talented artist while accepting her amateur status. In her essay, Clark sets the scene for the creation of a memorial hair wreath that was so typical in post-Civil War America and interprets the object that is so puzzling to many contemporary viewers. Whitney Nell Stewart argues that, after the Emancipation Proclamation, formerly enslaved African American women viewed making a home as a way to exercise freedom and reunite family. Creators and Consumers is a fitting publication for Bayou Bend's symposium series. Importantly, this volume stands virtually alone in focusing on women and the material world in Texas and the South. Cynthia Brandimarte Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Copyright © 2017 The Texas State Historical Association

Unconventional and Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 (Kiracofe)

This work is a book review considering the title Unconventional and Unexpected: American Quilts Below the Radar 1950-2000 by Roderick Kiracofe.

American Quilts and Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2nd ed AmeliaPeck with Cynthia V. A.Schaffner. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and MQ Publications, 2007.

American Quilts and Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2nd ed Amelia Peck with Cynthia V. A. Schaffner. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art and MQ Publications, 2007.Nineteenth-century bedcovers were made to be functional and beautiful, but they are also intriguingly complicated historical objects. Amelia Peck's second edition of American Quilts and Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art uncovers that complexity through an in-depth analysis of the highlights of the Metropolitan collection, ninety stunning examples accompanied by superb illustrations. The visual form of these objects is predictably spectacular, but equally fascinating are the accounts of production and original use, the genealogies of the forms, and the biographies of those who made them, valued them, and preserved them.There are two historical narratives that wind their way through the individual examples: American social history on the one hand and the stylistic history on the other. Organized in sections on quilts (pieced, applique'd, and wholecloth) and coverlets (woven and embroidered), the text is comprised of essays providing factual and contextual information on each of the ninety bedcovers.The objects evoke many interesting aspects of nineteenth-century social history. There is abundant information about individuals, such as family connections among quilt-makers and collectors, and regional traditions among coverlet weavers. For anyone accustomed to thinking of modern artists as eccentric and romantic figures, this biographical material reminds us that the production of great beauty is just as likely to occur within a very ordinary life as in an unconventional one. The objects themselves are also laden with historical significance, especially in terms of textiles, which have been comprehensively researched. We learn, for example, that pieced quilts were not made from leftover old clothes and linens but rather from commercially marketed fabric. This means that by virtue of their production of bedcovers, women at once conformed to familiar gender roles (too delicate and passive to have professions or hold positions of authority in public life and so confined to domesticity), but also as consumers played an active role in the economy. Moreover, cutting, piecing, and stitching lent themselves to team work, and so quilt-making, unlike more solitary domestic tasks, justified visiting with other women and thereby enabled the cultivation of private female society. …

Looking at textiles: a guide to technical terms

This is a concise yet detailed guide to the fundamental terms, materials, and techniques used to create textiles. have been made and used by every culture throughout history. However diverse - whether an Egyptian mummy wrapping, a Turkish carpet, Italian velvet, American quilt, or a Scottish kilt - all textiles have basic elements in common. They are made of fibres, constructed into forms, and patterned and coloured in ways that follow certain principles. Looking at Textiles serves as a guide to the fundamentals of the materials and techniques used to create textiles. The selected technical terms explain what textiles are, how they are made, and what they are made of, and include definitions of terms relating to fibres, dyes, looms and weaving, and patterning processes. The many illustrations, including macro- and micro-scale photographs of a range of ancient and historic museum textiles, demonstrate the features described in the text.

I See the Rhythm of Gospel (review)

Reviewed by: I See the Rhythm of Gospel Elizabeth Bush Igus, Toyomi . I See the Rhythm of Gospel; illus. by Michele Wood . Zonderkidz, 2011. 40p. ISBN 978-0-310-71819-2 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 3-6. Igus and Wood, author and illustrator of I See the Rhythm, return to the subject [End Page 280] of African-American music, focusing now on the development of gospel from roots to hip-hop. Three distinctive threads appeal to children of different literary preferences and learning styles: a detailed timeline sets gospel highlights against noteworthy moments in African-American history; an Igus poem marks each milestone or sea change in gospel sound; and full-page illustrations by Wood are rich with information and symbolism. Igus’ purposive verse occasionally strains to attach rhyme, but it’s begging for musical accompaniment; when she’s on a roll, with slant rhymes popping and shoulders and hips tacitly in motion, it’s easier to make her message “reach out and speak to a new generation.” It’s Wood who takes top honors, however, with challenging compositions densely textured in African design and American quilt patterns, and captions that encourage viewers to seek out the embedded symbolism and identify major players. A CD with five songs representative of notable eras in gospel music is included, and if they don’t raise a few hallelujahs, there are plenty of suggestions in the discography that will. [End Page 281] Copyright © 2011 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

American quilts: the democratic art, 1780-2007

American quilts: the democratic art, 1780-2007

Textiles of Healing: Native American AIDS Quilts

Around the world responses to AIDS and HIV are expressed in material form through idioms mediated by particular social and historical contingencies. In this article I examine at the case of AIDS memorial quilts produced by contemporary Native Americans. The invisible connections between people, their histories, and cultures that are materialized in this particular form of textiles make them culturally significant vehicles for healing practices for many Native Americans, who maintain that the acknowledgment of customary meanings ensures ritual efficacy and curing success. As a particular response to AIDS, grief, death, and healing these objects reveal the social relevance of expressing materially culturally encoded messages that are simultaneously rooted in universally shared idioms and the uniqueness of local experiences.

American quilts in the modern age, 1870-1940: the International Quilt Study Center collections

Preface Acknowledgments Introduction: American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870-1940 / Marin F. Hanson 1. American Adaptation: Block-Style Quilts / Barbara Brackman and Marin F. Hanson 2. Building on a Foundation: Log Cabin Quilts / Patricia Cox Crews, Carolyn Ducey, Marin F. Hanson, and Jonathan Gregory 3. Regularly Irregular: Crazy Quilts / Beverly Gordon and Marin F. Hanson 4. Simple and Complex: Allover-Style Quilts / Laurel Horton 5. Perfecting the Past: Colonial Revival Quilts / Virginia Gunn 6. Repackaging Tradition: Pattern and Kit Quilts / Merikay Waldvogel, Deborah Rake, and Marin F. Hanson 7. Innovation and Imagination: One-of-a-Kind and Niche Quilts / Jonathan Holstein, Merikay Waldvogel, and Marin F. Hanson Notes Glossary Selected Bibliography Contributors Index

Crafted lives: stories and studies of African American quilters

In Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters Patricia A. Turner explores the culture and recent history of African Americans through the creations and wisdom of nine quilters. Turner profiles quilters who exemplify the range of black women and men dedicated to the making of quilts, and she shows how their craftwork establishes order and meaning in their lives. The artisans comprise eight women and one man, ranging from teenagers to octogenarians, representing an array of education and income levels, and living across the United States, including Alaska. Turner also probes the ways in which African American quilts and quilters have been depicted, discussed, criticized, and characterized. From the displays of Harriet Powers's creations at the turn of the twentieth century to the contemporary exhibits of such black art-quilts as those promoted by Carolyn Mazloomi, and such utilitarian expressions as the celebrated examples from Gee's Bend, Alabama, Turner uses quilts to assess the level of control African Americans have had or have not had over the materials they craft and the art they leave as legacy to new generations. Patricia A. Turner is professor of African American and African studies and the vice provost of undergraduate studies at the University of California, Davis. She is the author of Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture among other books. Kyra E. Hicks is the author of Black Threads: An African American Quilting Sourcebook.

Reviewing American Quilts: A Record of Women’s Political Engagement

Reviewing American Quilts: A Record of Women’s Political Engagement

Redefining the American quilt: definitions and experiences of community among ethnically diverse lesbian and bisexual women

AbstractLesbian and bisexual women from diverse backgrounds possess unique viewpoints regarding the meanings and functions of “community.” Despite this, few studies have explored sexual minority women's understanding of and relationship to their communities. The present study employed qualitative research methods to investigate the meanings and functions of community among a sample of ethnically diverse lesbian and bisexual women (N=49). From the participants' responses in semistructured focus groups and key informant interviews, three core constructs emerged: community concepts (relevance, meaning), community‐based strain (racism, homophobia, biphobia, classism), and community‐based action (fluidity, exclusivity). Implications of these findings for future research and practice with this population of women will be discussed. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Great Lakes Native Quilting

Teri Klassen is a graduate student in the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. Her studies focus on historical ethnography and material culture in the United States. The complex cultural history of American quiltmaking is her special interest. She recently published an article on quiltmaking and patriotism in the American Quilt Study Group's annual Uncoverings.