On this day in 1767, English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon assign a boundary between the colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland (and areas that would later become Delaware and West Virginia). They had been hired by the Penn and Calvert families to settle a dispute between the two proprietary colonies about the exact location of the boundary line. In the late 1700’s states south of the Mason-Dixon line began arguing for the perpetuation of slavery, while those north of the line hoped to phase out the practice. It was not until the 14th Amendment to the U. S. Constitution was passed in 1868 that gave all men born in the United States, regardless of skin color or which side of the Mason-Dixon line they lived, the rights of citizenship.
Nadine Marx Cordio pieced this Album Cross quilt and Sue Vollbrecht quilted it. It was finished around 1999 in Madison, Wisconsin and was documented in 2002 during the Wisconsin Quilt History Project. Cordio explains in the record that her family did a genealogy search and found that her great grandfather was in the Union Army, and this inspired her to research Civil War fabric and to take a workshop on period quilts. The label includes this inscription: “MASON DIXON MEMORIES: A workshop on Civil War era quilts. SIEVERS SCHOOL OF FIBER ARTS, WASHINGTON ISLAND, WISCONSIN, 1999. Instructor, Marianne Fons (Marianne Fons signature below). Album Cross…”
View this quilt on The Quilt Index to find out! Read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view or click the “See full record” link to see a larger image and all the data entered about that quilt.
Source:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/mason-and-dixon-draw-a-line
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org