On this day in 1982, American musician Frank Zappa earned his first and only Top 40 hit, “Valley Girl.” The song was conceived by Zappa’s 14-year-old daughter Moon Unit as a way to get her busy father’s attention. The song, while a complete satire, spawned a teen subculture in the San Fernando Valley, spreading phrases like “Gag me with a spoon” and “Fer sure” past the local malls out into the world.
Grace Reynolds Tyler made this “Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) Quilt” in 1934 in Wheeler TVA Dam Village in Alabama. Three other quilts in this same pattern called “Lazy Man,” (designed by Ruth Clement Bond, wife of TVA Personnel Officer), have been located. This quilt was documented during the Quilts of Tennessee project and appears in Merikay Waldvogel’s book “Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great Depression (Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1990). Waldvogel interviewed Bond, who said: “the black man in the center is in the process of choosing between a job offered by the Federal Government (the white uniformed hand) or the “life of frivolity” represented by the woman whose profile is at the right.”
View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about its history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view.
Posted by Amy E. Milne
Executive Director, Quilt Alliance
amy.milne@quiltalliance.org