by Quilt Alliance | Jan 7, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
Results may vary. On this day in 1896 The Boston Cooking School Cook Book, by Fannie Farmer was published. This cookbook, which included exact measurements for ingredients, rather than estimates, marked a major event in culinary history. Farmer had suffered a stroke as a teenager and had to quit school. She developed her interest in cooking during her time working as a mother’s helper. Mrs. Mary Herring Lamb of Sampson County, North Carolina made this Tobacco Leaf (alternately, Washington Sidewalk) quilt in 1879 when she was 10 years old using sewing scraps. Lamb was a homemaker and a home demonstration agent. The record includes this note: “Photo of quiltmaker in her cookbook,” so perhaps she authored a cookbook. Lamb’s niece in-law received the quilt as a gift and documented it during the North Carolina Quilt Project in 1986, eventually donating the quilt to the N.C. Museum of History. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Sources: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/cookbooks/p/fannie_farmer.htm http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/greenngrowing/timeline/1910.html Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jan 4, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
Coin-cidence. On this day in 1999 the “euro” debuts as the new common currency in eleven European Union (EU) nations. Today one euro is worth $1.32 U.S. The euro (€) is divided into 100 cents (c) and the coins are issued in €2, €1, 50c, 20c, 10c, 5c, 2c, and 1c denominations. From History.com: Euro cash, decorated with architectural images, symbols of European unity and member-state motifs, went into circulation on January 1, 2002, replacing the Austrian schilling, Belgian franc, Finnish markka, French franc, German mark, Italian lira, Irish punt, Luxembourg franc, Netherlands guilder, Portugal escudo and Spanish peseta. A number of territories and non-EU nations including Monaco and Vatican City also adopted the euro. This Chinese Coins, or Blocks in Bars, quilt was made by Madgalena Fisher Yoder of Arthur, Illinois around 1880. It is machine pieced and hand quilted. Three other quilts by this Amish quiltmaker are documented and shared in The Quilt Index by the Illinois State Museum. Search by name (Quiltermaker) on the Advanced Search page to view all of Yoder’s quilts. You can also search for “Chinese Coins” under Pattern Name to browse variants on this pattern from private and public collections and documentation projects. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Sources: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-euro-debuts Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jan 3, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
Able Hands On this day in 1938 U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, later renamed the March of Dimes Foundation. From History.com: A predominantly childhood disease in the early 20th century, polio wreaked havoc among American children every summer. The virus, which affects the central nervous system, flourished in contaminated food and water and was easily transmitted. Those who survived the disease usually suffered from debilitating paralysis into their adult lives. In 1921, at the relatively advanced age of 39, Roosevelt contracted polio and lost the use of his legs. With the help of the media, his Secret Service and careful event planning, Roosevelt managed to keep his disease out of the public eye, yet his personal experience inspired in him an empathy with the handicapped and prompted him to the found the March of Dimes. This Wedding Ring, or Friendship Wreath Variation, quilt was pieced and hand quilted by Ava West of Nobe, West Virginia in 1935. West contracted polio when she was five years old and quilted as a pastime, but was also paid to sew. The quilt was documented by West’s sister-in-law during the West Virginia Heritage Quilt Search. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Be sure to use the zoom tool for a detailed view. Sources: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/franklin-roosevelt-founds-march-of-dimes Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jan 2, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
Georgia Born On this day in 1788 Georgia became the fourth state in the modern United States. From History.com: Named after King George II, Georgia was first settled by Europeans in 1733, when a group of British debtors led by English philanthropist James E. Oglethorpe traveled up the Savannah River and established Georgia’s first permanent settlement–the town of Savannah. The Chimney Sweep, or Album Patch, quilt above was made in the 1840’s by Rachel Haynes Addy in Senoia, Georgia (approx. 40 miles southwest of Atlanta). Addy brought the quilt with her to Texas around 1871 when she moved to Grayson County with her husband and two young children. Her daughter Mary Jane Addy (1870-1935) inherited the quilt from her mother, then passed it on to her daughters Clara R. Williams Shaw (1892-1991) and Alta William Kaderli (1897-1974). This quilt was donated to the Winedale Quilt Collection at the Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin in 2007. View this quilt on The Quilt Index to read more about it’s history, design and construction. Sources: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/georgia-enters-the-union Posted by Amy E. Milne Executive Director, Quilt Alliance…
by Quilt Alliance | Jan 1, 2013 | On this Day in History Quilts series
Happy New Year, everyone! Our twentieth anniversary year has begun! We look forward to sharing ongoing traditions with you in 2013, like our annual quilt contest, (posting soon) and our Quilters Take Manhattan event (Save the Date for September 28), and new ones like a special quarterly newsletter for members only, and our very first conference on quilts and oral history (Save the Date for July 20 in Herndon, Virginia). Also new this year, I’ll be sharing my series On this Day in History Quilts. Since August of 2011, I’ve been curating a series of posts which appear on The Quilt Index and Quilt Alliance Facebook pages on most weekdays. I scour history websites for events that happened on that particular day–from weather to war to religion to popular culture–and then try to match that event with a quilt documented in The Quilt Index, a joint project of the Quilt Alliance, MATRIX: The Center for Humane Arts, Letters and Social Sciences Online at Michigan State University and the Michigan State University Museum. This year, the On this Day in History Quilts series will originate here on the Quilt Alliance blog with links to my sources, so you can explore the story even further. I’ll continue to share an abbreviated version of these posts to our Facebook pages as well as my Pinterest boards, where you can see each month’s posts in a fun patchwork layout. In 2012 the On this Day in History Quilts series profiled quilts made by alleged vampires, log cabin quilts made in Thailand, and quilts made in Dick Van Dyke’s hometown–all documented in The Quilt Index by museums, state quilt documentation groups, guilds and private collectors. With more than 53,000 records of quilts and quilt-related ephemera in The Quilt Index, my hope with this series is to create an inviting path into this unparalleled resource that all quilt enthusiasts should know about. So please subscribe and share! On this Day in History Quilts for January 1: On this day in 1752 Elizabeth (Betsy) Griscom was born in Philadelphia to Quaker parents, the eighth of seventeen children. She married fellow upholstery trade apprentice John Ross, but lost him in the American Revolutionary War after only two years of marriage. Popular legend tells of Betsy making the first American flag after George Washington visited her workshop. This account originated from Betsy’s grandson who presented the story in a paper to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1870. Most scholars agree that Ross was not actually the maker of the first flag, but historical records document payments made to her for flagmaking around this time. From About.com Women’s History website: Even if she did not make the first flag — even if the visit by George Washington never happened — Betsy Ross was an example of what many women of her time found as the reality in time of war: widowhood, single motherhood, managing household and property independently, quick remarriage for economic reasons (and, we can hope, for companionship and even love, too). Hungarian immigrant Mary Gasperik made the quilt featured above (detail view) between 1930-1949 in Chicago, Illinois. The official title of the quilt is Colonial Quilting Bee, but Gasperik’s family members call it the Betsy Ross Quilt, because this masterpiece includes depictions of a Hungarian quilter working on a flag opposite an Colonial quilter working on an early American flag. Don’t miss all of the detail images of this quilt linked at the bottom of the Basic Display Page for this record in The Quilt Index. “Grand-daughter Susan Salser began this research effort in 1991, after she and her two sisters divided up the quilts which belonged to their mother (Elsie Gasperik Krueger) who died in 1988. Her ongoing research has been fruitful and interesting.” What a treasure! Sources: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/rossbetsy/a/betsy_ross.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betsy_Ross Posted by Amy E. Milne, executive director of the Quilt…
