How to Make...

1. How to Make... ...an American Quilt

2. American Gothic, Grant Wood 1930 Applique quilt with stuffed quilting. Mary C. Pickering; St. Clairsville, Ohio Mid-19th century.

3. Hasbrouck family vignette; Ulster County, NY. Mid-19th century. Pictorial Quilts Many outstanding designs were achieved in 19th-century American quilts by the effective use of a variety of techniques such as piecing, applique and embroidery.

4. Bible Quilt made by Harriet Powers African-American; Athens, GA. About 1886.

5. Patriotic Quilts National symbols such as stars, stripes, and eagles were used in American quilts throughout the 19th century. Quilt pieced together from Centennial cottons. Bradbury family, NY and NH. About 1876.

6. Stars and Stripes. Mark Rockhold Teter; Noblesville, IN. 1861.

7. Presentation Quilts Many outstanding quilts from the mid-19th century marked a special occasion. Some were composed of squares resembling the pages of a sketchbook, scrapbook, or family album; others were signed like the pages of an autograph album. Groom's album quilt made for Benoni Pearce. Pawling, NY. 1850.

8. Silk bride's quilt. Mary Jane Moran; Baltimore, MD. 1845.

9. Family Album Quilt Album quilt made by Susan Rogers, Brooklyn, NY. Dated 1867.

10. Appliqued Inscriptions Toward the middle of the 19th century, women began to inscribe their quilts with the moralistic and mournful themes they had recorded earlier in their schoolgirl samplers and embroidered pictures. Mourning or Tombstone quilt. Nancy Ward Butler; Jamestown, NY. Dated 1842.

11. Crib Covers Quilts made for children in the 19th century were usually small versions of those made for adults. Shown are four 19th-century crib quilts, and a 20th-century example designed for a child. Pieced work quilt. Southington, CT. About 1870.

12. How to make an American Quilt Throughout this semester we will create a quilt of Women’s America. Each studentwill be responsible for creating at least one square representing the experience of a particular woman or group of women in American history. As the semester progresses we will attach these squares to the “backing” and “filling” which we made during the first few days of the semester. Topics and people to be represented include: Anne Hutchinson, female slaves, Abigail Adams, the suffragettes, 60s feminists, battered women, Martha Ballard, colonial mothers, Margaret Sanger, unwed mothers, immigrant women and women of the American wars.