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OLD BED WITH QUILT AND CANOPY AND TRUNDLE BED BENEATH
Now in Memorial Hall, Deerfield, Mass.
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TWO WHITE TUFTED BEDSPREADS
Both made in Pennsylvania about 100 years ago
Fashions in needlework changed, but not with the same rapidity as in clothing. Gradually ideas and customs from other countries crept intoEngland and new influences were felt. An established trade with the Orient brought Eastern products to her markets, and oriental designs in needlework became popular. About this time “crewel” was much in vogue. This was embroidery done with coloured woollen threads and was a step backward in the art. Some of this “crewel” work, done in the seventeenth century, is described by M. Jourdain in “English Secular Embroidery”: “These hangings, bed curtains, quilts, and valances are of linen or a mixture of cotton and linen, and one type is embroidered with bold, freely designed patterns in worsted. They are worked almost always in dull blues and greens mixed with more vivid greens and some browns, but rarely any other colouring.”
A very curious custom of these days was the use of “mourning beds,” with black hangings, coverlets, and even sheets. As these funereal articles of furniture were quite expensive, it was a friendly custom to lend these mourning beds to families in time of affliction. In 1644 Mrs. Eure wrote to Sir Ralph Verney: “Sweet Nephew, I am now overrun with miserys and troubles, but the greatest misfortune that could happen to me was the death of the gallantest man (her husband) that I everknew.” Whereupon Sir Ralph, full of sympathy, “offers her the loan of the great black bed and hangings from Claydon.”
Interesting indeed are descriptions of wonderful old quilts that are now guarded with zealous care in English museums. One, an original and striking design, is closely quilted all over in small diamonds. Upon it is embroidered an orange tree in full leaf and loaded with fruit. This tree, together with the fancy pot in which it is planted, covers practically the entire quilt. In the lower corners a gentleman is shown picking oranges and a lady in a patient attitude is waiting to receive them, the figures of both being scarcely taller than the flower pot. The whole design is made up of gayly coloured silks evidently worked in after the quilting was done. Mention is also made of an elaborate quilt said to be the work of Queen Anne, which is preserved at Madresfield Court. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in giving an order for house furnishings for her “wild, unmerciful house” about 1720, asks for “a vast number of feather beds, some filled with swansdown, and a vast number of quilts.”
Mrs. Delany, who lived from 1700 to 1788, and left a large correspondence relating to needlework,which was later edited by Lady Llanover, was a most prolific worker with her needle as well as a profuse letter writer. She was often quoted as an authority and given credit for much originality in her designs. A quilt that she made is described as follows: “Of white linen worked in flowers, the size of nature, delineated with the finest coloured silks in running stitch, which is made use of in the same way as by a pen etching on paper; the outline was drawn with pencil. Each flower is different, and evidently done at the moment from the original.” Another quilt of Mrs. Delany’s was made upon a foundation of nankeen. This was unique in that no colours were used besides the dull yellow of the background. Applied designs of leaves tied together with ribbons, all cut from white linen and stitched to the nankeen with white thread, made a quilt no wise resembling the silken ones of earlier periods. This quilt may be termed a forerunner of the vast array of pieced and patched washable quilts belonging to the nineteenth century.
The embroidering of quilts followed the process of quilting, which afforded the firm foundation essential for heavy and elaborate designs. Therewere many quilts made of white linen quilted with yellow silk thread, and afterward embroidered very tastefully with yellow silk floss. Terry, in the history of his “Voyage to the East Indies,” made about the middle of the seventeenth century, says: “The natives show very much ingenuity in their manufactures, also in making excellent quilts of their stained cloth, or of fresh-coloured taffeta lined with their prints, or of their satin with taffeta, betwixt which they put cotton wool, and work them together with silk.”
Among many articles in a list of Eastern products, which Charles I, in 1631, permitted to be brought to England, were “quilts of China embroidered in Gold.” There is a possibility that these quilts were appreciated quite as much for the precious metal used in the embroidery as for the beauty of design and workmanship. It was but a short time after this that women began to realize how much gold and silver had gone into all forms of needlework. They looked upon rare and beautiful embroidery with greedy eyes, and a deplorable fashion sprang up, known in France as “parfilage” and in England as “drizzling.” This was nothing more or less than ripping up, stitchby stitch, the magnificent old hangings, quilts, and even church vestments, to secure gold and silver thread. Lady Mary Coke, writing from the Austrian Court, says: “All the ladies who do not play cards pick gold. It is the most general fashion I ever saw, and they all carry their bags containing the necessary tools in their pockets. They even begged sword knots, epaulettes, and galons that they might add more of the precious threads to the spool on which they wound the ravelled bullion, which they sold.” To the appreciative collector this seems wanton sacrilege.
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TUFTED BEDSPREAD WITH KNOTTED FRINGE
A design of very remarkable beauty. Over 100 years old
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UNKNOWN STAR
A New England quilt about 115 years old. Colours: once bright red and green are now old rose and dull green. The original quilting designs are very beautiful
John Locke, 1632-1704, a very famous man of Charles II’s time, and one of the greatest philosophers and ardent champions of civil and religious rights which England ever produced, mentioned quilts in his “Thoughts Concerning Education.” In telling of the correct sort of beds for children he writes as follows: “Let his Bed be hard, and rather Quilts than Feathers. Hard Lodging strengthens the Parts, whereas being buryed every Night in Feathers melts and dissolves the Body.... Besides, he that is used to hard Lodging at Home will not miss his Sleep (where he has most Need of it) in his travelsAbroad for want of his soft Bed, and his Pillows laid in Order.”
Pepys, a contemporary of Locke, in his incomparable and delicious Diary, remarks: “Home to my poor wife, who works all day like a horse, at the making of her hanging for our chamber and bed,” thus telling us that he was following the fashion of the day in having wall, window, and bed draperies alike. It is plain, too, by his frequent “and so to bed,” that his place of sleep and rest was one of comfort in his house.
A quilt depending solely upon the stitching used in quilting, whether it be of the simple running stitch, the back stitch, or the chain stitch, is not particularly ornamental. However, when viewed at close range, the effect is a shadowy design in low relief that has a distinctive but modest beauty when well done. Early in the eighteenth century a liking for this fashion prevailed, and was put to a variety of uses. Frequently there was no interlining between the right and wrong sides. At Canons Ashby there are now preserved some handsome quilted curtains of this type, belonging to Sir Alfred Dryden, Baronet.
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COMBINATION ROSE
More than 85 years old. Colours: rose, pink, and green
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DOUBLE TULIP
Made in Ohio, date unknown. The tulips are made of red calico covered with small yellow flowers. The roses have yellow centres
During the Middle Ages instruction in the useof the needle was considered a necessary part of the English girl’s education. By the seventeenth century “working fine works with the needle” was considered of equal importance with singing, dancing, and French in the accomplishments of a lady of quality. In the eighteenth century much the same sentiment prevailed, and Lady Montagu is quoted as saying: “It is as scandalous for a woman not to know how to use a needle as for a man not to know how to use a sword.”
TheSpectatorof that time sarcastically tells of two sisters highly educated in domestic arts who spend so much time making cushions and “sets of hangings” that they had never learned to read and write! A sober-minded old lady, grieved by frivolous nieces, begs theSpectator“to take the laudable mystery of embroidery into your serious consideration,” for, says she, “I have two nieces, who so often run gadding abroad that I do not know when to have them. Those hours which, in this age, are thrown away in dress, visits, and the like, were employed in my time in writing out receipts, or working beds, chairs, and hangings for the family. For my part I have plied the needle these fifty years, and by my good-will would neverhave it out of my hand. It grieves my heart to see a couple of proud, idle flirts sipping the tea for a whole afternoon in a room hung round with the industry of their great-grandmothers.” Another old lady of the eighteenth century, Miss Hutton, proudly makes the following statement of the results of years of close application to the needle: “I have quilted counterpanes and chest covers in fine white linen, in various patterns of my own invention. I have made patchwork beyond calculation.”
Emblems and motifs were great favourites with the quilt workers of “ye olden times” and together with mottoes were worked into many pieces of embroidery. The following mottoes were copied from an old quilt made in the seventeenth century: “Covet not to wax riche through deceit,” “He that has lest witte is most poore,” “It is better to want riches than witte,” “A covetous man cannot be riche.”
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MORNING GLORIES
In one of their many beautiful and delicate varieties were chosen for this quilt, and while the design is conventional to a certain extent it shows the natural grace of the growing vine
The needle and its products have always been held in great esteem in England, and many of the old writers refer to needlework with much respect. In 1640 John Taylor, sometimes called the “Water Poet,” published a collection of essays, etc., called“The Needle’s Excellency,” which was very popular in its day and ran through twelve editions. In it is a long poem entitled, “The Prayse of the Needle.” The following are the opening lines:
“To all dispersed sorts of Arts and TradesI write the needles prayse (that never fades)So long as children shall begot and borne,So long as garments shall be made and worne.So long as Hemp or Flax or Sheep shall bearTheir linnen Woollen fleeces yeare by yeare;So long as silk-worms, with exhausted spoile,Of their own entrailes for man’s game shall toyle;Yea, till the world be quite dissolved and past,So long at least, the Needles use shall last.”
“To all dispersed sorts of Arts and TradesI write the needles prayse (that never fades)So long as children shall begot and borne,So long as garments shall be made and worne.So long as Hemp or Flax or Sheep shall bearTheir linnen Woollen fleeces yeare by yeare;So long as silk-worms, with exhausted spoile,Of their own entrailes for man’s game shall toyle;Yea, till the world be quite dissolved and past,So long at least, the Needles use shall last.”
It is interesting to read what Elizabeth Glaister, an Englishwoman, writes of quilts in England:
“Perhaps no piece of secular needlework gave our ancestors more satisfaction, both in the making and when made, as the quilt or bed coverlet. We have seen a good many specimens of them, both of the real quilted counterpanes, in which several thicknesses of material were stitched together into a solid covering, and the lighter silken or linen coverlets ornamented with all sorts of embroidery. Cradle quilts also were favourite pieces of needlework and figure in inventories of Henry VIII’s time.
“The real quilts were very handsome and the amount of labour bestowed on them was enormous. The seventeenth century was a great time for them, and the work of this period is generally very good. The quilting of some of them is made by sewing several strands of thick cotton between the fine linen of the surface and the lining. When one line was completed the cotton was laid down again next to it, and another line formed.
“A sort of shell pattern was a favourite for quilting. When a sufficient space was covered with the ground pattern, flowers or other ornaments were embroidered on this excellent foundation. Perhaps the best results as a work of art were attained when both quilting and flowers were done in bright yellow silk; the effect of this colour on a white ground being always particularly good. A handsome quilt may be worked with a darned background. It is done most easily on huckaback towelling of rather loose weave, running the needle under the raised threads for the ground.
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PRINCESS FEATHERS
Made in Indiana about 1835. Colours: soft dull green and old rose
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PRINCESS FEATHERS WITH BORDER
Notice the maple leaf inserted in the border. Colours: red and green
“A very effective quilt in quite a different style is made in applied work on unbleached cotton sheeting. A pattern of yellow fruit or flower with leaves is cut out in coloured serges sewn on withcrewels in buttonhole stitch; stems, veins, and buds being also worked in crewels, and the ground slightly darned in dim yellow crewel. It is elaborate, but a very pleasant and repaying piece of work.
“Many beautiful old quilts are made of silk and satin embroidered in pure silks or in gold and silver twist. Most of the best specimens are from France and Italy, where from the arrangement of the houses the beds have continued to be moreen evidencethan has been the case in England for the last two centuries. Many also are of Indian origin; the ground of these is sometimes of fine soft silk and sometimes of thick muslin, over which the pattern is worked in silk. Others, though of Indian workmanship, show a European influence, of which the most curious are those worked at Goa, under Portuguese dominion in the seventeenth century.”
THE date of the quilt’s advent into America is unknown, and—because of the lack of knowledge concerning the house furnishings of the early colonists—can never be positively determined. Quilts were in such general use and were considered as such ordinary articles that the early writers about family life in the colonies neglected to mention them. We do know, however, that quilted garments, bedspreads, curtains, and the like were very essential to the comfort and well-being of the original settlers along the Atlantic seaboard.
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PEONIES
About 75 years old. Made for exhibition at state fairs in the Middle West. Colours: red, green, and yellow
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NORTH CAROLINA LILY
Over 80 years old. Flowers: red and green; the border has green buds with red centres. The quilting designs are remarkable for their beauty and originality
Extensive investigation has shown that the introduction of the arts of patchwork and quilting to the American continent is due entirely to the English and the Dutch. No evidence has been found that Spanish or French colonists made use of quilting. The Spaniards in the warm lands ofthe South had little real need of warm clothing, and—outside of possible appliqué heraldic devices on the coats of the early explorers—may be considered as having brought to the New World none of the art so popular in Spain at the time. The French who opened up Canada brought none of the quilting or patchwork of France with them. While needlework was taught at a very early date in the convents of Quebec, it was apparently only the more fanciful kinds of embroidery. As a protection against the biting northern winters, the early French settlers sought protection under furs, which could be obtained quite readily in the great woods. To secure more bed clothing, it was very much easier to engage in a little hunting than to go through the laborious processes of piecing and quilting. To both Spanish and French, the new world was strictly a man’s country—to adventure in and win riches upon which to retire to a life of ease in their native lands. With them, therefore, the inspiration of founding a home and providing it with the comforts of life was lacking; and without such inspiration the household arts could never flourish.
The English and Dutch planted their coloniesalong the coast from Virginia to Massachusetts with the primary object of founding new homes for themselves. With them came their wives and daughters, who brought along as their portion such household comforts and conveniences as they possessed. Under their willing hands spinning, weaving, and the manufacture of garments began immediately. Their poorly heated log houses made necessary an adequate supply of bedding and hangings for protection against the winter cold. Substantial, heavy curtains, frequently lined and quilted, were hung over both doors and windows and were kept closely drawn during the bitter winter nights. In the more imposing homes were silk damask curtains with linings of quilted silk to keep out the drafts of cold that swept through the rooms.
In Massachusetts in the early colonial days quilted garments, especially petticoats, were in general use. It is a curious circumstance that we owe this bit of information largely to the description of runaway slaves. The BostonNews Letterof October, 1707, contains an advertisement describing an Indian woman who ran away, clad in the best garments she could purloin from her mistress’s wardrobe: “A tall Lusty Carolina IndianWoman, named Keziah Wampun Had on a striped red, blue and white Home-spun Jacket and a Red one, a Black and quilted White Silk Crape Petticoat, a White Shift and also a blue with her, and a mixt Blue and White Linsey Woolsey Apron.” In 1728 theNews Letterpublished an advertisement of a runaway Indian servant who, wearied by the round of domestic drudgery, adorned herself in borrowed finery and fled: “She wore off a Narrow Stript pinck cherredary Gown turned up with a little floured red and white Callico. A Stript Home-spun quilted petticoat, a plain muslin Apron, a suit of plain Pinners and a red and white flowered knot, also a pair of green stone earrings, with white cotton stockings and leather heel’d wooden shoes.”
A few items in a list of articles ordered from England for a New England bride, Miss Judith Sewall, who was married in 1720, give some idea of what was considered as a suitable wedding outfit during that period. The bride belonged to a rich family and no doubt had furnishings much more extensive than usual: “A Duzen of good Black Walnut Chairs, A Duzen Cane Chairs, and a great chair for a chamber, all black Walnut. One Duzen largePewter Plates, new fashion, a Duzen Ivory-hafted knives and forks. Four Duzen small glass salt cellars, Curtains and Vallens for a Bed with Counterpane, Head Cloth, and Tester made of good yellow watered camlet with Trimming. Send also of the same camlet and trimming as may be enough to make cushions for the chamber chairs. A good fine larger Chintz quilt, well made.” This list also includes such items as kitchen utensils, warming pans, brass fenders, tongs, and shovels, and “four pairs of large Brass candlesticks.”
As the resources of the new country were developed, the women were given some respite from their spinning, weaving, and garment making. Much of their hard-won leisure was spent piecing quilts. In the rigorous climate of bleak New England there was great need of warm clothing and bedding, and the spare moments of the housekeeper were largely occupied in increasing her supply. To make the great amount of bedding necessary in the unheated sleeping rooms, every scrap and remnant of woollen material left from the manufacture of garments was saved. To supplement these, the best parts of worn-out garments were carefully cut out, and made into quilt pieces.
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FEATHER STAR WITH APPLIQUÉ
The “Feather Star” pieced blocks alternate with blue and white blocks on which are applied scroll designs. This quilt, which is the only one of this pattern, was made about 1835. It was designed by a Mr. Hamill for his sweetheart, Mary Hayward
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TULIP TREE LEAVES
A modern quilt made by the mountaineers of South Carolina. Colours: light blue and pink
Beautiful, even gorgeous, materials were imported for costumes of the wives and daughters of the wealthy colonists. There may be a greater variety of fabrics woven to-day, but none is more splendid in texture and colour than those worn by the stately ladies of colonial times. The teachings of the strict Puritans advocated plainness and simplicity of dress; even the ministers in the churches preached against the “sinfulness of display of fine raiment.” Notwithstanding the teachings and pleadings of the clergy, there was great rivalry in dress among the inhabitants of the larger colonial towns. “Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,” was unnecessary advice to give to the rich colonist or to his wife. Men’s attire was also of costly velvets lined with handsome brocades; beautifully embroidered waistcoats, silk stockings, and gold lace trimmings were further additions to their costumes during the pre-Revolutionary period.
After these gay and costly fabrics had served their time as wearing apparel, they were carefully preserved and made over into useful articles for the household. The pinch of hard times during the struggle for independence made it imperative for many well-to-do families to economize.Consequently, in many old patchwork quilts may be found bits of the finest silks, satins, velvets, and brocades, relics of more prosperous days.
Alice Morse Earle, in her charming book on “Home Life in Colonial Days,” gives us a rare insight into our great-grandmothers’ fondness for patchwork, and how highly they prized their bits of highly coloured fabrics:
“The feminine love of colour, the longing for decoration, as well as pride in skill of needlecraft, found riotous expression in quilt making. Women revelled in intricate and difficult patchwork; they eagerly exchanged patterns with one another; they talked over the designs, and admired pretty bits of calico and pondered what combinations to make, with far more zest than women ever discuss art or examine high art specimens together to-day. There was one satisfactory condition in the work, and that was the quality of cottons and linens of which the patchwork was made. Real India chintzes and palampores are found in these quilts, beautiful and artistic stuffs, and the firm, unyielding, high-priced, ‘real’ French calicoes.
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MEXICAN ROSE
Made in 1842. Colours: red and green. Note the exquisite quilting
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CURRANTS AND COCKSCOMB
Small red berries combined with conventionalized leaves. This quilt has captured first prizes at many state fairs
“Portions of discarded uniforms, old coat and cloak linings, brilliantly dyed worn flannel shirtsand well-worn petticoats were component parts of quilts that were needed for warmth. A magnificent scarlet cloak, worn by a Lord Mayor of London and brought to America by a member of the Merrit family of Salisbury, Massachusetts, went through a series of adventures and migrations and ended its days as small bits of vivid colour, casting a grateful glory and variety on a patchwork quilt in the Saco Valley of Maine.
“Around the outstretched quilt a dozen quilters could sit, running the whole together with fanciful set designs of stitchery. Sometimes several quilts were set up, and I know of a ten days’ quilting bee in Narragansett in 1752.”
The women who came from Holland to make their homes on the narrow island at the mouth of the Hudson were housekeepers of traditional Dutch excellence. They delighted in well-stocked linen closets and possessed unusual quantities of sheets, pillow cases, and bedding, mostly of their own spinning and weaving. Like their English neighbours to the north, in Connecticut and Massachusetts, they adopted quilted hangings and garments for protection against the severity of winter. Their quilted petticoats were the pride and joy ofthese transplanted Hollanders, and in their construction they exerted their highest talents in design and needlework. These petticoats, which were worn short enough to display the home-knitted hose, were thickly interlined as well as quilted. They were very warm, as the interlining was usually of wool. The fuller the purse, the richer and gayer were the petticoats of the New Amsterdam dames.
While not so strict in religious matters as their Puritan neighbours, the early inhabitants of New Amsterdam always observed Sunday and attended church regularly. Within the fort at the battery stood the church, built of “Manhattan Stone” in 1642. Its two peaked roofs with the watch-tower between was the most prominent object of the fortress. “On Sunday mornings the two main streets, Broadway and Whitehall, were filled with dignified and sedate churchgoers arrayed in their best clothes. The tucked-up panniers worn by the women displayed to the best advantage the quilted petticoats. Red, blue, black, and white were the favourite and predominating colours, and the different materials included fine woollen cloth, camlet, grosgrain silk, and satin. Of all thearticles of feminine attire of that period the quilted petticoat was the most important. They were worn short, displaying the low shoes with high heels and coloured hose with scarlet clockings; silken hoods partially covered their curled and powdered hair; altogether a charming and delightful picture.”
The low, flat land of South Manhattan lying along the Hudson, because of its similarity to their mother country, was a favourite dwelling-place in New Netherlands. This region, known as Flatbush, was quickly covered with Dutch homes and big, orderly, flourishing gardens. A descendant of one of the oldest Dutch families which settled in this locality, Mrs. Gertrude Lefferts Vanderbilt, in her book, “The Social History of Flatbush,” has given many interesting details of early New York life. She tells of the place quilt making held in the community, and how the many intricate patterns of patchwork pleasantly occupied the spare moments of the women, thus serving as a means of expression of their love of colour and design. The following little domestic picture shows how conveniently near the thrifty housewife kept her quilt blocks: “A low chair with aseat of twisted osier, on which was tied a loose feather-filled cushion, covered with some gay material. On the back of these chairs hung the bag of knitting, with the little red stocking and shining needles plainly visible, indicating that this was the favourite seat of the industrious mother of the family; or a basket of patchwork held its place upon a low stool (bankje) beside the chair, also to be snatched up at odd intervals (ledige tyd).”
One reliable source of information of the comforts and luxuries that contributed to pleasant dwelling in old New York is found in old inventories of household effects. Occasionally complete lists are found that throw much light on the furnishings of early days. Such an inventory of the household belongings of Captain John Kidd, before he went to sea and turned pirate, mentions over sixty different kinds of house furnishings, from a skillet to a dozen chairs embellished with Turkish embroidery. Among the articles with which John Kidd and his wife Sarah began housekeeping in New York in 1692, as recorded in this inventory, were four bedsteads, with three suits of hangings, curtains, and valances to go with them. Feather beds, feather pillows, linen sheets, tablecloths, andnapkins, ten blankets, and three quilts. How much of this store of household linens was part of his wife’s wedding dower is not stated.
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CONVENTIONAL APPLIQUÉ
The designs are buttonholed around. Colours: soft green and rose. This quilt is over 100 years old
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SINGLE TULIP
Colours: red and yellow. Seventy-five years old
The early settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas were mostly English of the better class, who had been landed proprietors with considerable retinues of servants. As soon as these original colonists secured a firm foothold, large estates were developed on which the manners and customs of old England were followed as closely as possible. Each plantation became a self-supporting community, since nearly all the actual necessities were produced or manufactured thereon. The loom worked ceaselessly, turning the wool, cotton, and flax into household commodities, and even the shoes for both slave and master were made from home-tanned leather. For their luxuries, the ships that carried tobacco and rice to the English markets returned laden with books, wines, laces, silverware, and beautiful house furnishings of every description.
In the colonial plantation days of household industry quilts, both patchwork and plain, were made in considerable numbers. Quilts were then in such general use as to be considered too commonplaceto be described or even mentioned. Consequently, we are forced to depend for evidence of their existence in those days on bills of sale and inventories of auctions. These records, however, constitute an authority which cannot be questioned.
In 1774 Belvoir, the home of the Fairfax family, one of the largest and most imposing of houses of Virginia, was sold and its contents were put up at auction. A partial list of articles bought at this sale by George Washington, then Colonel Washington, and here given, will show the luxury to which the Southern planter was accustomed: “A mahogany shaving desk, settee bed and furnishings, four mahogany chairs, oval glass with gilt frame, mahogany sideboard, twelve chairs, and three window curtains from dining-room. Several pairs of andirons, tongs, shovels, toasting forks, pickle pots, wine glasses, pewter plates, many blankets, pillows, bolsters, andnineteen coverlids.”
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DAISY QUILT
For a child’s bed
It was customary in the good old days after a dinner or ball for the guests, who necessarily came from long distances, to stay all night, and many bedrooms, frequently from ten to twenty-five, besides those needed for the family, were provided in the big houses. All were beautifully furnishedwith imported, massive, carved furniture from France and England. In one year, 1768, in Charlestown, South Carolina, occurred twelve weddings among the wealthy residents of that city, and all the furniture for these rich couples came from England. The twelve massive beds with canopies supported by heavily carved posts, decorated with rice stalks and full heads of grain, were so high that steps were needed in order to climb into them. Elaborate and expensive curtains and spreads were furnished to correspond. In one early inventory of an extensively furnished house there are mentioned “four feather beds, bolsters, two stools, looking-glass tipt with silver, two Turkey carpets, one yellow mohair bed counterpane, andtwo green silk quilts.” From this it is evident that the quilt had already found its place, and no doubt in great numbers, on account of the many beds to furnish in the spacious house of the rich planters.
Shortly after the Revolution came the great migration from Virginia over the ridges of the Blue and the Appalachian chains into what was then the wilderness of Tennessee and Kentucky. The descendants of these hardy pioneers who first forced their way westward still live among theKentucky and Virginia hills under the conditions which prevailed a hundred years ago. In this heavily timbered rough country they manage to eke out a precarious existence by cultivating small hillside patches of cotton, corn, and a few vegetables. Immured in the seclusion of the mountains they have remained untouched by the world’s progress during the past century. Year after year they are satisfied to live this secluded existence, and but rarely make an acquaintance with a stranger. Educational advantages, except of the most elementary sort, are almost unknown, and the majority of these mountaineers neither read nor write. As a result of this condition of isolated and primitive living, existing in the mountains of Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Carolinas, the household crafts that flourished in this country before the advent of machinery are still carried on exactly as in the old days.
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OHIO ROSE
This “Rose” quilt was made in Ohio about 80 years ago. Colours: red, pink, and two shades of green
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ROSE OF SHARON
Made in Indiana about 65 years ago. It has a wool interlining instead of the usual cotton
The simple needs of the family are almost entirely supplied by the women of the household. They spin, weave, and make the few plain garments which they and their families wear. Day after day, year in and year out, these isolated women must fill in the hours with little tasks connected withhome life. As in many other instances where women are dependent upon their own resources for amusement, they have recourse to their needles. Consequently, it is in the making of quilts, coverlets, and allied forms of needlework that these mountain women spend their hours of recreation.
The quilts, both pieced and patched, that are made in mountaineers’ cabins have a great variety of designs. Many designs have been used again and again by each succeeding generation of quilters without any variation whatever, and have well-known names. There are also designs that have been originated by a proficient quilt maker, who has made use of some common flower as the basis for her conventional design. It has not been a great many years since the materials used in making the mountain quilts were dyed as well as woven in the home. The dyes were homemade from common roots and shrubs gathered from nearby woods and meadows. Blue was obtained from wild indigo; brown from walnut hulls; black from the bark of scrub-oak; and yellow from laurel leaves. However, the materials which must be purchased for a quilt are so meagre, and the colours called “oil boiled”—now used to dye calico—are so fast, that the mountainwomen seldom dye their own fabrics any more. They bring in a few chickens or eggs to the nearest village, and in exchange obtain a few yards of precious coloured calico for their quilts.
Miss Bessie Daingerfield, a Kentuckian, who is in close touch with these mountaineers, tells us what a void the quilt fills in the lives of the lonely women of the hills: “While contemporary women out in the world are waging feminist war, those in the mountains of the long Appalachian chain still sit at their quilting frames and create beauty and work wonders with patient needles. There is much beautiful and skilful handiwork hidden away in these hills. The old women still weave coverlets, towels, and table linen from wool from their own sheep and from flax grown in their own gardens. The girls adorn their cotton gowns with ‘compass work,’ exact, exquisite. In some places the men and boys, girls and women, make baskets of hickory reeds and willows to delight the heart of the collector. But from the cradle to the grave, the women make quilts. The tiny girl shows you with pride the completed four patch or nine patch, square piled on square, which ‘mammy aims to set up for her ag’inst spring.’ The mother tells youhalf jesting, half in earnest, ‘the young un will have several ag’inst she has a home of her own.’ No bride of the old country has more pride in her dower chest than the mountain bride in her pile of quilts. The old woman will show you a stack of quilts from floor to ceiling of her cabin. One dear old soul told me she had eighty-four, all different, and ‘ever’ stitch, piecin’, settin’ up, quiltin’, my own work and ne’er another finger tetched hit.’”
Patchwork was an important factor in making plain the knotty problems of existence, as Eliza Calvert Hall clearly shows when she makes “Aunt Jane of Kentucky” say: “How much piecin’ a quilt is like livin’ a life! Many a time I’ve set and listened to Parson Page preachin’ about predestination and free will, and I’ve said to myself, ‘If I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson’s makin’ it with his big words.’ You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don’t go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbours will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you’ll have a piece left over every time you cut a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that’s like predestination. But whenit comes to the cuttin’ out, why, you’re free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o’ pieces to two persons, and one’ll make a ‘nine patch’ and one’ll make a ‘wild-goose chase,’ and there’ll be two quilts made out of the same kind of pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin’. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut them out and put ’em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there’s a heap more in the cuttin’ out and the sewin’ than there is in the caliker.”
In the great Central West, from Ohio to the Mississippi, the early settlers passed through the same cycle of development as did their ancestors in the beginnings of the original colonies along the seaboard. The same dangers and privations were faced, and the women, as well as the men, quickly adapted themselves to the hardships of life in a new country. Shortly after the War of 1812, which secured to the United States a clear title to this vast region, the great migration into the Ohio Valley began. Some families came by way of the Great Lakes, some by wagon over the Pennsylvania ridges, and still others by horseback over the mountains from Virginia. One and all of thesepioneer families brought with them their most cherished household possessions. It is hardly necessary to say that every family had one or more quilts among its household goods. Many cases are on record of rare old mahogany bureaus and bedsteads transported hundreds of miles over trails through the wilderness on pack horses. Upon arrival at the site chosen for the future home, the real work of house building and furnishing began.