National Quilt Collection - Introduction
"Quilt": A cover or garment made by putting wool, cotton or other substance between two cloths and sewing them together. An American Dictionary of the English Language, by Noah Webster, LL.D., New York 1828.
The National Quilt Collection incorporates quilts from various ethnic groups and social classes, for quilts are not the domain of a specific race or class, but can be a part of anyone’s heritage and treasured as such. Whether of rich or humble fabrics, large in size or small, expertly crafted or not, well-worn or pristine, quilts in the National Quilt Collection provide a textile narrative that contributes to America’s complex and diverse history. The variety and scope of the collection provides a rich resource for researchers, artists, quilt-makers and others.
Part of the Division of Home and Community Life textiles collection, the National Quilt Collection had its beginnings in the 1890s. Three quilts were included in a larger collection of 18th- and 19th-century household and costume items donated by John Brenton Copp of Stonington, Connecticut. From this early beginning, the collection has grown to more than 500 quilts and quilt-related items, mainly of American origin, with examples from many states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Most of the contributions have come to the Museum as gifts, and many of those are from the quilt-makers’ families. The collection illustrates needlework techniques, materials, fabric designs and processes, styles and patterns used for quilt-making in the past 250 years. The collection also documents the work of specific quilt-makers and commemorates events in American history.
Learn more about the quilt collection and step behind the scenes with a video tour.
"National Quilt Collection - Introduction" showing 5 items.
1806 Charlotte Roe's Child's Quilt
- Description
- Charlotte Merritt Roe embroidered her name as well as the place (Virgil) and date (1806) on this pieced child’s quilt. Charlotte Merritt was born in 1774 in Rye, Westchester County, New York. She married John Elting Roe in 1796. In 1797 Charlotte and her husband settled in Virgil, New York. They stayed on to rear five children. This quilt, made for one of their children, was passed down through the family before being donated to the Museum in 1984.
- An anecdote in Stories of Cortland County by Bertha E. Blodgett, Cortland, New York, published in 1932, relates the arrival of Charlotte and John Roe in Virgil.
- “In the spring of 1797 John E. Roe . . . came up the river and prepared a log cabin in Virgil. He . . . peeled bark for a roof and agreed with a man to put it on . . . then went down the Tioughnioga to get his wife, bringing her in a sleigh from Oxford . . . .
- When they came to the river at a place called Messengerville, they saw Mr. Chaplin’s house on the opposite bank. It was winter and the river was high, and the canoe that had been used in crossing was carried away. Mr. Chaplin’s hog trough was secured, and Mrs. Roe was safely carried over on it . . . whole day was consumed in negotiating the road over the hill to Virgil . . . when they arrived they were surprised to find their house without a covering and the snow deep on the floor . . . .
- In after years, Mrs. Roe enjoyed telling the story of her experience . . . and she always ended by saying, ‘And what do you think! The horses were so hungry that they ate the seats out of my nice rush-bottomed chairs.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1806
- quilter
- Roe, Charlotte
- ID Number
- 1984.0092.01
- catalog number
- 1984.0092.01
- accession number
- 1984.0092
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1841 Ann Bender Snyder's Child's Quilt
- Description
- This white-work child's quilt belonged to Ann Bender Snyder in the 1840s, whether it was intended for her own child is not known. Forty years later Ann Bender Snyder gave the quilt to her god daughter, Nina Knode, as a baptismal gift when she was six months old. Nina Knode Heft always felt that it was a "museum piece" and that "after she was gone nobody would be interested in taking care of [it] in the same manner as she had." William Heft, Nina Knode's husband, followed his wife's wishes and donated it in her name to the Museum in 1940.
- The all white cotton quilt has a center medallion consisting of a basket of fruit above the quilted initials "A B S" enclosed in a feathered vine. This in turn is surrounded by an undulating vine bearing grapes, flowers, and pineapples. Stems and straight lines are stuffed with cotton roving. The border has a zigzag row of pointed oval leaves. Three sides of the quilt are edged with a 3-inch netted fringe.
- Ann Bender was born in about 1830, and married Oliver H. Snyder on 15 September 1847. In 1848 they had a daughter, Alice, who died at age five in 1853. Both Ann and Oliver Snyder lived in Funkstown, Maryland. Both died in 1887 and are buried in the Funkstown Public Cemetery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1841
- quilter
- Snyder, Ann Bender
- ID Number
- TE*T08434
- accession number
- 157749
- catalog number
- T08434
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1850 - 1860 Esther Coates Wileman's Child's Quilt
- Description
- Elizabeth Coates Wileman made this pieced and appliquéd child's quilt in the mid-nineteenth century while living in Ohio. Sixteen blocks are pieced of red, green, yellow and white printed cottons in a Carpenter's Wheel pattern. These blocks are set diagonally with blue and white printed cotton squares and triangles. Two appliquéd sawtooth edges, one red and one green, complete the 5½-inch border.
- Esther Coates, a Quaker, was born in Coatesville, Pennsylvania in 1817. She married Abram G. Wileman in 1844 in Massillon, Ohio, they divorced in 1858. They had two children Flora born in 1850, who died as a young child and Erasmus Darwin born in 1854. The quilt was probably made for Flora. Abram G. Wileman, a physician and war hero, served in the Civil War and was killed in 1863. Esther studied medicine at Penn Medical University in Philadelphia and received her degree in 1855. She practiced medicine in New Jersey. Esther died in 1873 and is buried in the Drumore Friends Cemetery in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The quilt was donated to the Museum in 1964 by Dr. Lorin E. Kerr, Jr. the great grandson of Esther.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1850-1860
- quilter
- Wileman, Esther Coates
- ID Number
- TE*T13472
- accession number
- 254704
- catalog number
- T13472
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1860 - 1870 Polly Fetherolf's "Log Cabin" Child's Quilt
- Description
- In 1977 Laura M. Trexler donated this child’s quilt made by her great-grandmother in the mid-nineteenth century. According to family history it was made for Polly’s daughter, Lucetta (1851-1934). Lucetta was married to Amos D. Trexler (1845-1915) in the early 1870s and the quilt was used for all their children, the last born in 1890. They lived in Trexler, Pennsylvania, where the family had several businesses.
- The “Log Cabin”-patterned quilt is composed of four 6½-inch blocks pieced with beige and fuchsia wool and wool/cotton fabrics. A 5-inch border in beige frames the four “Log Cabin” blocks. It is machine quilted with a chain stitch.
- Maria (Polly) Kistler, daughter of John Kistler and Maria Brobst, was born October 20, 1824 in Lynn Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. She married Daniel W. Fetherolf (b. 1821) in 1844. They farmed, and on the 1880 census were still living in Lynn Township. Maria (Polly) died in 1910 and is buried in the St. Jacobs Union Church Cemetery, Jacksonville, Lynn Township, Pennsylvania.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1860-1870
- maker
- Fetherolf, Polly
- ID Number
- TE*T18384
- accession number
- 1978.0619
- catalog number
- T18384
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1860 - 1880 "Tumbling Blocks" Child's Quilt
- Description
- The maker of this child's quilt remains unknown. Well worn, it is pieced in the Tumbling Blocks pattern, also referred to as Cubework or Boxes. The placement of the four inch diamond shaped pieces cut from various roller-printed cottons creates an example of an optical illusion in textiles. The lining is a roller-printed check cotton in red and brown. The quilt was completed with outline quilting, six stitches /inch, and bound with a strip of printed cotton folded over the edge and machine-stitched. The quilt was donated to the Museum in 1968 by Mrs. Dorothy Walkley Faul. She provided the information that the quilt had been in the Walkley family who had settled in Southington, Connecticut, about 1630 and that the quilt was probably made in the 1860s.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1860-1880
- quilter
- unknown
- ID Number
- TE*T14533
- catalog number
- T14533
- accession number
- 277119
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center