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.
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"National Quilt Collection - Introduction" showing 162 items.
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1825 - 1840 Susan Strong's "Great Seal" Quilt
- Description
- An appliquéd and embroidered adaptation of the Great Seal of the United States centers this cotton quilt made by Susan Strong in the early second quarter of the nineteenth century. Susan probably made this quilt in Ohio, where her family moved prior to 1820. The Great Seal has been in use since 1782 to authenticate documents issued by the United States government. Adaptations of this patriotic motif, a bald eagle with its wings spread, have been used on many quilts.
- In Susan’s adaptation, the eagle holds vines in its talons and beak instead of the arrows, olive branch, and banner with E Pluribus Unum that are found on the traditional motif. The thirteen appliquéd 8-pointed stars above the eagle represent the thirteen colonies. The center panel is framed by three borders, each 7½-inches wide. They are appliquéd with the same design of flowering vines growing from corner vases. Two fabrics, a white cotton and roller-printed discharge white on blue cotton, are used alternately for the appliqué and the background. The shield and details on the eagle’s head are embroidered with silk thread in chain and satin stitches. Quilting is 6 stitches to the inch, in various patterns. This patriotic quilt is an example of an important design motif used to decorate many objects during the early part of the nineteenth century.
- Susan Strong was born on July 4, 1809, in Frederick County, Maryland. She is listed among the pioneers in Richland County, Ohio, those who lived in the county prior to 1820. Charles, George, and John Strong of Maryland are among the 1818 listing of property owners in Jefferson Township. Susan married William Bell (1805-1847) on December 6, 1831. William was the son of Robert Bell, an early developer (1814) of the town of Bellville, Ohio. They had six children, two boys and four girls (all of whom taught school). In 1840 they moved to Hancock County, but Susan returned to Bellville after the death of William in 1847. She did not remarry and later lived with her daughter, Sarah (Mrs. Charles H. Dewey), in Omaha, Nebraska. Susan died in 1875, at age 66.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1840
- maker
- Strong, Susan
- ID Number
- TE*T14833
- catalog number
- T14833
- accession number
- 283467
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Mary Hise Norton's Silk Quilt
- Description
- Mary Hise Norton of Russellville, Kentucky, owned this elaborate silk quilt in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Each of its thirty-six 14-inch stars is pieced using 32 diamond shapes cut from velvet and striped, checked, plaid, brocaded, and warp-printed silks. The stars are set off by 4-inch and 8-inch squares and 4 x 8-inch rectangles along the edges, all of plain green silk.
- The larger silk squares and the rectangles have quilted and stuffed motifs of flowers or foliage sprays, each a different design. Their backgrounds and the smaller squares are quilted in a diagonal grid. The pieced stars are outline-quilted, all at 12 stitches per inch.
- Mary Hise Norton’s quilt has been displayed at many venues and has won prizes, among them the 1917 McCracken County (Kentucky) Fair Blue Ribbon and in 1981 the Kentucky Heritage Quilt Society Prize.
- In 1981 the donor wrote: “Our family has a rare quilt . . . the preservation of my quilt is my primary consideration. The quilt has been saved and passed down through seven generations. When my grandmother died in 1930 it was taken from her trunk and stored in a cedar chest from then until the late 70’s . . . . It is a treasure that has been added to my life. It is too rare and old to be used on a bed, I have decided to donate it to [the] Museum.” The donor noted that her great-great-grandmother, Mary Hise Norton, was known for her “artistic worth.”
- The daughter of Frederick and Nancy Hise, Mary Hise was born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, on March 12, 1797. She moved with her family to Russellville, Kentucky, about 1810. On April 11, 1813, she married William Norton. Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on September 2, 1781, William Norton also moved to Kentucky, settling in Russellville about 1810.The Nortons were the parents of six sons and three daughters and owned a blacksmith shop and iron store. They continued to live in Russellville, Kentucky, until William’s death in 1858 and Mary’s in 1878.
- According to David Morton, who in 1891 wrote The Nortons of Russellville, Kentucky, “William and Mary Norton journeyed together as husband and wife for nearly forty-five years, until they became so thoroughly assimilated as to think, talk, and even look alike . . . . Mrs. Norton was more robust in body and mind and more vivacious in temperament than her husband. She did her own thinking, had well-defined opinions and expressed them freely, loved to talk and talked well. A model housekeeper, she rose up while it was yet night and gave meat to her household, nor did her candle go out by night. She ate not the bread of idleness, and her children called her blessed; her husband also praised her. Much of the energy and financial skill evinced by her sons was derived by inheritance from her.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1825-1850
- date made
- Second quarter, 19th century
- quilter
- Norton, Mary Hise
- ID Number
- 1982.0392.01
- catalog number
- 1982.0392.01
- accession number
- 1982.0392
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Rachel Burr Corwin's Framed-Center Pieced Quilt
- Description
- This framed-center quilt was among several quilts, quilt blocks, and other household textile items that were donated in 1932. It is the work of Rachel Burr Corwin. At the time of the donation it was considered by the curator “. . . a valued addition to the Museum’s collection of old cotton prints.”
- A variation of the “Nine-patch” pattern is used for the central panel. This is framed by borders pieced in the “Flying Geese,” “Lemoyne Star,” “Chained Square,” and “Nine-patch” patterns. The fabrics are mainly roller-printed fabrics with a few block-printed cottons. The quilting employs various geometric patterns, 5 stitches per inch.
- Rachel Burr, daughter of Samuel Burr and Sibyl Scudder Burr of Massachusetts, was born March 3, 1788. She married Samuel Corwin of Orange County, New York, October 14, 1809. They had four children. Needlework examples by one of their daughters, Celia, are also in the Collection. Rachel Burr Corwin died March 14, 1849, in Orange County, New York.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1850
- maker
- Corwin, Rachel Burr
- ID Number
- TE*T07117
- accession number
- 121578
- catalog number
- T07117
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Jane Winter Price's "Carpenter's Wheel" Quilt
- Description
- Jane Winter Price pieced this example of the “Carpenter’s Wheel” pattern in the second quarter of the nineteenth century and quilted her initials, “JWP,” into a white triangle at the lower edge of the quilt. According to family information, she may have made this quilt during a previous engagement when she lived in Maryland, before the death of her fiancé. “Keate Price McHenry from her Mother” is written in a corner of the lining. Catherine (Kate) Price McHenry was Jane’s daughter, born in 1856 in Arkansas.
- Thirty “Carpenter’s Wheel” pieced blocks are set diagonally with alternate white blocks on this elaborately quilted example of mid-nineteenth-century needlework. The blocks are 11½ inches square, and the blue-ground chintz border is 7½ inches wide. The white squares are quilted, 15 stitches per inch, with sprays of flowers and grapes against a background of diagonal lines 1/8 inch apart. Double clamshell quilting is found in the white triangles inside the border. Both the pieced blocks and the border are quilted 9 stitches per inch. The wide border effectively frames the artistic placement of pieced blocks and finely quilted white blocks and triangles.
- Jane Winter Price, born in 1818 in Maryland, was the daughter of Catherine Winter Dunnington II (1790 -1863) and Richard Price (b 1771). Catherine was married in 1813, but widowed in 1823. In 1838 she, along with her two living children, Jane and George Richard Price, left with others for Alabama. Jane married Josiah W. McHenry (b.1815) in 1849. In 1860 they lived in La Pile, Union County, Arkansas, with their four children, Catherine (b. 1850), Barnabas (b. 1852), George (b. 1854) and Jane C. (b. 1856) and Jane’s mother, Catherine, then aged 70. By 1870, they were living in Homer, Louisiana, where Jane died in January 1899.
- This quilt is among several items that G. Ruth McHenry donated to the Smithsonian in 1961. It had been given to her by her aunt, Kate (Catherine) Price McHenry. Catherine Price McHenry was the daughter of Jane Winter Price, who probably made this quilt before her marriage to Josiah W. McHenry in 1849.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1850
- maker
- Price, Jane Winter
- ID Number
- TE*T12697
- accession number
- 238478
- catalog number
- T12697
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Rachel Burr Corwin's "Feathered Star" Pieced Quilt
- Description
- This example of the “Feathered Star” pattern was among several quilts, quilt blocks, and other household textile items that were donated in 1932. It is the work of Rachel Burr Corwin. At the time of the donation the quilt was considered by the curator “. . . a valued addition to the Museum’s collection of old cotton prints . . . one is amazed at the work required to piece together patches of ½-inch dimensions.”
- Fifteen-and-a-half-inch “Feathered Star” pieced blocks are set diagonally with sashing pieced in the “Garden Maze” pattern. These are framed by a six-inch pieced border. An 1829 date was given on a note pinned to the quilt, but the roller-printed cottons are more typical of those used a few years later. Small quilted floral motifs and outline quilting, 7 stitches per inch, complete the quilt.
- Rachel Burr, daughter of Samuel Burr and Sibyl Scudder Burr of Massachusetts, was born March 3, 1788. She married Samuel Corwin of Orange County, New York, October 14, 1809. They had four children. Needlework examples by one of their daughters, Celia, are also in the Collection. Rachel Burr Corwin died March 14, 1849, in Orange County, New York.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1850
- maker
- Corwin, Rachel Burr
- ID Number
- TE*T07118
- accession number
- 121578
- catalog number
- T07118
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1825 - 1850 Annis Curtis's Pieced Quilt
- Description
- Annis Curtis pieced her version of a “Reel” pattern during the second quarter of the 19th century. Sixteen 12-inch pieced blocks and 4 half-blocks in blue and white are set diagonally and alternate with 12-inch squares of the same printed dark blue fabric. The cotton fabric was printed in pale blue and yellow on a dark blue ground. The white in the pattern is achieved through discharge printing, a process that bleaches the color from the fabric. It is quilted, 6 stitches per inch, with diagonal lines in the border, and arced lines following the “Reel” pattern on the blocks. The blue and white theme is continued with the borders on three sides.
- Annis Lawrence, daughter of Joab and Jemima Cross Lawrence, was born January 28, 1787, in Simsbury, Conn. Her grandfather, Col. Bigelow Lawrence (1741-1818) was a captain and major in the Revolutionary War and also served in the New York militia in the War of 1812. About 1795 he and his eight sons, one of which was Joab, were the first settlers of Marcellus, Onondaga County, N.Y. Her aunt, Asenath Lawrence (1773-?) was the first female teacher in Marcellus in the late 1790s. Annis married Israel Curtis (1781-1845), also originally from Simsbury, Conn. Annis died August 19, 1858. They apparently had no children, but lived in the area of Marcellus and are both buried in the Old Marcellus Village Cemetery.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1825-1850
- maker
- Curtis, Annis Lawrence
- ID Number
- TE*T14554
- catalog number
- T14554
- accession number
- 277503
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1830 Violet Alexander's "Flowering Tree" Appliqued Quilt
- Description
- A quilted inscription at the base of the flowering tree on this quilt reads “Violet E. L. Alexander / June 10 / 1830.” The central focus of this quilt, a flowering “Tree of Life” motif, is appliquéd on a 40-inch square of white cotton. Other motifs of palm trees, flowers, and long-tailed birds are appliquéd on white cotton triangles to fill out the center section. This is framed by 3-inch and 7-inch borders that are made of roller-printed floral and geometric stripes. The two borders are separated by a 3¾-inch plain white border. The corner motifs and some parts of the central tree are cut from block-printed cotton produced at the Bannister Hall print works near Preston, England.
- The quilting pattern, 8 stitches per inch, consists of diagonal lines, ¼-inch apart, over the entire center and on the printed borders. Clamshell quilting is found on the plain white border. The fine quilting and use of costly chintz fabrics printed in England make it a typical example of a medallion quilt, popular in the early nineteenth century, and often found in the American South.
- Violet Elizabeth was the daughter of William Bain Alexander and Violet Davidson. Violet was born January 9, 1812. She was one of fourteen children (seven girls and seven boys) who grew up on a prosperous estate in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. On December, 27, 1831 she married Dr. Isaac Wilson, who both farmed and maintained an extensive medical practice. The couple had six children, five sons and one daughter. Two sons lost their lives in the Civil War, two others farmed in the county, and another practiced medicine. Violet died at age 33 of erysipelas, a bacterial infection, during an epidemic in 1845. This quilt was made just prior to her marriage. According to information from the donor, Dr. John E. S. Davidson, the quilt may have been made by his mother, Jane Henderson (Mrs. Edward Constantine Davidson), a friend or relative of Violet.
- Note: The name Violet appears and reappears in the family. She may have gone by the name “Elizabeth,” as some sources cite.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1830
- maker
- Alexander, Violet Elizabeth Lee
- ID Number
- TE*T14673
- catalog number
- T14673
- accession number
- 279890
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1830 Jane Valentine's "Irish Chain" Quilt
- Description
- On the front of this “Irish Chain”-patterned quilt is found an inscription in ink: “Commenced in 1825 & Finished in 1830 by Mifs Jane Valentine Scipio Cayuga Co. N.Y. No. of Pieced Blocks 168 Small Blocks 4,2,42." Another inscription in a different hand and ink on a back corner states: “My Mothers 5040 Blocks 1832 In Case of My death to be given to My Sister Hattie Blodgett.”
- The quilt is made of 3-inch plain and pieced blocks. The blocks are comprised of about 130 different roller-printed cottons with small print motifs. An examination of the quilt reveals that there are 348 white blocks and 348 pieced blocks; the segments of the pieced blocks are 5/8-inch square, and there are 10,092 of them. Diagonal grid quilting follows the “chain.” The plain white blocks are quilted, 6 stitches per inch, with a floral motif. The “Irish Chain” pattern was in use in the early 1800s and may have been adapted from weaving patterns.
- Margaret Jane Valentine was the daughter of Peter Valentine (1784-1865) and Elizabeth Hilliker. Jane married Benjamin Brown Jr. on November 16, 1831. Harriet Brown was born in 1848 and married Charles Blodgett. It was Mrs. Harriet E. Blodgett who in 1915 donated this quilt and a coverlet. At the time she wrote that the quilt was “. . . pieced by my mother. Commenced in 1825 when she was about fourteen finished 1830. . . I feel a great desire to put them [both quilt and coverlet] where they will be preserved.”
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1830
- maker
- Valentine, Jane
- ID Number
- TE*E287383
- accession number
- 58478
- catalog number
- E287383
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1830 - 1850 Williams Family's Heptagonal "Sunburst" Quilt
- Description
- This mid-nineteenth-century quilt, its maker unknown, is from the Williams family of Milton, Pennsylvania. It features an unusual seven-sided sunburst radiating from a seven-pointed star in the center. The skillful quilt maker combined precision piecing with mathematical proficiency to create this intricate geometric figure with its uneven number of sides of equal length. The number seven is echoed in the seven-petal-flowers on the vine encircling the heptagon.
- Nine different assorted small print cottons in reds, greens, browns, and blues contribute to the radiating effect of the center. The heptagon sunburst is surrounded with appliquéd motifs of partridges and May trees cut from an early-nineteenth-century English furnishing chintz. It is quilted with various patterns: herringbone, clamshell, outline and parallel diagonal lines.
- Fancy sunbursts adorn the centers of many mid-nineteenth-century quilts, but most of them have eight sides. The number seven, found significant in many cultures, myths, and legends, represents concepts of completeness, perfection, plenty, security, and safety. The Heptagonal “Sunburst,” donated in 1991, is a complex variation of the more frequently found eight-sided pattern. It is a tribute to workmanship and design in quilting.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1830-1850
- maker
- unknown
- ID Number
- 1991.0381.01
- accession number
- 1991.0381
- catalog number
- 1991.0381.01
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
1830 - 1850 Mary Willcox Taylor's Fort Dearborn Quilt
- Description
- "There was exhibited at the late Mechanical Fair held at Chicago, Ill., by Mr. C. Taylor, of that place, a quilt composed of 9,800 pieces of silk, each of which was about an inch square and all sewed with exceeding beauty and neatness. Its chief charm, however, was the great skill evinced in the ingenious blending of colors, so as to produce a proper effect in the representation of various figures which ornamented it in every part. A brilliant sun shown in the centre, the moon and stars beamed out from one corner, while in another appeared a storm in the heavens, with lowering clouds and flashes of lightning.
- Around the border were various designs illustrative of the season and the rapid growth of the western country. At one place appeared a barren heath, with Indians and hunters roaming over it; next, a trading post, as the first entrance of civilization; next, a military station, with the glorious banner of our country streaming from the flagstaff; then a city, and steamboats and vessels gliding in and out of port." "Great Quilt," Scientific American, Volume 5, Number 12, December 8, 1849.
- The quilt described in the 1849 Scientific American, may well have been Mary Willcox Taylor's silk quilt made between 1830 and 1850 and brought to the Museum in 1953. Although the pieced and appliquéd quilt was made in Detroit, Michigan it was said that Mary at one time had lived at Fort Dearborn. In one corner of the quilt is depicted a military fort complete with a prominent U.S. flag on a pole. Fort Dearborn was completed in 1804, burned by Indians in 1812 and rebuilt in 1816. It was demolished in 1856 to accommodate the rapidly expanding city of Chicago. Today, a plaque located in the Chicago Loop recognizes the earlier Fort Dearborn.
- Mary used many shades of silk, even a few embellished with water-colors to depict the skies from dawn to dusk, sunny to stormy. Vignettes on the outer edges of the quilt are detailed and precise using many different fabrics and techniques. They portray scenes of the growth and changes in Chicago during the first half of the nineteenth century. All the diamond shaped pieces are quilted in an outline pattern. Now, unfortunately too fragile to exhibit, this example of a nineteenth-century pictorial quilt displays the skills and artistic ability of Mary Willcox Taylor.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Date made
- 1830-1850
- quilter
- Taylor, Mary Willcox
- ID Number
- TE*T11053
- accession number
- 197748
- catalog number
- T11053
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center
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