Domestic Furnishings - Overview
Washboards, armchairs, lamps, and pots and pans may not seem to be museum pieces. But they are invaluable evidence of how most people lived day to day, last week or three centuries ago. The Museum's collections of domestic furnishings comprise more than 40,000 artifacts from American households. Large and small, they include four houses, roughly 800 pieces of furniture, fireplace equipment, spinning wheels, ceramics and glass, family portraits, and much more.
The Arthur and Edna Greenwood Collection contains more than 2,000 objects from New England households from colonial times to mid-1800s. From kitchens of the past, the collections hold some 3,300 artifacts, ranging from refrigerators to spatulas. The lighting devices alone number roughly 3,000 lamps, candleholders, and lanterns.
"Domestic Furnishings - Overview" showing 1 items.
1890 - 1910 Swarey Family's Amish Quilt
- Description
- This Amish quilt was in the Swarey family and probably was made by Mrs. Swarey's grandmother, Mrs. Peachy. The Swarey family lived in Allenville, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, where the quilt was made in the late-nineteenth or early-twentieth century.
- Ten inch squares are set diagonally with ten-inch triangles filling in the edges to complete the center portion of this quilt. Nine of the squares are quilted in an 8-pointed star pattern; the other squares are quilted in a grid pattern. Clam-shell quilting is found on the triangles. A quilted leafy vine graces the border on three sides. The quilting is done with black cotton thread; the fabrics are wool/cotton. The quilter deftly uses four major colors and well placed quilted motifs to achieve the bold effect this quilt conveys.
- Location
- Currently not on view
- date made
- 1890-1910
- quilter
- Swarey family
- Mrs. Peachey
- ID Number
- TE*T18479
- accession number
- 1978.0674
- catalog number
- T18479
- Data Source
- National Museum of American History, Kenneth E. Behring Center