This well-balanced medallion quilt is important for the fabrics used. Cut segments from four different roller-printed cottons produced in the 1830s and 1840s were utilized to create the overall design. The center panel, 57-inches x 57-inches, is appliqued with four large floral wreaths, small baskets and sprays of flowers. It is framed by two 7½-inch floral stripe borders and a 14-inch white border appliqued with small baskets, sprays of flowers, and four eagles, one in each corner. Outline quilting accentuates each of the appliqued motifs on this mid-19th century quilt.
In the mid-nineteenth century, Mary Carpenter Pickering made this appliquéd quilt while living in St. Clairsville, Ohio. According to family information, she began work on the quilt when a friend, John Bruce Bell, left St. Clairsville to accompany a wagon train to the Oregon Territory. He returned eight years later, and they were married. Her grandson, Robert S. Bell, wrote that Mary made the quilt “to make the time go more quickly” while John Bell was away in the Oregon Territory. The quilt is said to have won a blue ribbon at the Ohio State Fair in the early 1850s.
Baskets of flowers are appliquéd on nine blocks. These motifs are raw-edged, held down by close buttonhole stitching. The blocks alternate with all-white blocks that feature stuffed motifs of fruit and flower baskets, grapes and leaves, sprays of leaves and flowers, and a wreath. An appliquéd flowering-vine border completes the overall design of the quilt.
The background quilting patterns are parallel horizontal and diagonal lines about ¼-inch apart, 13 stitches to the inch. Roller-printed cottons are used for appliquéd motifs; the lining is plain white cotton. “Mary C. Pickering. St. Clairsville Ohio” is prominently back-stitched in black silk on one of the white blocks.
Mary Carpenter Pickering was born in Belmont County, Ohio, in 1831. She married John Bruce Bell on September 3, 1861, at New Athens, Ohio. Shortly after their marriage, John Bell joined the Union Army in 1862 for service in the Civil War. He was honorably discharged from the army in 1863 with disabilities that lasted for the rest of his life. They moved to Keokuk County, Iowa, in 1864 and raised nine children, three still living in the 1890s. Mary died in 1900. Her prize-winning appliquéd quilt was handed down in her family for three generations before being donated to the Smithsonian in 1981.
This is one of two banners or wall hangings made in the late 19th-early-20th century by the Ladies Society of the First Presbyterian Church, New York City, as a fundraising project. The donor referred to them as “Autograph Quilts” as they contain many signatures of prominent political personages of the period. The banners belonged to her husband’s grandmother, Margaret Clarke Goodall Bradley, and were donated in her memory. This banner, made about 10 years after a similarly designed banner, was also raffled as a fundraiser, possibly for a 1919 addition of a chancel to the church. Although she did not win the raffle, it was presented to Margaret Bradley because of “her efforts for the projects.”
Similar in design to an earlier (about 1890) banner made by the same group, it has a black satin ground with an appliquéd American flag made of red silk and white satin ribbon and a printed 46-star flag. Inked signatures of Theodore Roosevelt (president 1901-1909) and his cabinet members are on the flag. The center 6 ¾-inch blue silk circle is embroidered "E PLURIBUS UNUM.” It is surrounded by 47 rays representing 46 states (one ray is empty). Utah and New Mexico had joined the Union since the earlier banner had been made. Made of red and white silks, each ray has the name of a state and inked signature of the governor at that time.
The patriotic center is enhanced with appliquéd and embroidered flags of many nations. Some of these have pencil or ink signatures, over 300 in total. Seven metal rings are sewn to the banner's top edge, an indication that it was meant to be hung. It does not have a lining.
The donor recalled in a letter that she remembered hearing that the quilts and banners were “a money-making project, and all the ladies of the church participated in the assembling of the ‘Autograph-Swatches’ and the stitching and embroidery. The signatures on the flags were probably by members and friends of the congregation, (and possibly charged a small fee for the privilege) and when the quilts were completed they were raffled off.”
Margaret J. Clarke was born December 1858 to John and Matilda McKinney Clarke in New York City. Her parents were born in Ireland. She married Edward F. Goodall on September 18, 1877. He was killed by a train in 1880 and she married Samuel Bradley on February 25, 1885. She died November 21, 1929, in New York.
Margaret's daughter Louise, from her first marriage, married John Gordon Noakes. Their son, Donald Gordon Noakes, married Emilie, the donor. He died in 1948 and Emilie later married John Manley. In 1979 Emilie Noakes Manley gave the quilts to the Museum in honor of the family and Margaret Clarke Goodall Bradley. Another granddaughter, Marjorie Blampied, wrote that the quilts “. . . most certainly are where they belong . . . where they will be treasured and appreciated.”
This precisely quilted example of white-work was handed down in the Chardavoyne family. The donor, Martha C. Cramer, wrote that her grandmother told her; “. . . that the spread was the handiwork of ‘an orphan’ who was adopted by her grandparents [William and Amy Chardavoyne] . . . the orphan was illiterate, perhaps because schools were not available.” The quilt came to the donor “. . . in 1905 when my grandmother came to make her home with us following the death of her husband.” In 1981, the donor added, “I should like to donate the spread to the Smithsonian I am now 85 years old and have no close relatives.”
The quilt or counterpane has a center medallion of quilted floral patterns surrounded by quilted floral, feathered, and grid patterns. Both the sewing and quilting threads are linen. It is elaborately quilted at 11 stitches per inch. No binding; front and lining are turned in and sewn with running stitch. It is a fine example of white-work quilting from the late 18th-early 19th century.
Lura B. Thomas made this quilt for her 10-year-old granddaughter, Lura Woodside, in 1898. It was part of the contents, donated in 1953, of Lura Woodside’s late 19th-century child’s bedroom in Malden, Mass. Furnishings, children’s clothing and playthings were among the items donated. Like the quilt, most of the clothes and doll dresses were also made by Lura Thomas, who had been a professional dressmaker.
Lura Thomas pieced this quilt of triangles utilizing many different roller-printed and woven checked, plaid, and striped cotton fabrics. Two 2 1/2-inch triangles are joined into a square, and the squares are joined so that the triangles of the same print form a diagonal row. In the center of the quilt “Lura 98” is embroidered in yellow. The quilt has a cotton lining and filling. It is quilted in a chevron pattern at 7 stitches per inch.
The donor, Lura Woodside, was born in East Boston in 1887, and grew up in Malden, Mass. She married Charles Watkins in 1910. An antiques collector and authority on New England ceramics and glass, she published several books and scholarly articles. She was a founder of the Middleton (Massachusetts) Historical Society, and the Lura Woodside Watkins Historical Museum was named in her honor. She died in 1982. Her quilt, made by her grandmother, represents her lifelong interest in history and the sharing of that interest through her many museum donations.
Pieced quilt by Lisa Noel Coleman, titled "Bedsprings", made in 1985. Pieced, stenciled, and dyed cotton quilt representing a discarded mattress box spring, in off white, reds, turquoise, and black. The background stripes and coil images on the quilt were screen printed with simple hand-cut paper stencils. Vintage upholstery fabric with a button print was vat dyed and combined with other commercial prints and solids to complete the piece. Machine stitched, some hand quilting, 3 stitches/inch. Of the quilt the artist says, "I was inspired by seeing the rusty bedsprings sometimes abandoned in city alleys and thinking they would make a nice structure for vines in my garden. And I would think of the actual life witnessed by the springs." "Bedsprings" was exhibited at the Missoula Art Museum in "Contemporary Quilts by American Artists" invitational in April-June 1985.
Vera Crosier Bartok, made this child's quilt for her daughter. Twenty-four 5 ½” blocks (6 rows of 4 each) are framed by a 4 ½” border, all pink cotton. Each block has a white sitting rabbit appliqued with a buttonhole stitch in white thread; each bunny has an embroidered eye and other markings in pink thread. Joseph F. Bartak made cardboard bunny patterns for the white standing rabbit and the running rabbit template for the quilting in the border.
Named the “Bunny Carriage Quilt,” it was made for the donor (Patricia Bartak Armato) before she was born and was used by her for kindergarten nap time.
This quilt is pieced, appliqued and embroidered. It is named “October Fury” by the maker, Dorothy Bangert. A very detailed notebook containing information from the maker about making the quilt and the event that inspired it was provided with the quilt. It was designed and made as a tribute to the people who served on the Blandy and Foxtrot submarines during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
The center (42” x 33”) lower half has images of a map of Cuba, a Soviet submarine and the U.S.S. Blandy, that are machine embroidered and appliqued, and outlined with hand quilting. A panel on the lower right (15” x 4”) is machine embroidered in red “Cuban Missil [sic] Crisis, Oct. 1962.” A mix of machine and hand quilting was utilized. The border (4 ½”) consists of three strips. Three “patches” are machine appliqued on the top; Soviet Flag (machine embroidered), U.S. Flag, and Blanding Flag (commercially made).
The backing is a white cotton fabric. It has seven printed panels (9 ½” x 7”), five of which contain names of persons who served on both U.S.S. Blandy and Soviet (Foxtrot) submarines. Another, “The Blandy,” gives details of the ship, and another tells of “Life in a Foxtrot Submarine”. A smaller printed segment contains the maker’s dedication. The U.S.S. Blandy’s emblem is also printed.
The “Sunburst” quilt was brought to Kansas from Ohio in 1904 by Emma Tracy, Lucy Meade’s mother. She had inherited it from her mother, Candus Cone Northway, whose aunt crafted it in the mid-19th century. Lucy Tracy Meade, the donor’s grandmother, exhibited the quilt in Kansas in the 1970s.
According to Lucy Meade, it was always referred to in the family as the star pattern. Whether it is called a 14-point star, a sunburst, or a sunflower, the quilt makes a bold graphic statement.
This carefully designed quilt is composed of five different roller-printed cottons, with a white cotton lining and cotton filling. A 23 ¾-inch red circular center is surrounded by 14 yellow triangles and 14 green diamonds. Additional piecing in blue provides contrast to the colorful sunburst. The resulting 57-inch square is framed by a border of 9 ½-inches on three sides and 17-inches on the bottom. The quilting accents the design with concentric circles ¾-inch apart in the center, echo quilting on the diamonds and triangles, clamshell quilting on the wedges between diamonds, and further concentric circles around the sunburst. The border is quilted with a diagonal grid pattern, all done at 7 stitches per inch.
In an article in the Hays Daily News from 1979 about the “Sunburst” quilt, Lucy Meade says: “It’s been in the family for as long as I can remember. We’re even so worried about it wearing out that we don’t use it anymore, except for display purposes.” Her granddaughter, Janet Meade Komoroske agreed, and felt that the quilt belonged in a museum collection where it can be admired and studied by a wider audience.
Quilted in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early twentieth century, this is a beautiful example of Amish quilting utilizing a traditional pattern. The dark red 25½-inch center diamond with a 3¾-inch purple border is set diagonally into a 46¼-inch square also with a 3¾-inch border. Framed by an outer 11¾-inch border, the quilt is finished with a wide contrasting binding of dark blue. The fabrics are mainly wool, wool-and-cotton, and some rayon. An 8-pointed star, feathered circles, vines, and scallops are motifs quilted with black cotton to complete this quilt.
“I have in my possession a quilt that was presented to my great-grandfather, Bernard Nadal, by the female members of his congregation when he was a minister . . . . It seems to me that it should be in a museum as the workmanship is exquisite . . . .” wrote Miss Constance Dawson in 1983 when the quilt top was donated to the Smithsonian.
The Ladies of the Columbia Street Methodist Church congregation presented this “Baltimore Album” quilt top to Rev. Bernard H. Nadal in 1847. He had been a pastor at the church in Baltimore between 1845 and 1846 and left to attend Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1848.
“Album” or “friendship” quilts were popular in the mid-nineteenth century. The complex appliquéd blocks, typical of the Baltimore style, as well as signatures, poems, and drawings that grace this quilt top express the high regard the women must have had for Reverend Nadal.
Variations of baskets, wreaths, vases, and floral designs are appliquéd on 17-inch blocks. An appliquéd flowering vine on the 9-inch border frames the twenty-five blocks on this quilt top which has neither filling nor lining. All of the blocks have embroidered or inked details and a name with often an additional poem and drawing. Almost all of the drawings, seemingly done by the same hand, are of a bird, generally a dove, with a ribbon or book sometimes on a monument or urn. These are motifs frequently found on “album” or “friendship” quilts in the mid-nineteenth century. A red Bible dated “1847” in the quilt’s center is inscribed: “To Rev. Bernard H. Nadal. Baltimore.” An inked drawing of a dove with a ribbon containing the name “Susan M. Shillingburg” is above the Bible and the inscription:
“Accept my gift affection brings
Though poor the offering be
It flows from Friendship purest spring
A tribute let it be.”
Probably presented as a farewell gift, the inscriptions on this quilt top express friendship, good fortune in the future, and the wish to “forget me not.”
Bernard H. Nadal was born in Talbot County, Maryland, in 1812. His father, from Bayonne, France, was said to have freed all his slaves and possibly influenced Bernard, who later had a reputation as a strong antislavery advocate and was an admirer of Lincoln.
Bernard Nadal apprenticed as a saddler for four years but joined the ministry in 1835 at age 23. It was noted that he rode his circuit using a saddle he had made. He served churches in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in 1841. In 1855 he became a professor of ethics and English literature at Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University) and remained there for three years before returning to pastorates in Washington, New Haven and Brooklyn.
In 1867 Nadal became Professor of Historical Theology at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey. He married Sarah Jane Mays and they had nine children. His career was cut short in 1870, when he died after a short illness at his home in Madison, New Jersey. In addition to many lectures, addresses, sermons, and newspaper editorials that were “continually pouring from his tireless pen,” he wrote The New Life Dawning, and other Discourses of Bernard H. Nadal published in 1873. He was described by colleagues as a person who “enjoyed that peculiar popularity among his students which belongs only to the teacher who possesses the heart to enter deeply into sympathy with young men, and also the power to inspire them with his own devotion to earnest work.” He must have made a similar impression on the women whose album quilt top indicates their high esteem for his work.
Quilt block pieced in a Nine-patch variation. Zig-zag stripes roller-printed in brown on woven ivory Marseilles ground and leafed vines (all dots) roller-printed in brown on woven Marseilles ground. Block has been stitched to other blocks at one time; there are needle holes and fragments of white cotton along all edges.
Quilted in Ohio in the first half of the twentieth century, this is a Mennonite or possibly Amish version of the “Sawtoothed Bars” pattern. It is two-toned, made of plain-woven red and green cottons. Outline quilting was done on the sawtooth triangles, and all other areas were quilted in a diagonal grid with grey-green cotton thread.
Quilted in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, in the early part of the twentieth century, this seemingly simple pattern of bars set in a contrasting color typifies Amish quilting. The center is composed of eleven burgundy and blue strips of wool-and-cotton fabric, which vary in width from 6 inches to 7-inches, set in a frame of blue. The corners of the border are mitered. The blue bars and borders are quilted in a cable pattern, and the burgundy bars in a chevron pattern. The skillful quilting is done with rose and blue cotton thread. It is a classic rendering of a traditional Amish pattern.
Of Scottish or American origin, this child’s quilt was used in the donor’s family. The quilt is constructed with thirty-five 4-5/8" blocks pieced of printed and plain triangles. The fabrics have stripe, geometric, and floral motifs block-printed in rose and brown with penciled blue accents. The quilt is framed by a 4-1/4" border, block-printed with birds, flowers, thistles, and striped edges.
This carefully thought-out example of the pieced “Log Cabin” or “Courthouse Steps” pattern was given as a gift of friendship from the Copland Family of Johnson Creek, Wis., to Clara Foy. She in turn gave it to her stepgrand daughter, the donor, in 1942 as a gift before she was married. The quilt was exhibited at a county fair where it won a blue ribbon and possibly was exhibited at the Wisconsin State Fair and other fairs.
The bedcover is composed of 7 ½-inch blocks made of many different late-19th-century roller-printed cottons. The blocks are framed by four rows of short printed cotton strips, with a 1 ¾-inch cotton border print on the inner edge and a different 1 ¾-inch cotton border print on the outer edge. The blocks and strips are constructed on muslin squares and rectangles. In each of the four corners of the border is a 7-inch block pieced in the “White House Steps” version of the “Log Cabin” pattern. Although the donor referred to it as a quilt, it has neither a lining nor a filling and is not quilted.
Clara Falcy, the recipient of this bedcover from the Copland Family, was born in Wisconsin in 1887. She married a Mr. Radditz and moved to Indiana. After his death, she married George L. Foy (about 1870-1933) in 1931 and they lived in Wisconsin.
The numerous fabrics in this version of the “Log Cabin” quilt make it an interesting contribution to the Collection.
Quilt block pieced in a Nine-patch variation. Double diagonal grid roller-printed in blue on woven ivory Marseilles ground. Block has been stitched to other blocks at one time; there are needle holes and fragments of white cotton along all edges.
Quilted in Topeka, Indiana, in the first half of the twentieth century, this is an example of the pattern referred to as “Path through the Woods.” Made of cottons, mainly solid colored tan and red, the blocks are framed by a 2¼-inch red inner border and a 6½-inch tan outer border. The quilt has a blue binding. It is both hand- and machine-pieced; the blocks are joined with machine stitching. An 8-pointed star is quilted in the center of each block. This is an instance of Amish quilting done outside of traditional Pennsylvania areas.