The New England Quilt Museum Announces New Exhibition:
Women’s Writes: Signature Quilts and Their Stories
A groundbreaking examination of a vital aspect of women’s material history in the 19th century.
Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich to speak at NEQM in June.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 23, 2010 — The New England Quilt Museum is pleased to announce their groundbreaking exhibition on women’s material history, Women’s Writes: Signature Quilts and Their Stories. The curators for the exhibit, NEQM Acting Curator Laura Lane and quilt historian Lorie Chase, have assembled an extensive group of signature quilts, drawn from both the museum’s own permanent collection and borrowed from private collections to showcase the wide range of actions women in the 19th and early 20th centuries were able to take by combining needle and thread with the power of the pen.

“Snowflake” pattern, signature quilt, 1848. Photo by Joe Offria

At a time when women did not have the vote, property rights, or occupational opportunities, and were just beginning to have beyond-basic literacy skills, creating signature quilts was a chance at self-expression and self-sufficiency. Frequently made as charity fund-raisers, signature quilts gave women a measure of both political and economic independence, enabling them to fund their favorite social causes entirely on their own. Groups of women raised money for temperance, abolition, church renovations, the Red Cross, and women’s social clubs by raffling off signature quilts. Many women’s groups also signed the quilts they made for troops during the Civil War, often adding patriotic verses to their signatures.

While making signature quilts for political or social causes was a major means of women’s self-expression, many more personal signature quilts were made. These quilts, too, provided a means for women to assert a more active role within their families and communities. The giving of a signature quilt placed women front and center at major family or local events, such as marriages, births, the departure of an important town resident, or the commemoration of a civic event. The more personal quilts provided an even greater chance at expression, and many signers added favorite poems or Bible verses, as well as personal messages to recipients, making signature quilts a unique window into everyday American women’s values. With family quilts making up a large proportion of these works, they are also of significant interest to genealogists.

So important were signature quilts in 19th century American society that by the middle of the century, industry provided stamps to embellish signatures, patterns, sample verses, and calligraphy advice to the nation’s quilt makers. The tradition continued into the 20th century, though on a lesser scale, and is still honored today by contemporary quiltmakers.

Women’s Writes will run from May 13 through July 11. The opening reception, with a lecture by Lorie Chase, will be on Saturday, May 15 at 1pm. In addition, on Saturday, May 22, Faye Labanaris will present a workshop on Victorian calligraphy for modern quilts, and on June 5, Ms. Chase will present a workshop on tracing your quilt’s history. Harvard Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, author of cialis pills and cialis pills will give a lecture on Saturday, June 19th at 1pm. Titled “An American Album Quilt, Utah Territory, 1857: A Case Study in Object-Centered History,” the lecture will examine a single object as a lens into a period in American history.

Support for this exhibition is provided, in part, by Mancuso Show Management.

About the New England Quilt Museum

The New England Quilt Museum, located in Lowell, MA, preserves, interprets, and celebrates American quilting past and present.

Museum hours are 10 AM – 4 PM Tuesday – Saturday; and Sundays 12 – 4 PM: May through October. Admission is $7, $5 for seniors and students, and free for museum members. Two for one admission for WGBH and AAA members. Visit or call 978-452-4207 for more information.

Press release courtesy of Quilter’s Muse Publications, and sent by Christina Inge, the museum’s publicist.

Tags:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 at 4:11 pm and is filed under , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.