quiltersmuse.com Blog

Eliza’s Rail Tales by Judy Haslee Scott is a novel written for children. The subtitle of the book is The Underground Railroad and Codes of Quilts. This book was first published as a paperback in March 2008. Amazon is carrying it at $28.79 and sellers of used books are offering it for up to $49.51, a fact that I do not quite understand. However, let’s not get diverted from the topic.

When I first learned that a review copy of the book is available to publishers, I requested one. I was told that X Libris prints the book, on demand, and that the process takes 10 days and then another 3-5 days to mail it. However, the book never showed up in my mailbox. That is no surprise.

As a prolific writer who has condemned the myth of quilts being used on the Underground Railroad as signaling devices, and as someone who has studied the history of this idea, my predicted reaction to this book was probably abundantly clear.

The most startling fact of all is that the author, a retired teacher, proposes class exercises centered around the certain quilt blocks pointed out to be those that helped the slaves communicate. In a world that thrives on hearsay and repetition of false information in the name of scholarship, this is just one more example.

I truly wish that more actual stories of real events surrounding the Underground Railroad would be told. I am sure there must be many more accounts regarding slaves who passed through New Hampshire, for example, as the state borders Canada, a slave destination.

To call something “a novel” means that the story is made up in the author’s head. That is one thing, but then to turn around, and teach fables as history, is quite another matter.

For quilt historians, this kind of book is irritating at best, and damaging to the children in our schools who are taught to believe their teachers, when, in essence, their teachers are imparting lies. They “heard it through the grapevine … ” Ozella McDaniel Williams’ “secret quilt code” has taken on a life of its own.

Recently, I came across a U Tube offering. It was a video of children telling the stories of quilt blocks and what they meant on the Underground Railroad, and as photos of quilt blocks went by, I happened to notice a “Wagon Wheel” block that was conveniently “lifted” right off my website. The antique block is a complex one that would have required a lot of time to piece by hand, and it is made of late nineteenth century print fabrics, including the color, Cadet Blue, that did not appear until the early 1870s, after the Civil War had ended. You can see the framed block, no doubt severed from a quilt, and framed, by clicking the link.

Fantasy is more fun than facts, at times, but let’s speak the truth when it comes to teaching children “History.”

Patricia Cummings, Quilter’s Muse site

I have just finished writing a new article that I have posted to the website:

The Secret Quilt Code and Black History Month – 2007: A Wrap Up of The Controversy

http://www.quiltersmuse.com/the_secret_quilt_code_2007.htm

Patricia

If you took the time to click on the link that I provided you in the last blog post, you would have read a mainstream media article by Joel Thurtell in the Detroit Free Press, online, that takes a very fanciful approach by providing the reader a three-question “quiz” at the beginning of the article.

The query serves to illustrate the point that if you were an escaping slave, you would not have looked at fences with quilts hanging on them to tell you where to go, etc.

Somehow, ever since 1999, and even preceding that time, (due to a children’s book), the idea of a secret quilt code has taken wings and flown to greater heights. The more outlandish and far-fetched it has become, and the more stretched it has become, even beyond what is stated in the book, Hidden in Plain View, seemingly the more willing the general public has been to embrace what historian and author, Fergus M. Bordewich, calls “false history.” He is the author of a book titled, Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America.

According to the Thurtell article, Yale historian David Blight has also joined the ranks of those of us who oppose the secret quilt code because it has no basis in history: in either American history, the history of the Underground Railroad, or quilt history.

Why do museums continue to give lip-service (and displays) to notions that have been discounted by so many professionals?

The answer is simple. Providing a quilt to view, and assigning a meaning to certain quilt blocks is “easy.”

For example, it is much easier than reminding people that escaping slaves had their ears cut off and were sometimes castrated, or both, to make an example of them. Showing a quilt is easier than talking about the sexual predation that went on between “master” and a pretty slave girl. It is easier than discussing the fact that President Jefferson reportedly fathered children as a result of inter-racial relations. It is easier than talking about the coarse cloth that negroes, as they were called, were supposed to wear. The cloth was milled in the north and specifically called, “negro cloth.”

Yes, the real history is tough, mean, and hateful. Most of us don’t want to think about it.

One thing we also do is to exaggerate the past. Harriet Tubman has been reported to have conducted 300 slaves to freedom. Historians now say that the number was more like 70. The correct number detracts nothing from Tubman’s bravery. I highly recommend Kate Clifford Larson’s biography of Tubman entitled, Bound for the Promised Land. Her site is well worth visiting: www.harriettubmanbiography.com

Catherine Clinton has also wrote a biography of Harriet Tubman, in 2005. The book’s title is Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. I enjoyed reading both books.

Ever since the publication of Hidden in Plain View, a few other people have suddenly decided to tell their own family slave story related to quilt blocks. One, in particular, falls flat in the details. I was so disgusted by the book, I will not even give the name a mention.

Everybody and their aunt Nellie is coming out of the woodwork to “present” the story of the secret quilt code. Why? For something green, of course! There are enough people around, who ARE “green,” when it comes to the code, these presenters rely on folks not having heard of it before, or the controversy surrounding it.

Lest this blog post become a total rant, I shall have to say that this month, I have been encouraged by the number of creditable news sources, unrelated to quilting venues, that have come out with articles about this subject. Responsible newspaper entities are rising to the cause.

The American public has been duped long enough. We are having the new “curriculum” of the secret quilt code shoved down the throats of our unsuspecting youngsters. Enough is enough!

The code was even due to be engraved at the base of a monument to honor Frederick Douglass in Central Park. Surely, such a man would not be honored by the perpetuation of a fantasy, in this way.

I am sorry. I am sorry for the suffering of ALL minority groups, including formerly enslaved Blacks. I am sorry that there is no substantiation whatsoever for the secret quilt code. I am sorry for those who have been taken in under its spell. I am sorry for those who have been led astray by false media publications, from how-to quilt books, to a pseudo-scholastic book, to a bogus magazine article.

I don’t make history, and I can’t change it, or re-write it. I can only interpret it. I hate the role of naysayer, yet, that role keeps finding me, in regard to this issue that has become like a thorn in the side of every well-informed quilt historian.

Sometimes, life is not as pretty as quilt blocks; not as soothing, nor as heart-warming, nor as inspiring, as beautiful quilts, made with love. Make a gorgeous quilt and have fun doing it! Just do me one favor? Please, don’t call it an Underground Railroad, “secret quilt code” quilt!

Patricia

The Detroit Free Press is featuring an article, online, written by Joel Thurtell in which Joel discusses the secret quilt code and the remarks of prominent historians. You won’t want to miss it!

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007702180395

Patricia

An alert webmaster has posted the following links on his church’s website so that the church members can do some further reading online about the Underground Railroad and Quilts, a controversy of which he was unaware until a speaker on this subject was booked, for the end of February.

More links:

The Underground Railroad Quilt Code, by Leigh Fellner.

Barbara Brackman’s Fact Sheet on The Quilt Code.

Black Threads: Explorations in African American Quilting, Quilt History, Fabrics and other Fanciful Topics.

The Underground Railroad and the Use of Quilts as Messengers for Fleeing Slaves by Kimberly Wulfert, PhD.

An American Quilt Myth: The Secret Quilt Code of the Underground Railroad by Patricia L. Cummings, quilt historian.

Threads of Freedom: The Underground Railroad Story in Quilts, an exhibit at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio.

We are very blessed that this man was so observant and on the ball. He has been visiting various websites this past week and reports having learned a lot about quilts and their history! Amen.