The Importance of Quilt History

by Patricia L. Cummings, quilt historian

Quilt from Lambertville, NJ collected in Maine

Beautiful antique quilt from Lambertville, NJ

“Why is quilt history important today?” We should also ask, “Why history is important?” History, and the more specialized topic of quilt history which is a relatively new field of study, both show us where we have been, have far we have come, and how much more we need to learn, even to just catch up with the accomplishments of people of the past.

While quilts may seem inconsequential to those who do not make them or love them, they are an ordinary part of life and that is why they are sometimes taken for granted by non-quilters. Traditionally, quilts have been a cradle to grave experience. For those of us who spend our precious minutes crafting quilts of every size, color, and shape, they have a lot of meaning because they are the work of our own hands.

Our hands can do this work, now, but in the future, they may not be able to continue to make quilts, due to physical changes or because we will “shuffle off the mortal coil.” Once we are no longer here, we will be part of the history of quilt making, whether we prefer pieced quilts, Crazy Quilts, appliqué work, or long arm quilting, in our time.

Needles: Crafted As A Necessity

Those who do not value our quilting and needlework do not think about the entire process and how advancements in civilization have affected the art of the needle. Consider the idea that, at one time, needles were threaded with animal sinew or vegetable fiber. For the fun of it, do a Google search on the Internet, keying in "bone needles.” You may be amazed at the span of time that needles were fashioned out of bone.

According to The British Museum, bone needles have been found at Paleolithic sites in western Europe, dating back to 35,000 years ago. Another site describes how to make bone needles but cautions that bone dust is not a healthy substance to inhale. The needles found range in size from 1/2” to 3” long.

Today, if we want new needles, we trot to our local quilt shop, or consult a mail order catalog and have an array of brand names from which to choose. In early America, we would be diligently watching for the next ship to pull up to the dock in say, Portsmouth, New Hampshire, or Baltimore, Maryland, with a cargo that contained needles made of whalebone.

Natural Fibers: A Necessary Use of Resources

Fibers themselves were needed, and most often, those were processed at home in the early settlements. Linen was used as both a sewing thread, and as a woven ground fabric upon which Samplers were worked. Linen thread is a fiber derived from the flax plant. With pretty blue flowers, it once grew prolifically in the countryside of New England. There are many steps to processing flax, including “dunging” it, and bleaching it, and more. How labor intensive it was to convert flax into usable thread!

In fact, a lot of physical labor is required to process fibers from any of the natural sources: the most common of which are wool, cotton, and silk. Yes, there was a thriving silk production business in Northampton, Massachusetts at a time when Mulberry Trees were planted there for the cultivation of silk worms. In Sandwich, New Hampshire, the local museum has one silk scarf with fringe. This item represents the culmination of the cultivation of silk worms on a few local mulberry trees, planted for the exact purpose of producing silk. Reportedly, the trees died from the northern cold.

Wool was another labor-intensive product very common to New England ever since Merino sheep were smuggled from Spain and introduced to the hills of Vermont where the animals thrived. Wool was the basis for a combined-fiber product of linen and wool, called linsey-woolsey, and wool was the fabric used to make calimanco wholecloth quilts. (Some believe that the term linsey-woolsey, also spelled lindsey-woolsey, takes its name from Linsey, England).

In the North, cotton was not grown but imported and processed in the industrial mills for which New England is famous, the Cocheco Mills of Dover being just one such place. The spinning of cotton was an art in itself, as was the dyeing of it, as mordants are needed for that process. As you can see, there are so many components to understanding quilt history, and we are only touching upon some rudimentary considerations!

Basic Tools Expanded

For a moment, let's look at the building blocks of quilt making: needle, thread, and fabrics, and oh, yes, scissors! Then, and now, before a quilt maker can begin a project, he or she must have these items. Today, however, we have more choices than ever to help us in quilting. There are rotary cutters, precise rulers, pre-cut templates for hand piecing, and machine stitch regulators for long arm machines. We have videos, and the Internet for inspiration, other quilters with whom we can connect worldwide, and lots of magazines, some of them from other countries.

First Published Quilt Pattern

Think about this: in the nineteenth century, there was no such thing as a dedicated quilt magazine. Godey's Lady's Book was a publication geared toward education for women which included recently written poems, short stories, recipes, and information important to its target audience. Ironically, the most popular feature, that of the latest fashions for women, on color plates, was the one part of the magazine to which Sarah Josepha Hale, editor, objected the most.

The year 1835 is the first time that a quilt design of any kind was published, as I said in my recent book, Ellen Emeline (Hardy) Webster, (1867-1950): Her Amazing Quilt “Charts,” Her Writings, and Her Life. Ellen Hardy, her sisters, and her one brother, learned to quilt at their mother's knee, while they were very young. During any spare moment, each of them worked on piecing the quilt designed by their mother, mirroring the same cooperative spirit of New England quilting bees of the same era. Sarah Diantha Hardy had chosen a simple pattern. Other mothers of the day first taught their children Nine Patch designs that were simple to hand piece.

When we look back, it is important to realize the importance of quilts, simply to keep warm. Thinking about the ways in which people adapted simple ideas and patterns, and how they shared methods and disseminated new patterns is an area we can guess at but will never fully understand. All we can do today is to enjoy those designs that have been passed down.

Ellen Emeline (Hardy) Webster: A Saver of Quilt Designs

Recently, I had the good fortune to study the life and the work of a New Hampshire native. She is the most selfless person about whom I have ever heard. She was interested in everyone and in everything, from wildflowers to birds. She seems to have been destined to be a teacher, from her youth. In making complex quilt “charts” as she called them, she left her own legacy as one who saved quilt history.

To see the value of her work, one has to see what she accomplished in re-creating quilt patterns onto paper after viewing old quilts. She not only saved the memory of the work of someone else's hands, in some cases, she saved their name and location. For me, it has been exciting to track down the origins of some designs and to learn that some of the quilts still exist in private hands or museums. The 340 photos of the 355 page e-book that my husband and I compiled about her, includes photos of all of her so-called quilt charts: her mock-up quilt designs in fabric, wallpaper (a few), and paint.

We All Leave A “Footprint”

Quilt history honors the quilters who have gone before us, and those who, like Mrs. Webster, have left a “footprint,” by her existence, and encouraged us to learn more about her life and work. Certainly, as the wife of a dentist, she did not have to make quilts to keep warm. She could have purchased some other bed covering.

Joy of Discovery

Like an archaeologist, my joy is in discovering facts about artifacts of the past. I believe there are lessons to be learned. When one begins looking into any subject, one never knows what will be uncovered. For me, there is a great deal of satisfaction in finding, studying, and understanding both history, and quilt history, that previously have remained unexamined. For all of the above reasons, I feel that quilt history is vital to understanding our placement in the overall scheme of time and place, as we attempt to compare the types of projects we undertake today to quilting borne of necessity and done in the past by both men and women.

Ellen Emeline (Hardy) Webster, (1867-1950), Her Amazing Quilt “Charts,” Her Writings, and Her Life, is an e-book that is now available from this site. Please visit our Products Available page for more information.

cd cover for Ellen Webster e book

This is the cover of the CD with 355 pages and 340 photos that detail the life and works of Ellen Webster, New Hampshire's quilt historian.