QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Friday, June 28, 2019

Gloria Vanderbilt's Patchwork Interior


Celebrity artist and designer Gloria Vanderbilt recently died at 95. Her greatest accomplishment may have been her estimable son journalist Anderson Cooper, but the second most memorable was her patchwork interior.

About 1970 you couldn't have enough pattern.


Or maybe you could.

In fact this interior design might summarize all the proverbial excess of the 1970s.

Now, some of it was wallpaper

And some of it was antique quilts hung on the walls.
Those framed paintings are Gloria's collages.

But a lot of patchwork had to die for this look.
Apparently the floor was blocks, fragments and fabric
varnished over.

Sunbonnet Sue, ok, cut her up for upholstery
but a signed, dated Pennsylvania-German fraktur album!!!!

(My learned correspondent tells me:
"Gads... it’s a William Gross! He’s the fraktur artist that draws flower pots for the recipient’s name." )

Well, it's all about marketing. And this apartment got Gloria's name in the papers.


Gloria Vanderbilt's story is a chapter in a classic American family tale. You can talk about events such as the Civil War, Reconstruction, the abdication of King Edward VIII and the Jazz Age through family biographies.

One of Dena's Dixie Diary tops. 

A few years ago we did a block of the month quilt called Dixie Diary, based on the Morgan/Vanderbilt family's Civil War story and the diary of Sarah Morgan. I concluded it with:
"Every thread of genealogy leads to impressive achievement in their real-life American saga. Cecil Morgan (Sarah's nephew Howell) tried unsuccessfully to impeach Louisiana Governor Huey Long. Howell himself and wife Thisba worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs on Sioux reservations and Cecil donated their collection of Sioux arts to the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. In France, Warrington (Sarah's son) was friends with authors Josef Conrad and Rudyard Kipling, as well as the Theodore Roosevelts. During World War I he worked at the American Embassy in Paris. As noted in an earlier post, Sarah's brother Philip's descendants include Thelma Furness, Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper."

Gloria's mother and her twin sister
Gloria Morgan Vanderbilt and Thelma Morgan, Lady Furness.

A recent picture of Gloria Jr.'s bedroom. Taste changes.

Read about the Morgans here:

Monday, June 24, 2019

Antique Quilt Exhibits: Summer & Fall 2019

Most shows won't let you touch.

Here's a list of shows worth visiting and meetings worth attending through fall 2019.

Alabama, Tuscumbia
Belle Mont Mansion,  The annual quilt show at this museum: Antique Quilts from the Tennessee River Valley. October 2 - 31, 2019


Arkansas, Little Rock
Old State House Museum. A Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans. Years ago the late Cuesta Benberry curated this exhibit of quilts from the collection, now rehung, up through Fall, 2019.
http://www.oldstatehouse.com/rotating-exhibits/a-piece-of-my-soul


Historic Arkansas Museum. Stitched Together: A Treasury of Arkansas Quilts (from the collection)
Through October 31, 2019
https://historicarkansas.worldsecuresystems.com/Exhibits/current-exhibits





California, San Jose
San Jose Museum of Quilts & Textiles. Gems From Our Past. Quilts from the Collection.
August 28 - October 13, 2019.

Colorado, Golden
Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum. In The British Style: English Paper Pieced Quilts and Antique Paper Pieced Quilts from the RMQM Collection. October 21 - January 18, 2020
Exhibit Opening Reception: Friday, October 26th, 6:00pm
http://rmqm.org

Connecticut, Hartford
Connecticut Historical Society, Connecticut Quilts, curated by Lynn Z. Bassett.
Opening October 11, 2019
https://chs.org/exhibition/coming-soon-connecticut-quilts/

Florida, Sarasota
Ringling Museum of Art, The Fabric of India, 140 pieces from London’s Victoria & Albert Museum.
July 7 - October 13, 2019
http://www.ringling.org/events/fabric-india

Georgia, Atlanta
September 27 -29, 2019. Atlanta Quilt Study Symposium. 
https://quiltdistrict.com/atlanta-quilt-study-group/


Georgia, Carrollton
Southeastern Quilt and Textile Museum. Antique Quilts from the Collection of Marti Michell
October 3 -January 25, 2020
https://www.southeasternquiltandtextilemuseum.org/



Iowa, Winterset
Iowa Quilt Museum, Stitched Through Time: A History of Quilting, curated by Judy Schwender.
Through September 29th, 2019
http://iowaquiltmuseum.org/current-exhibit/

Illinois, Burr Ridge
Robert Vial House. Quilts from the Depression
Thursdays & 1st  Sunday of each month through October.
http://www.flaggcreekheritagesociety.com/index.html


Maryland, Baltimore
Maryland Historical Society. In conjunction with the exhibit Hometown Girl: Contemporary Quilts of Mimi Dietrich the museum will show some of its many Baltimore style quilts. Through 2019.
http://www.mdhs.org/museum/exhibitions/upcoming/hometown-girl-contemporary-quilts-mimi-dietrich


Massachusetts, Lowell
The New England Quilt Museum's current show of antique quilts features samplers, old and new, plus a tribute to the much missed Sue Garmanwho did wonderful interpretations of antique quilts. Sue's show up till December 29, 2019.

Nebraska, Lincoln
International Quilt Study Center & Museum


Whimsy. Through November 30, 2019.


Old World Quilts. The earliest quilts in the collection. Through December 11, 2019.
https://www.quiltstudy.org/exhibition/old-world-quilts

October 9-13. American Quilt Study Group's Annual Seminar is in Lincoln this fall.
https://americanquiltstudygroup.org/seminar/seminar2019/



New York, Long Island City
American Folk Art Museum's Self Taught Genius Gallery. A Piece of Yourself: Gift Giving in Self-Taught Art. Through December 31, 2019
https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/



North Carolina, Raleigh
North Carolina Museum of History, QuiltSpeak: Uncovering Women’s Voices Through Quilts
Through March 1, 2020
https://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/quiltspeak

September 28: Bed Turning: Diana Bell-Kite, Curator of Cultural History & Paige Myers, Textile Conservator,  will show you unusual and fragile quilts from the museum collection not in the display. Register here:
https://www.ncmuseumofhistory.org/events/bed-turning%E2%80%94quilts-museum-collection

Catalog available for $20 at the museum's shop:
https://www.ncmuseumofhistoryshop.com/


Ohio, Kent
Kent State Museum. Ohio Quilts from the collection.
https://www.kent.edu/museum/news/explore-ohios-rich-history-ksu-museums-ohio-quilts-exhibit

Oklahoma, Shawnee
MOKA meeting, October 4-5, 2019. (MO,OK,KS & AR Quilt Study Group) with visits to the Mabee-Gerrer Museum and the Pottawatomie County Museum.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/347915538732554/

Oregon, Salem
Willamette Heritage Center. Stitches and Stories: Discoveries from the Oregon Quilt Project
Through December 23, 2019


Pennsylvania, Lancaster
Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, Decorated and Plain: A Mennonite and Amish Sampler.
Up now till when?


Pennsylvania, Lewisburg
Packwood House Museum, Pennsylvania Quilts: Made in Union County.
Through October 5, 2019 
Quilts must be viewed with a guide, 1 pm daily. Other times arranged in advance.
https://packwoodhousemuseum.com/event/packwood-house-museum-quilt-exhibit/?instance_id=1351

Pennsylvania, Pennsville
Schwenkfelder Heritage Center. Signature Quilts from the collection. 
Through November 8, 2019
 http://www.schwenkfelder.com/collectionsexhibits.html


South Carolina, Charleston
AQS Exhibition. The antique quilt show: From Hands Alone: Selected Quilts from the Collection of Chris Moline. September 15-27, 2019.
http://www.quiltweek.com/locations/charleston/charleston-quilt-exhibits/

Texas, Lubbock 
The Museum at Texas Tech, Cotton and Thrift: Feed Sacks and the Household Fabric of Rural America. 
Through December 15, 2019
http://www.depts.ttu.edu/museumttu/exhibitions/2019/CottonandThrift.php


Vermont, Bennington
The Bennington Museum displays its famous Jane Stickle quilt annually---this year from August 31-October 14, 2019.
https://benningtonmuseum.org/portfolio-items/1863-jane-stickle-quilt/


Vermont: Shelburne
Shelburne Museum,  Ink + Icons: Album Quilts from the Permanent Collection. Nine quilts.
Through October 31, 2019
https://shelburnemuseum.org/exhibition/ink-icons-album-quilts-from-the-permanent-collection/

Virginia, Harrisonburg

Virginia Quilt Museum, West Virginia Child of the Civil War, quilts from the collection. Through December, 14.
www.vaquiltmuseum.org



Washington D.C.
DAR Museum. A Piece of Her Mind: Culture and Technology in American Quilts
Through December 31, 2019
https://www.dar.org/museum/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibition
November 15, 2019. “Culture and Technology in American Quilts: A Symposium.”


National Museum of American History, Everyday Luxury: Silk Quilts from the National Collection
americanhistory.si.edu/exhibitions/everydayluxury-silk-quilts-national-collection



Washington, Spokane
Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture. Memory and Meaning: Textiles from the Permanent Collection, featuring an embroidered 17th-century Bengali quilt.  
Through January 12, 2020


Thursday, June 20, 2019

Cooper Union Sanitary Commission Quilt #3: Samuel Bridgham & The WCRA



My new quilt descended in the family of Samuel Willard Bridgham, according to the antique picker who found it in New England and sold it to Maryland dealer Stella Rubin.

S.W. Bridgham (1813-1870)

There are several generations of Samuel Willard Bridghams,
but I am guessing it is this man with the pleasant air 
who had something to do with the quilt.

I was already pretty sure by the quilt's style and inscription that it was a Sanitary Commission quilt made for a hospitalized Civil War soldier. Looking into Samuel Bridgham's life confirms my guess. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he was heavily involved in charity work for Union Soldiers during the War in New York City.


 A retired banker, he must have been aware of  the initial call from Henry Raymond of the New York Times who called for a city soldiers's aid society to meet in his home a few days after Fort Sumter. Within a week the group multiplied as Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell and Louisa Lee Schuyler booked the Grand Hall of the Cooper Union School to organize the Women's Central Association of Relief for the Sick and Wounded of the Army.

Reports said 4,000 women showed up in the Grand Hall on 
April 26, 1861. The engraving is from Harper's Weekly.

Is the room that big?
Anyway, a lot of interested people showed up.

Samuel Bridgham became Secretary of the WCRA and  head of the Supplies Subcommittee.


Because women had few legal rights and fewer perceived organizational skills men were chosen to run the agencies.

Founders of the national Sanitary Commission, a Brady Studios Photo.
Dr. William Van Buren, George T. Strong, Henry Whitney Bellows, 
Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, and Dr. Oliver Wolcott Gibbs

More men became involved in a second group headed by New Yorker Henry Bellows, a minister who received personal permission from President Lincoln to form the Union Army's "fifth wheel," a civilian agency to supply the hospitals. Socially prominent New Yorkers like Secretary Frederick Law Olmstead designer of Central Park, and Treasurer George Templeton Strong, a lawyer, added gravitas to the national agency that would rely heavily on women's volunteer services.

Forceful and authoritative management

Local branches sprang up all over the Union with names like the Northwestern Branch of the Sanitary Commission in Chicago or the Ladies' Soldiers Aid Society of Columbus.

Office of the Soldiers' Aid Society of Northern Ohio, Cleveland
with crates and barrels of supplies going to Leavenworth,
Kansas, Louisville and Tennessee.
Photo from Case Western Reserve Collection

The Women's Central Relief Association had a territorial problem with being absorbed by the larger Sanitary Commission (described as a more “forceful and authoritative" group) and they retained their initial name, acting as an arm of the national agency as lettered on their office window.

Crates on the sidewalk

Peter Cooper and his family must have been interested in the aid work as the WCRA set up shop in first floor offices of his school building. Rent may have been cheap or free at 7 & 11 Cooper Union.

The offices were behind the arched windows on the street, probably on the west side of the building.
My NYC geography is too rusty to say anything about location with any assurance other than it's in Greenwich Village.

Maybe the east side view on 3rd Avenue.

Women working in the office behind the window above.
The woman in the center is Ellen Collins, second to 
Bridgham on the supplies committee.

Agents in the field

The major jobs of the Sanitary Commission were to motivate civilians to donate supplies like clothing, bedding, food, wine, etc., to collect those supplies, to ship them to field hospitals and long-term care facilities for soldiers, then to distribute them in the field. As head of the WCRA's Subcommittee on Receiving and Forwarding Supplies Samuel Bridgham must have collected and crated up many quilts made by soldiers' aid groups throughout the state.

In just two weeks in August, 1861 (after the Union's Bull Run loss)
Bridgham collected hundreds and hundreds of items, including 2 bed quilts,
 all documented with thanks in the local newspapers.
Do note however, one "Box unknown, from whence"
with 6 shirts, 4 drawers, 11 wrappers, etc.

I noted yesterday the women students in the Engraving Department of the Cooper Institute made quilts in a soldiers' aid society managed by instructor Gulielma Field.


My guess on this particular quilt is that it was finished late in the war and sent downstairs to the WCRA offices. The Commission disbanded in the spring of 1866 and I have seen indications that the remaining supplies and equipment were sold for funds to buy U.S. Bonds. The bonds' interest paid for soldiers' post war relief.

Perhaps Samuel Bridgham bought this quilt after the war. Or it may have been a gift from the students in the Engraving Department. In any case, it went home to Providence eventually, where it looks to have been treated with a good deal of respect over the past 150 years, a souvenir of his war work.
The back is a small star print in chrome orange and madder.
I am quite pleased with my purchase.