An Eagle May Be Trying to Tell Us Something

Eagle from a sampler quilt dated 1851

Pook & Pook auction

Fans of patriotic quilts are quite familiar with this eagle design, which appears in quilts from about 1840 through the early twentieth century.

Spread eagle, sometimes with two stars, often with a banner.

Usually holds olive branches and arrows in the claws

(although this one is missing the olive branches.)

The stars tend to be rather free-form, looking to have been made with a slash and cut method.
You start with a circle and make 8 slashes and turn under the edges

In some below the circle hasn't been slashed.

1940 watercolor of an old sampler

1856 sampler, collection of Barb Vedder

All peace and love, from a sampler at a Skinner auction

The pattern was particularly popular about 1880-1920

in Ohio sampler/albums. This Ohio quiltmaker (not

good with points) created a four pointed star.

I've considered the meaning of the design over the years especially in the context of antebellum America and the other day came across this image that is very interesting:

Spread eagle with arrows and olive branches and two six pointed stars.

It's a brass button with a shank back, one of two created for the

Cold Water Army, a cultural phenomenon of the 1840s.

Buttons possibly by the Scovill Company of Waterbury,

Connecticut, which created many brass buttons for

military uniforms---for militias of the 1840s to

Civil War regiments.

This button from a New Hampshire militia shows their logo,

an important image to martial men.

And to boys who wanted to be martial men.

The Cold Water Army with its eagle buttons appealed not

to adult volunteers in local military companies but to children....

Cold Water Army of boys in uniform---did those short

jackets sport brass buttons?

who were encouraged to swear against alcohol at a young age

and show their temperance affiliations in ceremonies and parades.

Girls reading the Cold Water Army periodical

Marching Songs

Did girls collect buttons too?

Maybe for charm strings.

The Cold Water Army was definitely marketed (as we'd say) to children.

Collecting white ribbons, brass buttons and tokens would be fun and

appealed to their need to belong.

Mottoes were many:

"That's the Drink for Me"

referring to cold water.

Token, punched so it could be worn on a string

"So here we pledge perpetual hate

To all that can intoxicate."

Historic New England collection

One signed a pledge, which could be framed.

The founder of the Cold Water Army was Thomas Hunt, who published a book by that name.
The Cold Water Army was part polemic and part how-to book. Here's how to offer an alternate Independence Day celebration without alcohol.

With perhaps white ribbons for participants who marched

to this march sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle

Newspaper written for children first published in Massachusetts, 1841.

In 1842 they counted 1,500 subscribers.

There was also a Cold Water Girl and a Cold Water Boy 

publication but no issues seem to have survived.

 

Although long forgotten the Cold Water Army was important in the 1840s and probably into the 1850s.

Which brings us back to the question.

Dated 1855, no stars

Auction

Are these eagles seen in the Pennsylvania/Maryland area

in the 1850s telling us of a temperance affiliation,

or the hope that a man might live a sober life?

Dated 1856 , collection of Barb Vedder

WPA water color by painter Charlotte Angus

Sampler quilt dated 1851

Pook & Pook auction

Here's an alternate view of mid-19th century symbolism:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2018/03/eagles-quilts-2-quarrelsome-eagles.html

It's too bad we have so little idea what the imagery meant at the time.