Ethnicity and Quilt Style 1

Girls and a string quilt about 1910

Itinerant Southern photographers often used patchwork for

backdrops when they photographed their subjects outdoors.

Quilt by unknown maker, Corrine Riley Collection

Smithsonian's African American Museum

Pieced of satins, probably cutaways from an underwear factory

We've been discussing string quilts on the QuiltHistorySouth Facebook group page. The question is: Are string quilts, pieced of small, narrow strips of irregular size, a regional Southern pattern? I think we have to conclude string quilts were made around the U.S. after 1880 or so, probably a response to all the fabric waste from the garment factories making ready-to-wear clothing.

Pennsylvania clothing factory

There were perhaps more clothing factories per capita in the South but the North was also home to manufacturers with a lot of factory cutaways. We cannot assign a place of origin to string quilts, much less the ethnic and racial origin of the quiltmaker.

So, why is the above quilt with little known about its source in a museum of African American art? Artist Corrine Riley's collection of African-American quilts went to that museum. In an interview Riley said she bought her quilts at "antique shows, county fairs, flea markets, church gatherings, and quilt shows...in the Midwest and American South." As any of us who do the same thing realize you get precious few facts about the origins of the quiltmaker at most of those venues. 

https://www.northcoastartists.org/blog/the-quilts-of-corrine-riley-on-display-throughout-quilt-month

Quilt by an unknown maker, Johnson County, Indiana

Eli Leon Collection

Have Riley and other collectors of "African-American Quilts" overgeneralized about the quiltmakers? Eli Leon bought many of his quilts directly from the African-American quiltmaker but he also "haunted flea markets and yard sales around the East Bay and beyond, looking for what he calls 'standard traditional' pieces."

For many years Cuesta Benberry argued with Leon that one could not tell an unknown quiltmaker's race by the quilt's style. As both are gone I can continue Cuesta's argument. How can we prove his statement is true or false? Perhaps a somewhat controlled study of just a few examples. I picked string quilts documented in the Michigan project, mainly because they kept good records about the maker's stated ethnic origins, published it in their Quilt Index files and documented quilts made in the recent past brought in by children and grandchildren of the makers who were quite familiar with the quilts' origins. 

Here are four string quilts from the Michigan project. Can you tell the maker's ancestry by her style? Are the collectors correct or is Cuesta' view more accurate?

(1) String quilt made in Holland, Michigan in 1982

(2) String quilt made in Marshall, Michigan, probably about 1950

(3) String quilt made in Idlewild, Michigan,  1986

(4) String Quilt made in Gaastra, Michigan, 1981

More information tomorrow.

Applique Puzzlers

So how old is this quilt?

Classic applique, chrome orange still vibrant but the green is fading.

Dating Guidelines: 

Applique 1840-1900

Chrome orange not much help 1820-1920.

Fading green probably from a synthetic dye 1880-1930.

Combine those clues and guess 1880-1900

Wrong!

It's dated 1923 in the quilting.

Now that might be an older top quilted later but I have got a collection of photos

here that make me realize the classic applique style continued up into the 1930s.

Turkey red, chrome orange and a fading green

in a four-block set.

"From Margaret Emery, January 1925"

Chrome orange, fading green.

The quilts I've shown here all have a fancy border, something that tends 

to go out of style about 1880 (or so I thought.)

The scalloped edge is one clue to a 20th-century quilt here.

"Made by Laura Harding in 1921 for daughter Grace H Baker."

This one from my collection is not exactly classic in its free-form exuberance, but the fabrics---chrome orange, a fading red and a faded green---would lead one to think late-19th century.

Here's the date.

See 2 related posts:

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/12/comfort-magazine-patterns.html

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/12/comfort-magazine-2-patterns.html

Southern Spin: Cousins 2

Yesterday we looked at Christina Hays Malcom's 1873 quilt

from the collection of the Spencer Museum of Art.

The design has a few characteristics.

Perhaps the most important is the spinning pinwheel

with the objects hanging on the ends. This four-block is missing the secondary leaf pattern in Christina's classic but it has everything else including the watermelon border.

From the Arizona project & Lenna DeMarco's collection

Amazing how many photos I have of similar quilts.

Most of these are from online auctions.

We've been looking at distinctive Southern patterns over at the QuiltHistorySouth

Facebook page and this design seems to be one of them.

There's also a group with other secondary patterns,

sort of leaves, sort of flowers.

Some have six arms, some eight

Bashie Smith Christian, Waco Texas

From the Texas project and the Quilt Index

Garth's Auction, from Susan Parrish's collection to Julie Silber's

Tennessee project by Sophronia White

And as time passes things get simpler. Fewer tight curves to applique. Fewer pieces.

From Marie Miller's inventory

20th century

From Laura Fisher's Inventory

And then things get strange:

From the Wyoming Project

In Art History we'd call it mannerism.

More and more mannered.

Further from the source.

Minimalism

Further and further from the source

And the source?

A classic abstract floral filling up a square:

As in this embroidered cotton bedcover.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Sallie Kasinger Williams, Waynesboro, Tennessee

Dated 1792

https://collections.lacma.org/node/238094

Southern Spin: Triplets & Cousins

Attributed to Christina Hays Malcom in 

Grant County, Indiana. 

Dated in the quilting May 6, 1873.

Collection of the Helen F. Spencer Museum of Art

University of Kansas

Over the years I've volunteered at the Spencer Museum where their quilt by Christina Hays Malcom is a favorite. It's in great shape, donated with several other of her quilts, supposedly never used. She died in 1878 before her family emigrated to Kansas and her only son saved his mother's quilts till his niece donated them.

Christiana wife of Wm. Malcom died Dec. 17, 1878 aged 50 years

She is buried in Marion, Indiana

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/23453470/christina-malcom

That might say 58 years, as some sources say she was born in 1820. She's buried with her parents Nelson and Sarah Hays and other family members in the Puckett Cemetery on E. 200 Road.

2004.016.0005

Christina's four-block has a near twin in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum. This is also an Indiana quilt, donated by Linda Giesler Carlson and Dr. John V. Carlson in their collection of four-block quilts.

https://www.quiltstudy.org/quilt/20040160005

Small differences include different fabrics and slightly different

applique motifs but the basic feather design with the crossed leaves

in the corners and the scallop border are the same.

And then there is a third:

This one was on Sue Garman's blog a while ago.

Different center in the feather.

There are actually many related quilts although not so closely related as the three above.

The Kentucky project found this one, labeled Princess Feather with

Oak Leaves in their book Kentucky Quilts.

It's the 15.5's in my Encyclopedia of Applique

Well, it goes on and on.

This was quite a popular design with no published source that we've yet found.

From the collection of Lynn Evans Miller

Sarah Cottrill, Dutch Camp, Gilmer County, West Virginia

From the West Virginia project and the Quilt Index

Her family called this Ocean Wave.

The West Virginia project files include several. Fawn Valentine wrote a small chapter on the pattern in West Virginia Quilts & Quiltmakers. How was the pattern shared? Still a mystery

although we can speculate. She also noted one with the name Waves of the Ocean in the

Rogers County (Arkansas) Museum collection.

Mary Gay Combs Baxter in Ritchie County, 

West Virginia when she was in her teens, dated 1895

Lina Hess Hersman, Doddridge County, West Virginia

Six arms and a streamlined feather and melon border.

Angelina Hall, Benson, West Virginia,

 thought to have been made in the 20th century.

The shapes get simpler.

Anna Ross Boseley, 1931

Gabe's Fork, Taylor County, West Virginia

Family Names Watermelon and Ocean Wave

Anna's daughter brought this quilt in to be documented. She recalled that her mother obtained the pattern by copying an old family quilt made in 1866 brought to West Virginia in 1886. Anna and her friends the Buck Run Quilters finished it.

Anna's daughter called it Watermelon

and indeed the green and red slices look like watermelon.

Anna included the basic elements although she streamlined them:

• Four block set
• Spinning pattern with eight arms
• Small motif at the end of the arms
• Leaves in block corners to form secondary pattern
• Basic red and green color scheme, usually solid fabrics.

From an online auction. I'd guess Upland South as the region.

I think of this whirling pinwheel as a Southern pattern. Christina Hays Malcom spent much of her life in Grant County, Indiana, which is usually considered a midwestern state but Grant County was settled by people from Kentucky, Tennessee and other Southern states (and not named for a certain Union General). Marion, the county seat, still shows evidence of Southern culture.

Grant County northeast of Indianapolis

Christina herself was born in Northampton County, North Carolina in 1820 and probably came to Marion with her Hays family. One would guess that quilters in Kentucky, West Virginia and Indiana shared an interest in the design and some kind of pattern exchange. 

Block found in the Nebraska project

The quilts here are just a few of  many related watermelon designs. More pictures tomorrow.

UPDATE: Debby posted this photo of a pair from the same family in Greene County, Pennsylvania, down by the West Virginia border.

See Christina Hays Malcom's quilts here:

https://spencerartapps.ku.edu/collection-search#/object/11677