Introduction
Fabric of a Nation celebrates the American quilt—a living, vibrant art form—through a selection of nearly fifty exceptional objects representing centuries of human creativity and ingenuity. Long admired for their utility, beauty, and design, as well as for the sense of community they inspire, quilts have been present in American private and public life for generations. Through these works of art, spanning more than three hundred years, we explore how quilts have evolved alongside the United States. The voices of artists working today are presented throughout the exhibition, bringing fresh perspectives to this celebrated tradition.
As the country has changed, so too has the purpose and meaning of quilts. Early on, quilts and woven blankets were appreciated primarily for their warmth, as well as for their artistry as decorative bedcovers. But by the mid-nineteenth century, quilts were being displayed in fairs and other public places, and some makers began to see themselves as textile artists. Today, quilters have expanded the medium to encompass a wide range of techniques, materials, and imagery. Some contemporary artists are using quilts to bring attention to social justice issues and to address difficult moments from the nation’s past and present. All these works share one essential characteristic: an extraordinary power to tell stories.
What Is American?
Most of the quilts and other fabric works displayed in this exhibition were made by people residing in the United States. Some were produced in European colonies established by Britain and Spain and on other contested lands inhabited by Indigenous peoples across North America. Others were global imports cherished by generations of American families. These works represent the United States’ diverse and constantly evolving cultural landscape. The stories they tell reveal complex histories. Many voices are represented, some seldom heard outside of their communities.
Who Is American?
One reason quilting has become so associated with the United States is its reputation as a democratic art form, accessible regardless of class, race, ethnicity, age, or gender. One exhibition cannot tell every American story, but the wide range of makers represented by the forty-seven quilts and related works shown here illustrates the diversity of communities, experiences, and quilt-making traditions in North America. Some of these works reflect racism and bigotry. Several contain challenging imagery, including depictions of racial stereotypes and violence. This exhibition seeks to shine a light on our nation’s complicated history and elevate untold or hidden stories.
Unseen Hands
How we see the past has always informed how we see American quilts. This section features quilts and bedcovers made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as several contemporary works. We often know more about the people who owned and used these early quilts than about who made them. They were part of a global trade network that connected North America to Africa, Asia, and Europe. Even when a quilt was made in the United States, many of its materials were imported for purchase by those who could afford luxury items such as silk cloth and finely woven cotton.
Very few people who contributed to the making of these quilts are known by name today. Although a person or family who owned a quilt may have been documented, it was probably made and cared for by several individuals within a household, including domestic servants (many of whom were indentured or enslaved). The cloth required the work of many unseen hands involved in the production of cotton, silk, and wool, as well as cochineal, indigo, and other highly valued dyes.
Crafting a Nation
By the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution had begun to transform the country. Although quilts and blankets were still mostly made by hand, the materials were increasingly factory produced. The three examples of pieced quilts featured in this section were high-style domestic objects made in the Northeastern United States using wool and printed cotton from Europe. The two woven blankets were made with American wool in small-scale workshops on opposite sides of the continent.
As the nation’s borders and economy expanded, many Indigenous people were killed or forced to move west or north into Canada by US aggression. In northern states, factories employed a growing number of men and women, many coming from rural areas in search of work. In the Deep South, raw cotton produced by enslaved laborers became a major export to Great Britain, where printed fabrics like those found in two quilts in this gallery were manufactured. The 1846–48 Mexican-American War brought much of the Southwest under the control of the United States when the government annexed a region colonized by Spain beginning in the sixteenth century. The striped Rio Grande blanket in this gallery was likely woven by a Hispanic person living in this contested land.
Quilts as Art
The first world’s fair in the United States was the Centennial International Exposition, held in Philadelphia in 1876 to celebrate the nation’s one-hundredth birthday. Although it glorified past achievements, the event was designed to show the world how far the country had come and what its innovative industries and arts promised for the future. The woven coverlet on the other side of this gallery depicting Memorial Hall, the fair’s impressive art gallery, was mass-produced as a souvenir of the occasion, which attracted nearly ten million visitors over its six-month run. Few American museums existed at this time, making international expositions and smaller state and county fairs important places of cultural expression and exchange. Quilts and other domestic arts were showcased at expositions from the 1876 Centennial through the world’s fairs of the mid-twentieth century. Artists like Bertha Amelia Meckstroth, whose quilts were exhibited at the 1933 Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago, created quilts to be displayed as public art—meant to be seen on walls rather than beds.
Conflict Without Resolution
Despite the efforts of powerful senators like Henry Clay of Kentucky to find compromise in the years leading up to the Civil War, the issue of slavery was increasingly dividing the nation. Once fighting began in 1861, popular magazines such as Harper’s Weekly illustrated reports of the conflict with engraved scenes of battles, soldiers in camp, and portraits of generals. The so-called Zouave quilt in this gallery demonstrates how pervasive these images were in American culture, as well as the tendency to romanticize soldiers bravely marching off to war in colorful uniforms. On the home front, some women worked in factories producing cloth for bedding and uniforms, while others volunteered to care for the wounded in hospitals and sew bedding, bandages, clothing, and other supplies.
The Civil War ended in 1865, but despite emancipation, the legacy of slavery continues to impact the United States. The end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 led to the passage of laws that sanctioned racial segregation and violence against Black Americans throughout the nation. This is depicted in Carolyn Mazloomi’s Strange Fruit II, a quilt inspired by her experience growing up in the Jim Crow South. Elizabeth Talford Scott’s approach to creating quilts was influenced by her childhood as the daughter and granddaughter of sharecroppers in South Carolina. The picture quilts of Clementine Hunter reflect her vision of life on Melrose Planation in Louisiana. Michael C. Thorpe uses quilts to address violence against people of color and encourage open discussion around issues of race and identity.
Modern Myths
The quilts in this section reflect individual achievement as well as collective art making. In the first decades of the twentieth century, quilting became accessible to a wider range of makers. Quilt guilds formed, patterns were published in newspapers, and making quilts became both a national pastime and a cottage industry. Quilts were associated with an imagined America of years past, populated by courageous pioneers and hardworking farming families.
As the country endured the deprivations of the Great Depression, the population shifts of the Great Migration, and the trauma of World War II, quilt makers bore witness to these events. Quilts brought people together and reflected their resilient responses to these challenging times, telling personal stories of perseverance and resourcefulness.
In the postwar years, collectors visiting rural communities such as that of the Amish in Pennsylvania were attracted to vibrant, handcrafted quilts that conveyed a timelessness set apart from modern American culture. They reinforced the myth that this was a uniquely American art form, although quilting traditions arrived with immigrants to the United States. Some of these quilts, stitched with solid blocks of bold color, bear a striking similarity to abstract paintings by contemporary artists such as Mark Rothko and Josef Albers. Beginning with a groundbreaking show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1971, exhibitions of quilts by Amish and other makers led to greater appreciation of these works and their aesthetic qualities.
Making a Difference
Although the makers of the quilts and other fabric works in this exhibition come from very different times, places, and backgrounds, all have shown incredible creativity, whether sewing a quilt for a private bedroom or for public display. Many of the people represented here have melded artistry with activism in responding to historical events or reflecting on their own experience. These artworks stand out for their beauty and innovation, as well as their ability to speak to contemporary issues such as feminism, racism, environmentalism, and gun violence. Several of these artists are inspired by other quilts, evoking the storied power of this art form to challenge conventionally accepted American narratives.
