How to Find History in Vintage Quilts
You are looking at vintage quilts through a museum glass case, or are examining a vintage quilt stretched over your kitchen table that you just bought at an estate sale or auction. As well as enjoying its beauty, you can learn some of your vintage quilt's history and some American history by carefully studying and researching its fabric, style, pattern, and themes.
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Instructions
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Fabric, Style, Patterns, Themes
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Examine the fabric of your quilt, because it reveals much about the time it was made. Most colonial women did not quilt and those who did made quilts from a solid piece of fabric. They made broderie perse--French for Persian embroidery--quilts that involved the appliqué of printed chintz flowers onto a solid fabric.If you see chinz flowers on your quilt it was probably made in the broderie perse style. If your quilt has a medallion design around a center piece of fabric it was probably made before the 1840s. The Industrial Revolution enabled textiles to be widely manufactured and by the 1840s most families could afford to buy commercial fabrics, especially cotton, and quilting became more widespread. If you see cotton fabric, your quilt was probably made after the 1840s.
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Continue to examine fabrics. From 1900 to 1929, influenced by the Arts and Crafts Movement, women gravitated toward new pastel and light-bright color schemes and began to regard quilting as more of an art instead of a utilitarian craft. They bought pre-stamped quilt blocks with embroidered motifs. Depression era quilting fabrics included quilts made with feed sacking and sewn with tiny fabric squares based on cross stitch. If your quilt is made up of mostly pastel colors and has intricate embroidered designs it probably dates from the early 20th century. If it is quilted on a feed sack, it is definitely from the Depression era!
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Study the style of your quilt because it will reveal when it was made. Progress in technology deeply affected the number and styles of quilts made during the middle years of the 1800s. Block style quilts did not become common until the 1840s when fabrics were widely manufactured and quilters could quilt their blocks with a variety of fabrics. The last half of the nineteenth century featured the crazy quilt--a quilt made of abstract shapes sewn together. If your quilt is block style and the blocks are made up of different fabrics, it is probably from the 1840s. If it is made up of differently colored and shaped fabrics, it is probably a crazy quilt.
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Research the pattern of your quilt. Women pieced together pattern blocks for quilts and the variety of patterns were limited only by a woman's creativity and the materials at hand. Patterns and blocks have their unique eras and characteristics. A few of the more popular patterns were Bear's Paw and the Patch Work. "Quilt Patterns Through Time," at http://www.womenfolk.com/quilt_pattern_history/bearspaw.htm discusses the variety of quilt patterns.
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Recognize 19th Century themed quilts. As early as the 1830s, abolitionists sold beautifully appliquéd quilts at fairs and women sometimes put anti-slavery poems and sayings on their quilts to draw attention to the evils of slavery. Oral tradition says that slaves used quilts to signal each other while escaping over the Underground Railroad. Log cabinquilts made with black cloth were hung to mark a safe house of refuge. If you have a quilt made with black cloth in a log cabin pattern, you might have a national treasure! Both Union and Confederate women made quilts from basic fabric and simple block patterns to keep their soldiers warm. Sometimes the quilt maker wrote their names, date, and encouraging messages on the quilt in permanent ink. Look for these identifying features.
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Know 20th Century Quilt Themes. Blue Star Service Quilts were made during both World Wars and hung in windows to honor soldiers. They had a blue star on a white field with a red banner. The banner could include up to five stars, one for each soldier on active duty. If the soldier died, a bold star was substituted for the blue. Other wartime quilts included stars and stripes patterns, airplanes, eagle motifs, and V for victory patterns.
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