QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT


Thursday, March 14, 2024

1876: A Party

  

In a post a few days ago we looked at quilts date-inscribed
1875 and I concluded it was a dull lot.

Cindy's Antique Quilts
Echoes of past styles with a trend to pink if any design trends
were apparent.

Did that trend continue?

Laura A.B. Loring, New York
Massachusetts Project
"April 26 1876"

Aida Overton Walker
Was there nothing new?

How About a Party!

1876 was the hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of
Independence, the birthday of the United States.


A year-long party that had an influence on quilt style.

From the Ohio project and their book
 Quilts in Community: Ohio's Traditions

The main site for celebration was Philadelphia, which put on "The International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine or Centennial Exhibition" in Fairmount Park. Thirty-eight nations showed their wares in the fair, which was open May to November.

A two-sided quilt of fabrics printed to celebrate the anniversary.


Women, denied exhibit space in the other buildings, organized their own.

But NO patchwork quilts...well, maybe one allowed.

Boston Evening Transcript 1875



Eliza Hoskins Farris, always eager for a little publicity for her
quilts, told the Lexington, Kentucky paper that her
Henry Clay quilt was going to the fair. (Doubtful.)
Read more about her:

Merikay Waldvogel and I have been studying quilts at large fairs and international exhibitions and have found fairly consistently that newspapers often carried articles about quilts that were going to the fair. We've also heard family memories about a quilt that wowed them in Chicago, St. Louis or Philadelphia. When we checked official records we find most of those never made it to any exhibit hall. As you might notice, the people who managed these events did not hold quilts in high favor.

President of the Women's Committee Elizabeth Duane Gillespie was
 Benjamin Franklin's Great-Granddaughter.

Official exhibits aside, the Centennial anniversary led many quiltmakers to celebrate with original designs.


American Museum of Folk Art
By Gertrude Wendling Knappenberger (1815-1888), Pennsylvania

Top from an auction

From a Dana Auction

Monmouth County Historical Association/ New Jersey Project
Made from flag bunting.
Note says: "This bunting decorated the residence of ? 
M. Pemberton, 39 Bleeker St., Newark, NJ 1876".

Shelburne Museum Collection
By Minnie Burdick, North Adams, Massachusetts
Pictorial quilt with two views of the fair. Is the one on the left a view
of the Women's Pavilion?


Barbara F. Menasian found this sampler in Manchester, Connecticut.
Today's quilters have made many copies. Do a web search
for Centennial Quilt Project

The world of quilts was no longer as dull or sparse as it had been a year earlier. Somehow that 100th anniversary party sparked a revival of interest and many new looks. About which--- more in the next post:
Read more about Centennial Quilts at these posts:

Saturday, March 9, 2024

1875: A Lull

 


I'm glad I wasn't trying to run a quilt business in 1875.

There doesn't seem to have been much enthusiasm
for patchwork. I base this on the number of date-inscribed quilts
from that year. And the look---from this perspective
style was not that innovative or exciting.


On the whole things seemed pretty dull....



...If you look at quilts dated 1875.

Associated with Matilda H. Nichols, 1875
Ohio History Connection


1875, associated with Johanna Sullivan
Minnesota Project & the Quilt Index

Classic style was recycled.

Inked name on reverse 
"N.S. Vassar, New York City, 1875"


From the Goodwin family in West Virginia.
Seen by the Arizona Project.

1875 in the quilting
Applique in red and green was still in style although
the masterful handwork of previous decades was missing.

1875, Sara Strong

The problem may have been that there was nothing new on the horizon so rather cliched versions of patterns once exciting in the 1850s were being made.


Modern Times---Old Fashioned Quilts

Irish Chain from dealer Vintage Blessings

1875 in white embroidery

Made for Mary Rose Bixby Law by her husband's aunt Sally Ann Porter Sharp.
Mattatuck Historical Society in Waterbury, Connecticut.



1875 Fashion: Fringes---bangs.
Fussy detail.

The editor at the Girard, Kansas newspaper thought the
needlework display at the fair in 1875 was "not so good." 

What was needed? New ideas--new fabric in new colors, new patterns and fads.

A small silk Log Cabin 50" x 62"
For Elizabeth Larned Alexander by Kate Benson.

One relatively new idea was the Log Cabin design. Of the 7 patchwork quilts
at the Girard fair two were Log Cabins.

Collection of the New England Quilt Museum
C. Hutchins


Six-inch blocks in the latest prints


F.E.L. Wheat 1875

North Carolina project & the Quilt Index
Found in New Jersey
Dated 1875, by E. E. Mathews for Mattie W. Bowdick (Burdick)


The fair in Wilmington, North Carolina had a better turn out than the Kansas display. I count 22 quilts
with 4 of them Log Cabins. Several other intriguing names---puzzle quilt, Odd Fellow's, Save-all

I found 9 date-inscribed 1875 on the Quilt Index
with three Log Cabins. It was obviously a popular design.

Family quilt from Illinois
Elizabeth Cadwalader

Another pieced design that would become
quite the rage was what we call Ocean Wave.
Two dated 1875

Massachusetts Project
Ila Mayfield

Sarah Polhemus, 1876
More half square triangles.Could it become a fad?


A couple of other new ideas---at least in small Pennsylvania communities.

Colonial Williamsburg Collection, dated 1875 in the quilting

 The Amish adopted patchwork bedding about that time.

And did their Pennsylvania-German neighbors
begin making their patchwork with bright color right
next to bright color?

This one in classic late-19th-century Pennsylvania style
is certainly dated 1875. The flaw in my methodology
is that the date might have been commemorative, recalling an event other
than finishing the quilt.

Susie Walker's silk, embroidered extravaganza in the Manchester Connecticut Historical 
Society is said to be inscribed 1875.

I have my doubts about Susie Walker's piece, based on the embroideries in the black shapes. Aren't those florals the machine-embroidered slips that were quite popular for crazy quilts and other crafts and clothing about a decade later?


Inexpensive silks still in the future in 1875.
And if you consider economics: 1875 was just 2 years after a 
financial panic. Perhaps no one was buying new fabric.
Perhaps mills were not printing new fabric.

The "Panic of 1873". The Grant Administration was
not a stable time.

Trends in looking at these quilts dated 1875?

Pink!

Lucie J Bassett/1875, Massachusetts Project

1875 in the quilting

Which may indicate that pink prints and solids were
popular for girl's clothing.

Was it always going to be this dull???