Quilting Bee

The Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion has this article about quilting. Quilting is also mentioned in this article from The Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History. There are longer articles about quilting in many print encyclopedias in the reference collection, including American Icons (Ref. E169.1 .A472155 2006) and the Encyclopedia of American Folklife (Ref. GR105 .E53 2006). Also worth looking at is the Textile and Quilts section of the Smithsonian Institution’s Encyclopedia Smithsonian.

More resources:

The Directory of African American Quilting consists of links to websites on the topic.

The Library of Congress has an online exhibit, Quilts and Quiltmaking in America, 1978-1996.

The Quilt Index gathers together images and information about quilts from many different museums and collections.

The library has many, many books on quilting. Some are in the Fine Arts library on the 3rd floor and some are in the general collection. You can find them all by doing a keyword search in ALICE, the library catalog, for “quilting.” But here is a sampling of the kinds of books we have:

• Colby, Averil. Quilting. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971. (link to ALICE record)
• Kiracofe, Roderick. The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort, 1750-1950. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1993. (link to ALICE record)
• Clark, Ricky, George W. Knepper, and Ellice Ronsheim. Quilts in Community: Ohio’s Traditions. Nashville: Rutledge Hill, 1991. (link to ALICE record)
• Valentine, Fawn. West Virginia Quilts and Quiltmakers: Echoes from the Hills. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000. (link to ALICE record)
• Fry, Gladys-Marie. Stitched from the Soul: Slave Quilts from the Antebellum South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. (link to ALICE record)
• Wahlman, Maude Southwell. Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts. New York: Studio Books, 1993. (link to ALICE record)
• Mazloomi, Carolyn. Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. New York: Clarkson Potter, 1998. (link to ALICE record)
• England, Kaye, and Mary Elizabeth Johnson. Quilt Inspirations from Africa. Chicago: Quilt Digest Press, 2000. (link to ALICE record)

We also have a book that discusses the idea that slaves used secret messages in quilts to find their way to freedom.

• Tobin, Jacqueline L. and Raymond G. Dobard. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday, 1999. (link to ALICE record)

However, the following article questions the accuracy of that book.

• Cole, Diane. “Pattern of Controversy.” U.S. News & World Report. 2 July 2007: 41. (link to article in Academic Search Complete)

Many articles on the social implications of quilting can be found by doing a keyword search in the SocIndex database for “quilting.”  Here is a sample of some of them:

• Cheek, Cheryl, and Kathleen W. Piercy.  “Tending and Befriending: The Intertwined Relationships of Quilters.”  Journal of Women and Aging 16.1-2 (2004): 17-33.  (link to this article in SocIndex)
• Floyd, Janet.  “Back into Memory Land? Quilts and the Problem of History.”  Women’s Studies 37.1 (Jan. 2008): 38-56.  (link to this article at the journal website)
• Stalp, Marybeth C.  “Creating an Artistic Self: Amateur Quilters and Subjective Careers.”  Sociological Focus 39.3 (Aug. 2006): 193-216. (link to this article at SocIndex)