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Photo by Karen Alexander

Like so many who were lured into quilting in the 1970s and 80s, it was often a serendipitous occurrence that attracted future quilters at that time. Many who answered the call were already weavers or knitters and seamstresses, but not quilters. 
Enter stage left - Merikay Waldvogel of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Merikay Waldvogel, one of the key players in the late 20th century quilt history revival, was one of those who had not grown up quilting but was hooked when she happened upon a colorful North Carolina Lily quilt in an antique shop in 1974 that "called" to her. She purchased it on impulse and took it home, wondering about the woman who had left the quilt unfinished. This purchase and the questions the quilt engendered about the maker would eventually change Waldvogel's life forever. If you have ever heard Waldvogel lecture, you know what I mean when I write that her passion for documenting and giving voice to "forgotten" women is palpable and her research meticulous.

photo by Karen Alexander

By 1977 Waldvogel had become a "collector" and discovered that quilts offered the perfect vehicle for creative, thought-provoking programs for the women's center at which she worked at that time and invited Bets Ramsey to present a program.  Soon after, Waldvogel began attending the Southern Quilt Symposium (SQS) at the Hunter Museum of American Art.
Founded by TQHF Bets Ramsey in 1974, this symposium would eventually influence many future quilt historians. (Ramsey's story was told in the May 11 edition of this Quilt Pioneer Series here).

Photo courtesy of Merikay Waldvogel

Photo courtesy of Merikay Waldvogel

While attending the Southern Quilt Symposium, Waldvogel met members of the American Quilt Study Group and the seeds of another aspect of her future quilt career was launched. Waldvogel soon began in-depth research on one of the quilts in her collection with a sailboat theme. The quilt bore a Works Progress Administration (WPA) stamp, indicting that it had somehow been associated with the WPA during the 1930s.

Photo by Karen Alexander

This quilt became the vehicle of her first research paper presented at the annual AQSG seminar in Mill Valley, California in 1984. It's a fascinating story of sleuthing that is well worth reading. The 1984 back issue you see in the photo is available from AQSG here as are the 1990, and 1994 issues of Uncoverings.

Photo by Karen Alexander

Waldvogel's other Uncoverings articles for AQSG were Southern Linsey Quilts (1987), the Anne Orr Studio of Nashville (1990), Round Robin Pattern Collecting (1994), and the early history of Mountain Mist patterns (1995) were all groundbreaking research.

Photo by Karen Alexander

In 1983 Waldvogel began her two-year collaboration with Bets Ramsey to co-direct the Quilts of Tennessee.  At the end of the two years together they wrote the book Quilts of Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930, and put together a traveling exhibit that toured the state from 1986-1988, one of many exhibits Waldvogel has curated over the years. 

They later collaborated on the book Southern Quilts: Surviving Relics of the Civil War.   In the Southeast, Merikay is known for her writings about Southern women and their quilts in Appalachian Life and Smokies Life magazines.  She also lectures frequently to quilt guilds, historical societies, and museums in the area.

Photo by Karen Alexander

In 2003, Rosalind Webster Perry and Waldvogel co-edited the first book of articles about the honorees, The Quilters Hall of Fame.

Merikay Waldvogel has served on the board of directors of both the American Quilt Study Group and The Alliance for American Quilts.  She has been a key player in building the online Quilt Index and has also taken a key role in Quilt Treasures, two of the four programs that are the major contributions of AAQ to American cultural history.  Waldvogel is also a fellow of the International Quilt Study Center (IQSC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she has worked with graduate students and has built an important database of quilt kits.

In addition to serving quilt history organizations, Waldvogel is recognized as an expert on quilts of the twentieth century quilt revival.  Her own book Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great Depression is the key work on mid 20th century quilts and quiltmaking. 

Photo by Karen Alexander

Her collaboration with 2001 Honoree Barbara Brackman on Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World's Fair was another major contribution to quilt research.

Photo by Karen Alexander

Waldvogel has labored over the creation of a Kit Quilt data base for a number of years, collecting images as well as manufacturing dates and other pertinent data.

 
Waldvogel examining a quilt possibly made from a kit while attending events at
The Quilters Hall of Fame in Marion, Indiana in 2001.  Photo courtesy of Merikay Waldvogel

Merikay Waldvogel has written for McCall's Quilting Vintage Quilts, American Patchwork and Quilting, Quilting Today/Traditional Quiltworks and Quilters Newsletter Magazine, one of her most recent articles in QNM magazine being the story of Hungarian immigrant Mariska Mihalovits Gasperik, who arrived in 1906 at the age of 16. Quilting became a way of avoiding isolation, writes, Waldvogel of Gasperik, and soon quilting became a passion for Gasperik. Many of the Gasperik quilts can now be seen on-line at the Quilt Index here.  Be sure to browse through all of them. Maybe one will inspire you!

Waldvogel's latest book Childhood Treasures: Doll Quilts By and For Children highlights Lincoln, Nebraska quiltmaker Mary Ghormley's extensive doll quilt collection. To view a podcast about doll quilts click here to go to the International Quilt Study Center and hear Mary Ghormley talk about her doll quilt collection. You will have to scroll down to about the 14th lecture to find the one on doll quilts.

Photo by Karen Alexander

Merikay Waldvogel is a graduate of Monmouth College in Monmouth, IL and earned a M.A. in Linguistics at the University of Michigan.

Come join us July 16-19 in Marion, Indiana, to induct Merikay Waldvogel into The Quilters Hall of Fame and to see the wonderful exhibit she will have hanging in Marion. For additional information send a postcard to CELEBRATION 2009, P.O. Box 681, Marion, IN, 46952 click here to Email us mailto:quiltershalloffame@sbcglobal.net or click here to download the Celebration Registration form.

Karen B. Alexander
Past President, The Quilters Hall of Fame
Member of AQSG since 1981

SOURCES:
1) Brackman, Barbara and Merikay Waldvogel. Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World's Fair, Rutledge Hill Press, 1993

2) Horton, Laurel. "Bets Ramsey", The Quilters Hall of Fame, ed. Merikay Waldvogel and Rosalind Webster Perry (2006 Supplement)

2) Ramsey, Bets, and Merikay Waldvogel. The Quilts of Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1986.

3) Ramsey, Bets, and Merikay Waldvogel. Southern Quilts: Surviving Relics of the Civil War. Rutledge Hill Press, 1996.

4) Ramsey, Bets. "Merikay Waldvogel's Quilt Odyssey", The Quilters Hall of Fame Newsletter, Spring 2009

5) Waldvogel, Merikay. "Quilts in the WPA Milwaukee Handicraft Project" in Uncoverings 1984, American Quilt Study Group.

 6) Waldvogel, Merikay. "Southern Linsey Quilts of the 19th Century" in Uncoverings 1987, American Quilt Study Group.

7) Waldvogel, Merikay. "The Marketing of Anne Orr's Quilts" in Uncoverings 1990.

8) Waldvogel, Merikay. "Mildred Dickerson: A Quilt Pattern Collector of the 1960s and 1970s" in Uncoverings 1994, American Quilt Study Group.

9) Waldvogel, Merikay. "The Origins of Mountain Mist Patterns" in Uncoverings 1995, American Quilt Study Group.

10) Waldvogel, Merikay. Soft Covers for Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great Depression, Rutledge Hill Press, 1990

11) Personal conversations and emails with Merikay Waldvogel

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Quilts are an excellent medium for telling a story that is nearly too grand for words.  Quilt blocks can act as chapters in a book facilitating the maker's story, and encouraging the viewers to investigate further. 

One such quilt, the Oklahoma History Quilt, was donated to the Oklahoma Historical Society in 1935.  This remarkable quilt, made by Oklahoma City native Camille Nixdorf Phelan, is an embroidered masterpiece depicting 300 years of Oklahoma history.  The quilt is a testament to one quilter's tenacity and love of history.

In the 1920s, Camille had a passion for embroidery and enjoyed copying pictures to cloth using that technique.  "When making quilts became a popular fad, I turned to that pastime," Camille explains.  "I decided that I would make an embroidered record of the persons responsible for Oklahoma's history.  Then the though came-'Why not add the incidents making up that history?'"

In order to complete this quilt, Camille spent two years studying Oklahoma history.  She researched old records, corresponded with historians, and was able to talk with many people who were part of Oklahoma's recent history.  Camille worked on this quilt during the Oklahoma Dustbowl and consequent Great Depression, a time of great sadness and extreme population mobility as families lost their land and were forced to move on.  Camille later said she was influenced to create a patriotic quilt because "in most of the published records of this formative period, the sordid and rough element had been exploited to the exclusion of the cultural and artistic...and I want to express my own appreciation for the 'Land of the Mistletoe.'"  In doing this, Camille included blocks that represented political events, such as Napoleon signing the Louisiana Purchase; historical events like the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 and the state's first oil well; and famous people, including football legend Jim Thorpe.  And no quilt depicting Oklahoma history would be complete without showing appreciation for Native American contributions to the state's history.  Although the story Camille presents is sometimes romanticized, her work shows a conscious effort to accurately portray the Native American peoples who lived in Oklahoma over the 300-year time period, including the Cherokee, Osage, Kiowa, and Creek.

The entire quilt, which consists of 51 blocks, took four years to make.  Camille spent many hours sizing her drawings to the blocks, creating the outlines of faces, and later adding the expressions.  In her own words, "Every stitch of the embroidering is my own work and I spent all my spare time for four years on actual construction."  The quilting alone used 20 100-yard spools of thread.  Camille proudly presented the Oklahoma History Quilt to the Historical Society at a banquet in Oklahoma City of November 30, 1935.

The Quilt:  A History and Cellebration of an American Art Form by Elise Roberts

Excerpt:  pages 58+ 59 from Chapter 3:  Commemorative Quilting

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Pam Holland reminds us that it's the people and their stories that make us what we are:

"Martha's fabric shop in Ruidoso, New Mexico, USA is a haven for those who love fabric.  Martha has been selling fabrics to the public for more than 46 years. I've visited the shop several times and I just had to share it with you."

"Twin daughters Clarrissa and Cassandra, are talented garment and Decor designers in their own right and their love for their Mother is evident.  I hope you enjoy your cuppa with Martha as much as I did."

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Hazel Carter, Founder of The Quilters Hall of Fame and Bets Ramsey 2005 Inductee. 
Photo courtesy of Sue Jones

"Meeting Bets Ramsey for the first time, you might not immediately grasp that this quiet gracious woman is a serious artist and scholar. Instead of engaging in self promotion, she lets her work speak for itself, and that work speaks volumes."
Laurel Horton in AQSG's Blanket Statements, Spring 2003

You have now met three early to mid-20th century quilt historians through this TQS Quilt Pioneer series. Unfortunately, none of the three are here any longer to answer our questions about their lives and work. Today we know them only through their quilts, or their books or through what others have written about them.

This time I would like to introduce you to a living Honoree of The Quilters Hall of Fame. Come to The Quilters Hall of Fame Celebration in July of this year and you will get a chance to meet her. Do take advantage of any opportunity you have to meet the living Quilt Pioneers of the 20th century while they are still with us!

Born Betty June Miller in 1928 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Bets Ramsey grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, but returned to Chattanooga in 1941 and has lived in Nashville since 1994. Her early life was filled with her love of sewing. She even began a dressmaking business with a friend while still in high school. In 1999 Ramsey commemorated her childhood and friends in the quilt "Oak Park: 1939".

"Oak Park: 1939," Bets Ramsey, 1999 (36x44) 
Photo courtesy of Karen Alexander

As a founding member of the Tennessee Association of Craft Artists, a member of the American Crafts Council, the Southern Highland Craft Guild, and other art and craft organizations, Ramsey is perhaps best known in some circles for her career as a textile artist.  She began her teaching career in the textile arts in 1958.

As a result of one of her teaching experiences at the University of Chattanooga in 1968, Ramsey decided to take on the challenge of a Master's Degree in Crafts. A few years later, when the opportunity offered itself, she founded the Southern Quilt Symposium in 1974 at the Hunte Museum of American Art, the first annual quilt gathering in the newly emerging revival of the latter half fo the 20th century.


Invitation to the 14th Southern Quilt Symposium, 1987

Ramsey directed SQS for 17 years and curated a major quilt exhibit drawn from nation-wide quilt artists, museums, and private collectors at that same event. Her annual exhibit at the Hunter Museum was the first continual art quilt series that drew from a wide audience and was placed in an art setting. In 1980 Ramsey began a weekly column, "The Quilter," that ran in the Chattanooga Times until 1998, producing close to 900 articles in eighteen years.

In 1980 Ramsey was in attendance at the first seminar of the American Quilt Study Group held in California, and presented one of the first seminar research papers that founding year. She presented 5 more papers over the years at the annual Seminar. All six of her papers are available in AQSG's annual Uncoverings. 

Book Cover of "Quilts of Tennessee:  Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930"

From 1983-1987 Ramsey co-directed the Quilts of Tennessee documentation project with co-director Merikay Waldvogel, which resulted in a book and a traveling exhibition.

 
"Nine Patch/Shoo Fly#1" Bets Ramsey, 1998 (15 1/4 x 14 3/4)
Courtesy of the Quilters Hall of Fame 

Florence Peto, whom I wrote about in the first installment of this series, corresponded widely with many quilters and researchers in her day. Although Ramsey never had the opportunity to meet or correspond with Peto, in 1994 she acquired copies of some of the correspondence between Peto and the late Elizabeth Richardson of Tennessee from the daughter, June Thomason. In addition, Thomason gave Ramsey a box of antique fabric pieces that Peto had shared with Richardson.

In time Ramsey would make a number of wall hangings from these fabrics, most no larger than a crib quilt, incorporating some of her own fabric at the same time. Fifteen of these quilts were on display in the historic Marie Webster House/TQHF in Marion, Indiana in July 2005 - "Florence Peto's Challenge: Little Quilts by Bets Ramsey". In the introduction to this exhibit, Ramsey wrote, "The nature of the Peto letters was that of a teacher to a student, encouraging historical study and use of the fabric in reproducing traditional block patterns." Following the exhibit, Ramsey donated all fifteen quilts to the hall of fame.

"Peto's Centennial Challenge" Bets Ramsey, 1994 (15 1/4 x 15)
Photo courtesy of the Quilters Hall of Fame

Ramsey wrote of "Peto's Centennial Challenge" quilt in the exhibit notes: "Florence Peto purchased a tied quilt made of Centennial [1876] prints and took it apart to share with Elizabeth Richardson and Bertha Stenge*. She suggested that they each make something and then compare results....Bertha eventually chose not to proceed with the project. Elizabeth, it is thought, gave her piece to her daughter. Florence, of course, completed a small quilt and kept it in her collection."

Exhibit catalog for "Stitched from the Heart:  Fiber Art by Bets Ramsey" held at Carroll Reece Museum, East Tennessee University, Johnson City,TN, July 24-September 14, 2003 

Throughout her long career Ramsey's fiber art and quilts have been shown in galleries and museums across the U.S. and abroad and at least 45 of these exhibits featured her as the solo artist. She has also curated some 60 exhibits herself, produced 5 exhibit catalogues, written countless essays, articles, book reviews and reviews of exhibitions too numerous to list here. She has also written four books, two of them with the 2009 TQHF Honoree Merikay Waldvogel. Ramsey continues to lecture, serve as a consultant to several museums, and exhibit her work.

"Bets Ramsey:  A Retrospective 1972-2005" exhibit walk-thru July 15, 2003, Marion IN
Photo courtesy of Karen Alexander

It is important to salute our artists while they are still with us so that they can enjoy the honor and accolades they so richly deserve. On April 14, 2009, Bets Ramsey was one of three Tennesseans to receive Tennessee's highest honor, the Governor's Distinguished Artist Award.

Bets Ramsey receiving Governor's Distinguished Artist Award
Photo courtesy of Ramsey Family

On a personal note, I had the good fortune to become friends with Bets Ramsey in the early ‘80s and continue to see her at AQSG seminars most years. I venture to offer a guess that Ramsey's favorite undertaking throughout her distinguished career has been her teaching and the people and relationships that her career has brought to her door. And though you might not immediately grasp that this quiet gracious woman is a serious artist and scholar when you happen to run into her, be assured, she is.

Karen B. Alexander
Past President, The Quilters Hall of Fame
Member of AQSG since 1981

SOURCES:

1) Brewer, Nancy. "Quilt Expert Still Enjoys Basic Stitches," The Busy Bee Trader, April 2001, pp. 32-33.
2) Horton, Laurel. "Bets Ramsey: A Retrospective in Quilt Art and History", AQSG Blanket Statements, Issue 72, Spring 2003
3) Horton, Laurel. "Bets Ramsey", The Quilters Hall of Fame, ed. Merikay Waldvogel and Rosalind Webster Perry (2006 Supplement)
4) Ramsey, Bets, and Merikay Waldvogel. The Quilts of Tennessee: Images of Domestic Life Prior to 1930. Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press (RHP), 1986.
5) Ramsey, Bets. Old and New Quilt Patterns in the Southern Tradition. RHP, 1987.
6) Ramsey, Bets, and Gail Trechsel. Southern Quilts: A New View. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1991.
7) Ramsey, Bets, and Merikay Waldvogel. Southern Quilts: Surviving Relics of the Civil War. RHP, 1996.
8) Bets Ramsey in Marsha MacDowell, Quilt Treasures Interview, (The Alliance for American Quilts: January 25, 2008); accessed: May 7, 2009. http://www.allianceforamericanquilts.org/treasures/interview.php?id=16,
9) Personal conversations and emails with Bets Ramsey

*Berthe Stenge was one of five inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 1980.

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Pam Holland, the traveling quilter, recently visited Israel.  She brings us a collection of images and views through quilts, textiles, pottery, jewelry and clothing.  As usual she sees designs and colors all around her.  And now you will see them too.

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William R. Dunton

(1868-1966) Quilt Collector, Author, Psychiatrist

It's hard to realize just how many years have passed since I saw my first exhibit of Baltimore Album Quilts at the Baltimore Museum of Art in the early 80s. I was new to quilting at the time but loved appliqué and was stunned by these beauties and intrigued by their history.  I would soon learn that the first person to research and document this particular style of quilt was male and among the first 5 people inducted into The Quilters Hall of Fame in 1979 - Dr. William Rush Dunton of Baltimore.

1997.007.0319, International Quilt Study Center, UNL, www.quiltstudy.org To access more traditional Baltimore Album quilts in the IQSC collecton, see end of article.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1868, Dr. William R. Dunton was psychiatrist at Sheppard-Pratt Asylum in Baltimore for many years in the early part of the 20^th century, had a long association with Johns Hopkins University as an instructor in psychiatry and was a founding member of three professional societies within his field. Bunnie Jordan's chapter on Dunton in the book "The Quilters Hall of Fame" goes into interesting detail about his professional career as a psychiatrist as well as an occupational therapist. In fact, he wrote the first complete textbook on occupational therapy and is often called the "father of occupational therapy". How very appropriate that the "father" of occupational therapy would include quilting from the very beginning of his exploration of the benefits of occupational therapy! Today many millions of women (and men) know of quilting's many emotionally satisfying benefits.

Dunton is said to have been influenced by his mother's love of needlework for in 1877, the year of its founding, she was an early pupil at the Philadelphia School of Art Needlework.  However, he acknowledges in the introduction to his book Old Quilts that he can recall no quilt in his home as a boy and speculates "their making was too unfashionable in large cities to interest many during the 1870s."  However, much later in life when he came across a long forgotten box in his own closet, he wrote, "a tea box of diamonds of colored silks in which I recognize some of my childhood neckties...and I believe I assisted in cutting these."

Dunton credits TQHF Honoree Marie Webster's 1915 book Quilts:  Their Story and How to Make Them with awakening his interests in documenting and recording early quilts and their history, although he writes, "it seems that I must have had an interest before that time or I should not have wanted to read the book."  He also quickly realized that the process of selecting color and pattern, as well as the social interaction that quilts traditionally engendered, would be of great benefit to his "nervous" patients.  As a psychiatrist, he thought his female patients could benefit from the quiet calming influence of needlework as well as the sense of accomplishment it brought.

Circa 1850 MD Album Quilt (Copake Annual Textile Auction07-sold June 30, 2007)

Although Dunton did not focus exclusively on needlework as a fitting from of occupational therapy for his patients, quilts took on a special meaning for him personally. Or, more specifically, the documentation and collecting of quilts took on a new meaning for him and quickly became one of his many personal interests after he fell under their spell and began a correspondence with Marie Webster, soon after her book was published in 1915.  Eventually he would correspond with a small cadre of quilt scholars who undoubtedly encouraged him to publish his own book.  Unable to find a publisher willing to take on his book, Dunton self-published 2,000 copies.  Every book is hand-numbered and today copies command a hefty price in the market place, if you can even find one.

From our perspective today, we find it rather amazing that any male, but perhaps especially a psychiatrist, would be planning and executing a quilt exhibit in 1916.  But on September 5, 1916, when Dunton held his first quilt exhibit for his patients, he would in fact exhibit 50 quilts-quilts borrowed from the families of patients and friends, as well as three loaned by Marie Webster herself.  Dunton would go on to curate three quilt exhibits for the Baltimore Museum of Art as well, with the 1944 exhibit featuring the quilts that had come to intrigue him the most - Baltimore Album Quilts.

Members of the Baltimore Applique Society made tracings of the original
Mary Mannakee quilt that resides in the collection of the Daughters of
the American Revolution and then made a reproduction quilt which was
raffled to raise money for the DAR.  Marylou McDonald, Past President of
the BAS, and her stitch group, called Friends from the Heart, also decided
to exchange blocks made from these tracings.  Marylou made one block
(top row, far right) and the borders.  In early 2002, the finished quilt top
was sent to a quilter in Kentucky to hand quilt.

Dunton is perhaps more responsible than any other early quilt historian for documenting quilts that had a special affiliation with the Baltimore area.  His groundwork research on this style helped later quilt historians trace the influence of the Baltimore -style as it evolved and made its way into other regions.  However, the research Dunton did covered much more than just this one style. 

Dunton was a meticulous record keeper and archivist.  In the late 50s to early 60s his extensive collection of research materials and photographs was donated to the Baltimore Museum of Art.  The Baltimore Applique Society, founded in 1993, raised $5,600 in 1997 towards stabilizing the Dunton papers so that they could be made available to researchers.  This passionate group of applique-lovers and quilt historians continues to support the preservation of the Dunton archival material as well as the Baltimore Album quilts in more than one museum collection.

Photo courtesy of Karen Alexander.  Beginning at top:  Dunton Article from TQHF
Honoree book, Katzenberg book, AQSG's Uncoverings 1994, Dunton book bearing
his signature. 

In 1980 Dena Katzenberg created an exhibit of 50 Baltimore Album quilts and produced a thoroughly researched catalogue.  Out of print very quickly, the catalogue continues to command a high price.  The point I am making is that the exhibit traveled and created such a national awareness of Baltimore Applique quilts at the time that prices soared, bringing more and more quilts out of family closets so more and more of the old beauties began to be documented.

Jennifer Gloldsborough's presentation at the 1994 AQSG seminar in Birmingham, AL, shed additional new light on this genre of quilt and is well worth studying.  The Baltimore Album style continues to enjoy a strong resurgence among quiltmakers today thanks to the many new teachers.  Elly Sienkiewicz of Maryland, with her many books, is perhaps the most well known.  Somewhere in the depths of all my quilt history files, I have a photo of Elly from the early 1980s in our guest room, cuddled under one of her spectacular applique quilts that featured her daughter.

Speaking of early quilt historians, Dunton mentions the work of five women- in additions to Marie Webster- who furthered his own education about quilts and suggested these authors could do the same for his readers:  Florence Peto (see article here), Ruth Finley (see article here), plus Ruby McKim, Carrie Hall, and Rose Kretsinger, who will be covered in future articles.  (Peto was in touch with Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, though I am unaware if Dunton ever had direct contact with these last two Honorees.)

Be sure to keep up with the doings at The Quilters Hall of Fame via our blog or website.  Meanwhile, keep those needles flying and spread the word about how quilts enrich your life and the life of our communities!

Karen Alexander
Past President, The Quilters Hall of Fame
Member of AQSG since 1981

Of Note:

Be sure to visit the International Quilt Study Center's Collections Database here to see more Baltimore Album quilts.  There are several ways to query the database and how one does it determines, of course, the results.  If you enter only "album" as a pattern or keyword, you will get ALL album quilts, not just Baltimore.  If you enter "Baltimore" in keyword you only get the Baltimore Albums plus other quilts with Baltimore origins.  The latter does give you fewer, and does include the Baltimore Albums. The images retrieved by the Collections Database are low resolution, not "zoomable".

The second way to see the IQSC quilts is via Quilt Explorer here. There are fewer quilts in this area. However, they are all high resolution; therefore you may zoom in for great details. If you search by "Style/Type" and select Baltimore Album, there are three gorgeous quilts in high res. Note that when you start to zoom in on one of these images you may drag the image around with your mouse to see all parts of the quilt close-up, a dandy little feature.

The Quilt Index here, sponsored by the Alliance for American Quilts, is another great place to see Baltimore Album quilts and their derivatives and you search it in a very similar way as the IQSC's data base.

Bibliography:

Debby Cooney, "A Legacy Revised: New Access to Dr. Dunton's Work" in Blanket Statements, Issue 55, Winter 1998/99, (Lincoln, NE: American Quilt Study Group)

William Rush Dunton, Jr., MD, Old Quilts (Baltimore: Privately printed, 1946)

Jennifer F. Goldsborough, "An Album of Baltimore Album Quilt Studies" in Uncoverings 1994, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco, CA: American Quilt Study Group)

Eileen (Bunnie) Jordan, "William Rush  Dunton, Jr.", The Quilters Hall of Fame, ed. Merikay Waldvogel and Rosalind Webster Perry (Marion, IN - The Quilters Hall of Fame, 2004)

Eileen Jordan, "Dunton Papers Available Soon", in The Quilters Hall of Fame Newsletter, No. 14, Fall 1998 (Marion, IN: The Quilters Hall of Fame)

Dena S. Katzenberg, Baltimore Album Quilts (Baltimore: the Baltimore Museum of Art, 1981)

Elly Sienkiewicz, Baltimore Beauties and Beyond (C&T Publishing, 1989)

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It seems that if asked, Pam Holland, our roving video reporter, will pack a bag and travel to the farthest-flung regions of the world to spread the love of quilting. Just back from a teaching stint in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Pam shares with us glimpses of this jewel-like city built in the desert.

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Pam's latest offering gives us a view of African landscapes, local colors, and of course quilts.  We recommend that you keep the cursor over the play/pause button, as you will want to view some of the scenes a little longer.  Or maybe wait until the second time through.

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Alex practicing her sewing skills.  Alex, stubborn as always, has her back to Grandmother.

When Alex gave her speech and slide show at The Silver Star Awards event at the Houston Quilt Show last fall, and I saw the childhood images of her with her sister, Sidney, and their Grandmother up on the screen, a warm fuzzy feeling came over me. Shortly afterwards, Alex sent me some amazing black-and-white photographs. I love working with black-and-white photos. I like to see if I can come up with colors that duplicate or closely match the originals. 

Currently, I am in a wonderful portrait mode with this quilt. My Mom ( Barbara) and I looked for just the right fabrics, and we found something that spoke of warmth and of home: one-and-a-half meters of batik fabric in earth tones from The Satin Moon Quilt Shop in Victoria, B.C., was her Christmas gift to me.

After washing and pressing the fabric, I begin to draw. Because the fabric is a dark-colored cotton, I use a hot-pink pastel pencil to see my lines. If you use this type of pencil, and add a line that you decide you don't want, you can remove it easily by rubbing lightly with a cloth or paper towel. By the time you are into the sewing stage, any marks left on the fabric will be very faint, if visible at all.

Once I am happy with the drawing, I leave it alone for a few days and look at what I have done. Is it OK? Yes!  I am ready to paint.

Pastel outline foundation.  Photo By Gail Thom

I begin painting from the edge of the fabric that is now 46" x 59".  Since I don't want to rub off the pastel pencil lines or smudge as I am painting; I start with Alex, who is at the fabric's edge. I like to paint foundation lines first, so that later I will know where to put in my brush strokes (i.e., for faces, hands, feet). I do not work all the way around the quilt. I turn it upside down, sideways, and every-which-way to get to the heart of the matter. A painted face might look fine, but if I can turn the image and look at it from a different angle, I might discover something else altogether.

Here are the first strokes of paint: yellow, a little pink, and mostly white. I am using Angel Paints, Canadian paints made in Vancouver, B.C. I use the drawing marks as a guide.

Painted features begin to appear.  Photo by Gail Thomas

I have been painting since I was seven, and working with watercolors came naturally to me. (It's kind of spooky at times!) In 2007, I found non-toxic Canadian fabric paint on the Internet, in Vancouver, B.C., a six-hour drive from my home. Jackie Haliburton created and founded Angel Paint 20 years ago. (Yikes! I'm just a little sl...oow....!) When I discovered them, the door to painting on fabric opened wide.These paints have a smooth feeling and mix beautifully. You can add a lot of water to the colors, and yet they do not bleed as much as some of the other brands I have tried. I am able use a watercolor wash technique--that is, use more water than pigment, allow to dry, and apply again--to build up the depth and dimension. I am able to paint on fabric the way I want. 

I love that I can make the piece "move" with these paints. Let me explain: The translucent layers allow me to see all the other layers underneath, giving the illusion of many veils overlapping. The images, especially clothing, take on a movement. In some areas, the body underneath is visible, or shapes and color appear from behind and around the clothes themselves. On faces, the multiple layerings pick up color. If, for example, a small child is asleep on a pink or red pillow, she will take on more of the pink and red colors as well as the color that makes up her presence or essence.  Angel Paints allow me to build up layers so that the viewer can see the work come to life...to mold the images or objects as he or she envisions them.

As I continue to work, I keep adding layers and painting in new areas. I am still using yellow, a little pink, as well as white. For Alex's dress, I add more white to my painting wash. I want to paint all the areas that require those colors. To me color is everything, even black and white, so when I say all those areas that have those colors, those are the colors I see.

Adding more layers of paint to the subject.  Photo by Gail Thomas

For this art quilt, I will be adding machine threadwork, stenciling, and possibly some handwork. I love handwork that features different stitches. This helps to bring out the down-home feeling. 

For this art quilt, I will be adding machine threadwork, stenciling, and possibly some handwork. I love handwork that features different stitches. This helps to bring out the down-home feeling. 

For this art quilt, I will be adding machine threadwork, stenciling, and possibly some handwork. I love handwork that features different stitches. This helps to bring out the down-home feeling. 

Gail Thomas

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"Calico Garden Crib Quilt" (49" x 39") by Florence Peto,1950
Pieced appliqued and quilted cotton. 

Shelburne Museum permanent collection.

Photo courtesy Shelburne Museum. 

Today it's hard to realize how little quilt history was available before the influence of our early 20th century pioneer quilt historians. Florence Peto is one of the most influential figures active before 1960. Peto wasn't alone in her pursuit of quilt history at that time. Marie Webster preceded her and Carrie Hall, Rose Kretsinger, Dr. William Dunton, Ruth Finley, and Berthe Stenge, just to name a few other TQHF Honorees were each busy in her/his own sphere Each would eventually come in contact with Peto. Yet, Peto remains a unique voice in the quilt world from the 1930s-60s.

Taught by her New York Dutch grandmother to be a fine needlewoman at an early age, Florence Peto had a life-long interest in antique textiles in particular. Born in 1881 and married in 1900, her personal interest in textile research took on an added dimension as a result of her husband's position as a cotton converter and mill owner. Her access to his fabric sample books stirred her interest in dyes and printing methods, wetting her appetite for ever more knowledge. Her self-directed studies eventually led her to focus on quilts and for that the quilt world can be very grateful.

Photo by Karen Alexander

However, Peto didn't stop at just studying the fabric and pattern of the quilt. She went in search of the quilt's story. This is where the contacts she made through her lecturing often paid off. Peto believed that quilts were "cloth documents," and she wanted to know who, where, why and when about each quilt. Once she found a quilt, she interviewed family members and, when possible, sifted through archives, files, letters and even diaries to get the quilt maker's story. So great was her passion for these stories, her first book "Historic Quilts" (1939) focused on quilts for which she had personally gathered documentation.

Photo by Karen Alexander

Eventually becoming an excellent quilt maker herself and winning several contests, Peto's "Calico Garden" was selected in 1999 for inclusion in "The 20th Century's 100 Best American Quilts". Peto also wrote about quilts for the popular publications of the time — Antiques, American Home, Americana, Woman's Day, Hobbies, and McCall's, lectured widely, designed needlework kits and greatly influenced the quilt collecting of several museums. 

"Where Liberty Dwells" 1953 by Florence Peto.  Private collection.

Photo courtesy Shelburne Museum.

Contemporary readers of the earliest quilt history books (such as Webster, Finley and Peto) will note that today's modern quilt historians have corrected some of the misnomers of these early historians.  This in no way disparages their earlier work.  We simply correct it and build upon it as new information is uncovered and new understanding develops.

This brief article is but a thumbnail sketch of a very talented productive woman.  Surely Peto's life story presented in a full-length book with lots of photos is long overdue.  

Karen Alexander

Member of AQSG since 1981

Past President, The Quilters Hall of Fame

January 19, 2009

Want to know more? Publications of both the American Quilt Study Group and The Quilters Hall of Fame offer more history on Florence Peto. This brief article is but a thumbnail sketch of a very talented productive woman. Surely Peto's life story presented in a full-length book with lots of photos is long overdue.

Avery, Virginia. "Florence Peto-Renaissance Woman of Mid Century," Quilter's Newsletter, January 1980.

Avery, Virginia. "Florence Peto, Path Finder," Ladies Circle Patchwork Quilts, Summer 1983: Carter Houck, Editor.

Clem, Deborah. "Florence Peto," The Quilters Hall of Fame, Rosalind Webster Perry and Merikay Waldvogel, Editors(1984),pg. 125.Gross, Joyce "Florence Peto and Woman's Day," Quilters' Journal, Mill Valley, CA, Vol. 3, No. 2.__________ "Florence Peto," Quilters' Journal, Mill Valley, CA: Winter 1979, Vol. 2, No. 4.

Peto, Florence "American Quilts and Coverlets New York": Chanticleer Press, 1949.

_______ "Historic Quilts New York:" The American Historical Company, Inc., 1939.

_______ "The Crib-Size Quilt". Woman's Day, December 1951, pg. 72-75, 125-127.

______ "A Textile Discovery". Antiques Magazine, 1953, pg. 120-121.

Florence Peto letter to Elizabeth Richardson, March 19, (1951?): courtesy of Bets Ramsey.

Woodard, Thomas K. And Blanche Greenstein. "Twentieth Century Quilts: 1900-1950" New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, 1988.