A valuable, historical contribution, this is the first book on the quiltmaking tradition of African Americans in Michigan. With 60 photographs of quilts, it brings together many images in the exploration of African American quilting and examines quiltmaking as a form women have used to make a contribution to the historic meaning of the African American family and community.

Rachel May’s rich new book explores the far reach of slavery, from New England to the Caribbean, the role it played in the growth of mercantile America, and the bonds between the agrarian south and the industrial north in the antebellum era—all through the discovery of a remarkable quilt. While studying objects in a textile collection, May opened a veritable treasure-trove: a carefully folded, unfinished quilt made of 1830sera fabrics, its backing containing fragile, aged papers with the dates 1798, 1808, and 1813, the words “shuger,” “rum,” “casks,” and “West Indies,” repeated over and over, along with “friendship,” “kindness,” “government,” and “incident.” The quilt top sent her on a journey to piece together the story of Minerva, Eliza, Jane, and Juba—the enslaved women behind the quilt—and their owner, Susan Crouch. May brilliantly stitches together the often-silenced legacy of slavery by revealing the lives of these urban enslaved women and their world. Beautifully written and richly imagined, An American Quilt is a luminous historical examination and an appreciation of a craft that provides such a tactile connection to the past.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich has remarked, “Much of the social history of early America has been lost to us precisely because women were expected to use needles rather than pens.” This book, part of the multivolume series of the International Quilt Study Center collections, recovers a swath of that lost history and shows us some of America’s treasured material culture as it was pieced and stitched into place. American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870–1940 examines the period’s quilts from both an artistic and a historical perspective. From pieced block to Crazy style to Colonial Revival examples, as well as one-of-a-kind creations, the full array of style and design appears in this book covering seven decades of quiltmaking. The contributing authors provide critical information regarding the modern and anti-modern tensions that persisted throughout this era of America’s coming of age, from the Civil War to World War II. They also address the textile technology and cultural context of the times in which the quilts were created, with an eye to the role that industrialization and modernization played in the evolution of techniques, materials, and designs. With full-color photographs of over 587 quilts, American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870-1940 offers a new visual and tactile understanding of American culture and society, bridging the transition from traditional folk culture to the age of mass production and consumption.

"One of America's largest collections of quilts - containing almost 400 examples at the time of this publication and steadily growing - belongs to the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City. As it is a national, not a regional institution, the Museum does not restrict its collection by location, nor is it restricted by time period: The quilts have been made all over the country and range in date from the late-eighteenth to the late-twentieth century." "Until this publication, however, there has been no comprehensive guide to the Museum's quilts, almost all of which have been donated by collectors in the field. Highlights from the collection have been published and exhibited many times, but the purpose of this book is to provide an opportunity for quiltmakers, collectors, scholars, and others to explore the collection in depth. The comprehensive discussion of the quilts has been divided into eleven chapters that are illustrated with 141 color plates. This text is then followed by a catalog of the entire collection, which in turn contains forty-four black-and-white illustrations. Here, then, is a richly handsome and informative volume that will prove to be essential for all those fascinated by this category of American folk art."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"Featuring Liza Prior Lucy and Brandon Mably."

Thoughtfully written by curator Cuesta Benberry as catalogue for The Kentucky Quilt Project's installation of 1992 exhibition by the same title. Features 35 quilts in full color. Forewords by Jonathan Holstein & Shelly Zegart. Text discusses the historical context of African-American quiltmaking in the mainstream of American quilting and reviews some of the current artists' use of quilts as their point of reference.