Collection: NC History Museum Quilts
The North Carolina Museum of History had an incredible exhibit on view which was on view May 4, 2019, through Mar. 8, 2020.
“QuiltSpeak: Uncovering Women’s Voices Through Quilts” examined North Carolina quilts and their makers, and how quilts exemplify dichotomies in history and legacy.
“Quilts speak. They reveal voices from the past—specifically women’s voices. Some of these voices have long been silenced by illiteracy, exhaustion, racial oppression, and gender inequity. But if we know how to listen, we can understand what the quilts are saying. They speak of skill and power. They speak of economy and ingenuity. They speak of memory and forgetting. They reveal the experiences of women whose lives skirted the periphery of written history. What can quilts tell us about their makers? What can they tell us about ourselves?.”
This exhibit featured quilts by a range of known and unknown quilters, and excellently articulated complex narratives including those of enslaved people and domestic laborers. The museum even noted on one interpretive panel
“A disproportionately high number of the African American-made quilts in the museum’s collections came from ... white families donating bedcovers created for them by Black quilters whom they had employed... This disparity speaks to imbalanced past collecting priorities. Contemporary curators seek to expand and diversify the institution’s collections and donors.”
Here are two quilts from the show accompanied by their interpretive label text:
Log Cabin, 1875-1905
Probably Margaret Smith ca. 1830s-ca.1905
Gaston County
Cottons, Wools
Who was Margaret Smith? The quilt’s donor, a white woman, remembered Smith as an African American domestic servant who worked for her mother’s family and made this quilt as a gift. But documentary research reveals a more complicated web of interconnected relationships and prompts more questions than it answers. Has Smith and her husband been enslaved by the donor’s ancestors? Where did Margaret live? Who was her family?
At Every Turn, African American lives prove difficult to document during eras of slavery and Jim Crow. Written sources frequently limit us to white perspectives. Margaret Smith speaks to us through her quilt, however - a creation that exemplifies beauty, value, and skill.
Six-Pointed Star, 1848
Mary Blount Grimes (Cowper), 1832-1917
Pitt County
Silks
Mary Blount Grimes grew up in one of eastern North Carolina’s wealthiest families on a plantation where her father enslaved nearly 140 people. In 1848, she embarked on a unique commemorative project. She collected silk neckties from her many suitors and combined them with dress fabric from her gowns and perhaps those of her friends. More than 50 different silks grace the quilt top. What did Mary mean to communicate through her creation? Her extensive social networks? Her active courtship calendar? Did the expensive fabrics represent her hold on - and thus power over - wealthy men?”
These quilts are archives, they tell stories, and they are metaphors for comfort. They remind us that rest is a radical act not afforded to all - historically and today. During this unprecedented worldwide shift, we urge you to consider how COVID-19 affects our most vulnerable populations, and exaggerates our country’s egregious inequities.