Images(10)

Quilt, Pieced Friendship Album

Date1871-1872

Maker Various Makers

OriginAmerica, North Carolina, Piedmont

MediumPlain and printed cottons

DimensionsOH: 86 1 /4" x OW: 69 3/8"

Credit LineGift of Rick and Catie Hubbard

Object number2015.609.12

DescriptionThis is a friendship album quilt made of 30 individual pieced blocks of plain and printed cottons in colors of blue, red, maroon, brown, green, pink, and rust. The blocks are separated by pieced red and white striped sashing with 20 blue squares at all four corners of the inner 20 blocks. Most of the blocks are inscribed with maker’s names, place names, verses, and/or dates. Twenty-seven of the thirty blocks contain inscriptions with a name, fifteen include a date, nineteen have a location, and fifteen contain messages. Ten blocks are addressed to “Jinnie,” presumably the intended recipient of the quilt. Place names include Sycamore Grove, Jamestown, Guilford C[ourt] H[ouse], Winston, Willow Vale, Chestnut Grove /Davidson Co., Clemensville, Shady Grove, and Waughtown, North Carolina. The quilt is backed in plain-weave white cotton which has been brought to the front to form a binding. It is quilted in outline patterns with quilted crosses in each of the centers of the blocks in 5-7 running stitches per inch.
Label TextAlbum quilts were often made by the friends and family of the recipient to mark a special event in his or her life, such as a wedding, baptism, or move. Jennie, the intended owner of this quilt, was likely preparing to move away from her home town based on her friends' inscriptions wishing that she remember them. The Capital T quilt pattern, named for the four uppercase “T”s in each square, provides a large space for signers to write passages from hymns, poems, or common album verses. Rather than colors and patterns, the written messages are the focal point of this quilt. Jennie must have remembered the makers of the quilt and her home fondly whenever she looked at her gift.
ProvenanceThe donors purchased the quilt; there is no known provenance prior to their ownership.