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Bell & Howell Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMT

“IN THE OLD DAYS, THEY USED SCRAPS”: GENDER, LEISURE, COMMODIFICATION, AND THE MYTHOLOGY OF QUILTMAKING, WAYNE COUNTY, OHIO, 1915-1995

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the

Graduate School of the Ohio State University

By

Valerie Sanders Rake, M. Liberal S t

*****

The Ohio State University 2000

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Claire C. Robertson, Advisor

Dr. Susan M. Hartmann

Dr. Richard Shtels

Dr. Patricia Cunningham D epartm ents History UMl Number 9971621

Copyright 2000 by Rake, Valerie Sanders

All rights reserved.

UMl’

UMl M(croform9971621 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Valerie Sanders Rake 2000 ABSTRACT

This dissertation compares and contrasts the experiences of women in Wayne

County, Ohio, who began making quilts in three time periods: the 1920s and 1930s, the

1940s through the 1960s, and the 1970s and 1980s. I argue that while the economic, domestic and community contexts within which quiltmaking took place changed dramatically during the twentieth century, some women continued or began to make quilts because it allowed them to engage in a gender-sanctioned creative activity that reinforced the importance they placed on their roles as wives and mothers.

In each time period discussed in this study, women had more access to educational and economic opportunities. They were also increasingly likely to experience quiltmaking not as a pleasurable extension of domestic skills and resources but as a personal, commercialized, consumerized, and commoditized leisure activity.

They were also more likely as the century progressed to view quiltmaking as a potential source of income. Some women, especially in Mennonite groups, used the commercialization of quiltmakmg to increase them access to public authority. In this commercialized context, a persistent mythology about quiltmaking fimctioned to connect women to a particular vision of the American past in which the importance of “the

&miiy* and women’s roles as wives and mothers was presumably unquestioned. By

u embracing these images, women connected themselves with those values and minimized the commodified nature of their choice o f leisure activity.

This dissertation provides one possible answer to the question of why women continue to make quilts, an answer that analyzes: why women specifically make quilts; the relationship between historical and contemporary quiltmaking; and quiltmaking as a leisure activity and as a source of, and claim on, income. It makes visible the connections between quiltmakers and commodification in the sale of quilt-related products and services. It also makes clear the connections between this myth-obscured commodification and the decisions of some women to preserve and honor gender constructions that make them primarily responsible for home and family.

u i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Before all else, I would like to thank the quiltmakers of Wayne County who welcomed me into their homes and invited me to meetings of their sewing groups. Their

Mendliness and willingness to share a part of their lives made this a very enjoyable project.

I would also like to thank the leaders o f church groups who not only located records for me but also found spaces where I could work. In this regard, I extend a special thanks to Celia Lehman, who organized my access to the records of the Ohio

Mennonite Relief Sale Board and arranged a meeting for me with members of the Relief

Sale Quilt Committee. Two members of the Relief Sale Board, Laurel Hurst and Ron

Reimer, also earned special thanks for providing me with additional information. John

Hostetler, Peter Passage, and Cindy Smoker at the Mennonite Central Committee offices in Akron, Pennsylvania, were very helpful in explaining the intricacies of Anabaptist charity. I would also like to recognize the members of the American Quilt Study Group, whose work over the last twenty years made this research possible.

I owe a special debt o f gratitude to Russell McQuate and his late wifo, Maxme. En spite of Maxine^s worsenmg health, they generously provided me not only a place to stay in Wayne County, but also home-cooked meals, enormous bowls of ice cream, and their ffiendship.

iv Barb Jardee, Kathy Wilcox, Katheiine Alspaugh, Kai Tarot, and Judi Miller did a marvelotis job transcribing interviews. Kai Tarot also did heroic service as copy-editor.

I would like to thank my advisor, Claire Robertson, for not only giving me the intellectual tools and fîeedom to write the dissertation I wanted to write, but also for helping me articulate my ideas.

This dissertation was supported by a Graduate Student Alumni Research Award hom The Ohio State University Graduate School in Sprmg 1997 and an Elizabeth D. Gee

Grant for Research on Women from The Ohio State University Department of Women’s

Studies in Spring 1999. Parts of chapters 4,5 ,6 were previously published as “A Thread of Continuity: Quiltmaking in Wayne County, Ohio, Mennonite Churches, 1890s -

1990s,” which appeared in Uncoverings 1999y the yearly publication of the American

Quilt Study Group.

Finally, 1 would like to thank my family for their continuing support of my academic goals, my friends for the much welcome escape from “real world” that they provide, and most of all, my husband Michael. He is the greatest gifr of all. VITA

1988 ...... 3 .S . Women’s Studies* University of Utah

1990...... M . Liberal Studies in Women’s Studies, The Ohio State University

1989-1993...... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University

1996 — present ...... Graduate Administrative Associate, The Ohio State University

PUBLICATIONS

‘A Thread of Continuity: Quiltmaking in Wayne County, Ohio, Mennonite Churches, 1890s - 1990s.” In Uncoverings 1999, ed. Virginia Gunn, 32-62. San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1999.

‘Quilts at the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale.” In History ofthe Ohio Mennonite ReliefSale, ed. Celia Lehman, 46-49. Sugarcreek, OH: by the editor, 1998.

‘American Quilt Study Group Seminar,” Quilt Ohio, Fall 1998,23-24.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History

Specializations: Womoi’s History Modem U.S. History Early U.S. History

VI TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Abstract ...... ii

Acknowledgments ...... iv

Vita...... vi

List of Figures ...... ix

Chapters:

1. Introduction ...... l

2. Quiltmaking in the Twentieth Century: Myth and Reality ...... 50

3. Making Quilts in Wayne County: Shared Experiences ------99

4. The First Quiltmakmg Revival in Wayne County: 1910s through 1930s ...... 135

5. The Beginnings of Commoditization: 1940s through 1960s ...... 173

6. Revival?: Commoditization and Transformation, 1970s through 1990s ______JZ04

7. Business as Leisure?: Five Case Studies of Quilt Businesses ______^45

8. Commoditization and Chari^: The Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale and Quilt Auction, 1966 to 1995 ______275

9. Conclusion ------322

vu Appendices:

A. Human Subjects Review Exemption ...... 3 3 5

B. Sample Permission Form ______336

C. Sample Individual Interview Form ...... J3 8

D. Sample Church Group Interview Form ______J4 2

E. Sample Business Owner Interview Form ...... 345

Bibliography ...... 349

vm LIST OF FIGURES

Figure Page

1.1 Age at Time of Interview ...... 30

1.2 Education Levels, by Decade of Birth ...... 33

13 Religious Afihliation ...... 36

2.1 Costs of Materials and Bedding ...... 92

3.1 Preferred Quiltmaking Activities ...... 107

6.1 Rates for Quilting Services, 1930s - 1990s ...... J238

8.1 Relief Sale and Quilt Auction Income ...... 279

8.2 Relief Sale and Quilt Auction Income, Adjusted for Inflation ------280

8.3 Relief Sale Quilt Auction Donations ...... 281

8.4 Comparison of Total Auction Income to Quilt Auction Income ------306

IX CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Thesis and Conceptual Framework

By the middle of the 1990s, quiltmaking was a flourishing leisure activity among women &om all walks of life. For example, an industry-sponsored survey found that in

1997,122 percent of ail households in the United States included someone who regularly made quilts. That proportion amounts to approximately 13,836,800 quiltmakers over the age of eighteen; 99 percent of these quiltmakers were female. American women spent over $121 billion on fabric, tools, and equipment specifically for making quilts.

Quiltmakers spent an average of forty-two hours per month on their hobby. Nearly three- fourths of them had a room of their own dedicated to quiltmaking and sewing.'

Historians have demonstrated that this modem quilt ‘Avivai,” as it is generally called, began in the early 1970s and has increased in populariQr since then. However, quiltmaking has also been substantially commodified in terms of cost and intensification

' “Quüting in America, 1997,” Survey commissionedby Quilter's Newsletter M agazine and hitemational Quilt Market/Festival, prepared by NFO, Inc. and ABACUS Custom Research, available on request firom Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, Golden, CO. of labor, materials, patterns, and methods of skill acquisition so that an analysis treating it exclusively as leisure is deficient.

At the heart of this dissertation lies a paradox. Despite the modem realities of commoditization and consumerism, there is a persistent image that quiltmaking is an old- fashioned activiQr. The “traditional quiltmaker” is assumed to have been a woman with few social or political outlets, who used quiltmaking as her only creative activity and as a way to get together with other women to talk while quilting. According to the image, quiltmaking allowed the colonial and pioneer housewife to make warm, inexpensive, and attractive bedcovers for her family from scarce bits of fabric saved from sewing and recycling the family’s clothing. This image holds that with the full development of industrialization and the consumer household in the late nineteenth century, quiltmakmg ceased to be a necessary household activity. Since women in the twentieth century had numerous—some would say unlimited—social and political outlets, and since blankets and other household goods were easily and cheaply available, there was no longer any

“need” for women to make quilts. Modem quiltmakers are thus portrayed—and often think of themselves—as anachronistic; at best, they are preservers of an honorable preindustrial domestic tradition.^

^ Virginia Gunn, “From Myth to Maturity: The Evolution of Quilt Scholarship,” in Uncovermgs 1992, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quüt Study Group, 1993), 192-205; Jeannette Lasanslty, “Myth and Reality m Craft Tradition: Were Blacksmiths Really Muscle-Bound? Were Basketmakers Gypsies? Were Thirteen Quilts in the Dowry Chest?,” in On the Cutting Edge: Textile Collectors, Collections, and Traditions, ed. Jeannette Lasansky (Lewisbur^ PA: The Oral Traditions Project, 1994), 112-113; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, “Pens and Needles: Documents and Artrfrcts in Women’s History,” in Uncovermgs 1993, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1994), 22I-22S. la this dissertation, 1 argue that the differences between the commercialized and commoditized reality of quiltmakmg in the twentieth century and the persistent mythology surrounding quiltmakmg are intrinsically related. Mariceting of quilt-related products and services and o f completed quilts relies upon images of the old-feshioned housewife, of pioneer simplicity, of treasured family heirlooms, and of the preservation of traditions. It reinforces a specific set of gendered images that place women at home, as producer of family comfort and keeper of the domestic flame. In turn, many twentieth century quiltmakers make use of this set of images to their advantage. Women included in this study whose lives centered around conventionally defined roles of wife and mother, even when those lives included paid work outside the home, could justify the expense of money, time, and household space for quiltmaking because it carried those warm and cozy gendered images. Quiltmaking enabled these women to claim leisure space and time for themselves, leisure that did not involve meeting the actual needs and desires of their husbands and children. Quiltmaking also provided a large subset of women in this study—members of Mennonite congregations—with a means to define and enlarge a socially and economically critical role fer themselves within their patriarchal church structure. Finally, a small group of women in this study was able to use quiltmaking as a way to earn money, although it was clearly secondary to other sources of femily income. While quilts made by the women in this study could be sold for as much as $3,100, the amount of labor put into each quilt ensured that the re a l compensation earned by quiltmaking was quite low. However, the opportunity to engage m an enjoyable activity was more significant for the women than the mcome itself. In ail of these cases, the gendered imagery of quiltmakmg was valued and utilized by the 3 quiltmakers—both those who were only seeking a leisure activi^ and those who sold their quilts — because of, rather than in spite o^ the limited range of women's roles embodied in the image.

This dissertation provides a comprehensive, though geographically focused, study of the on-going commodification of quiltmaking in the twentieth century and illustrates how this commodification was fundamentally linked to a set of gendered images that obscured the reality of that commodification. I will demonstrate that some women used their roles as wife, mother, and housekeeper to claim for themselves an increasingly expensive hobby and sometimes also a source of income. 1 question the usual assumption that gender roles defined as prototypically “feminine” in the United States are normatively experienced as restrictive and undesirable. Rather, I explore some of the reasons these roles remain popular among large segments of the population, and also how these roles are subject to manipulation even by those who accept their boundaries.

Literature Review

The study of quilts and quiltmaking has often explored how quilts provided late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century women with artistic options, personal or family income, professional careers, public recognition, avenues of political

«qpression, and organizational fund-raising options. Studies of contemporary quilts and quiltmakmg adchess these issues in the context of women’s expanded public roles in the late twentieth century. The relationships between quilts and the fine arts, quQt imagery and symbolism in literature, the dynamics of quiltmakmg groups, the roles of quilts and quiltmakmg in ethnic and racial communities, and the methodological and technological challenges of preserving quilts and their lore have also received attention. Quilt study 4 raises questions and provides answers about: women’s activities in the public sphoe; the allocation of personal and family resources between necessities and luxuries; women’s networks and the relationships between female kin and feiends; the interactions between women’s domestic responsibilities and their desire fbr autonomous expressions of creativity and individuali^; and the impact of commercial, industrial, technological, and social developments on women’s choices.

Historical research on quiltmaking has most often fecused on material culture aspects of quilts themselves. The authors of these works have sought to use quilts as artifacts feom which to learn about the lives and values of women and families whose activities are not available in written records. This work often qualities as antiquarianism or as a marriage of material culture techniques and genealogy. These articles and books are often the work of dedicated amateur and professional quiltmakers, collectors, and curators, few of whom have formal historical training. While these authors generally do an excellent job of documenting materials, styles, trends, and procedures, they do not tend to ask the larger questions about social context, cause and effect, or theoretical implications that scholars expect.^

At their best, these works on material culture compare patterns, fabrics, and battings tiom actual quilts with records tiom textile factories and retail tirms. They also trace the creation and transmission of quilt block patterns through kin and tiiendship

^ Kenneth L. Ames, “The Stuff of Everyday Life: American Decorative Arts and Household Furnishings,” in Material Culture: A Research Guide, ed. Thomas Schlereth (Lawrence: University Press o f Kansas, 1985), 83-84; Judith Elsley, “Making Critical Connections in Quilt Scholarship,” in Uncoverings 1995, ed. Virgmia Gunn (San Francisco: American Quüt Study Group, 1995), 229-243. networks and through popular magazines and newspapers. These studies thus place

quilts within both private and public commercial contexts.^ Other material culture

researchers compare quilts made by members of different racial, ethnic, class, geographic, and urban/rural groups and argue that the cultural differences are reflected in the fabrics, colors, patterns, and techniques women used when constructing quilts. For example, works that focus on quilts made by Amish and Mennonite women before the mid-twentieth century and by contemporary Amish women for use in their own homes debate the influence of separatist religious practices compared to secular cultural and economic forces on design choices.^ Some authors argue that there is a distinctly

* Examples of these works include: Barbara Brackman, *A Chronological Index to Pieced Quilt Patterns, 1775-1825,” in Uncovermgs 1983, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1984), 99-127; Ellen Pickling Eanes, “Nine Related Quilts of Mecklenberg County, North Carolina, 1800-1840,” in Uncoverings 1982, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American (Juilt Study Group, 1983), 35-42; Caryn M. Kendra, “Hard Times and Home Crafts: The Economics of Contemporary Appalachian (Quilting,” in Uncoverings 1991, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1992), 178-189; Erma H. Kirkpatrick, “Quilts, Quiltmakmg, and the Progressive Farmer: 1886-1935,” Uncoverings 1985, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1986), 137-145; Kari Ronning, “Quilting in Webster County, Nebraska, 1880-1920,” in Uncovering^ 1992, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1993), 169-191; Wilene Smith, “Quilt History in Old Periodicals,” Uncovering 1990, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Q t^t Study Group, 1991), 188-213; Jan Stehlik, “Quilt Patterns and Contests of the Omaha World-Herald, 1921-1941,” Uncoverings 1990, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 56-87.

^ Ricity Clark, “Germanic Aesthetics, Germanic Communities,” in Q uilts in Community: Ohio’s Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Quilts, Quiltmakers, and Traditions, Ricky Clark, George Knepper, and Ellice Ronsheim (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991), 20^5; Patricia Herr, “Quilts within the Amish Culture,” in4 Q uiet Spirit: Amish Qidlts from the Collection ofCinefy Tietze and Stuart Hodosh, Donald B. KraybiD, Patricia Herr, and Jonathan Holstein (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural EHstory, 1996), 45-67; Marsha MacDowell and C. Kurt Dewhurst, eds.. To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions (Santa Fe: Museum o f New Mmdco 6 Aâicaii-Americaii s^Ie of quiltmaking with roots in West Afiican textile traditions, or that slaves and their allies made quilts whose patterns conv^ed messages to runaways along the Underground Railroad.^ A growing number of books, many of them based on statewide quilt documentation projects, explore these sorts of issues for various local and regional areas/

Press and Michigan State University Museum, 1997); Rachel Pellman and Kenneth Pellman, A Treasiay o fAmish Quilts (hitercourse, PA: Good Books, 1990).

® Cuesta Benberry, Always There: The African-American Presence in American Q uilts (Louisville: The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., 1992); Roland Freeman, A Communion o fthe Spirits: African-American (filters. Preservers, and Their Stories (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1996), 115-122,376-377; Gladys-Marie Frye, “Harriet Powers: Portrait of a Black (^uilter,” Sage 4 (Spring 1987): 11-16; Gladys-Marie Frye, Stitchedfrom the Soul: Slave Quilts From the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Dutton Books, 1990), 10-13,83; Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story o fQuilts and the Underground Railroad (New York: Doubleday, 1999); Maude Southwell Wahlman, 51fgws and Symbols: Afiican Images in African- American Quilts (New York: Studio Books, 1993).

^ See, for example, Lynne Z. Bassett and Jack Larkin, Northern Comfort: New England’s Early Quilts, 1780-1850 (Nashville: Rutledge HHl Press, 1998); Ricky Clark, George Knepper, and Ellice Ronsheim, Quilts in Community: Ohio’s Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Quilts, Quiltmakers, and Traditions (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991); Mary Washington Clarke, Kentucky Quilts and Their Makers (Lexington: The University Press o f Kentucky, 1976); Kae Covington, Gathered in Time: Utah Quilts and Their Makers, Settlement to 1950, with historical introduction by Dean L. May (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1977); Patricia Cox Crews and Ronald C. Naugle, Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers (Lincoln: University Press of Nebraska, 1991); Mary Bywater Cross, Quilts and Women o f the Mormon Migrations: Treasures o f Transition (Nashville, Rutledge ifill Press, 1996); Laurel Horton, “19th Century Quiltmaking Traditions in South Carolina,” Southern Folklore 46:2 (1989): 101-115; Indiana Quilt Registry Project, Quilts o f Indiana: Crossroads o fMemories (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991); Jeannette Lasanslgr, “Southwestern Quilts and Quiltmakers in Context,” in Uncoverings 1993, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1994),97-118; Jean Ray Laury and the California QuRt Heritage Project, Ho for Calfomia: Pioneer Women and Their Quilts ^ ew York: E. P. Dutton, 1990); Suzanne Yabsley, Texas Quilts, Texas Women (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1984). Historical research on quilts that does not focus on materialculture has analyzed the ways that women have used quiltmaking to further professional, economic, social, artistic, and political goals. Some o f these works have an explicitly feminist agenda, intertwining narratives about changes in quiltmaking and other kinds of needlework through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries with a description of how industrialization, urbanization, and women's activism fer rights and education have increased women’s opportunities to participate in formerly male-only activities.* These works rely heavily on the ideas of Nancy Cott, Mary Ryan, and Barbara Welter in their conceptions of women’s roles in the nmeteenth century. While these works can be informative, they are somewhat limited in their treatment o f race, class, ethnic, and regional differences among quiltmakers.^

Other works document the ways that women have used quiltmaking as a means of attaining income and independence. Quilt businesses in these essays were relatively

* Kurt C. Dewhurst, Betty MacDowell, and Marsha MacDowell, A rtists in Aprons: Folk Art by American Women, with a forward by Agnes Halsey Jones (New York: E. P. Dutton, in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1979); Elaine Hedges, Hearts and Hands: Women, Quilts and American Society, with captions by Pat Ferrero and Julie Süber (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1987). See also Jacqueline Marx Atkins, Shared Threads: Quilting Together, Past and Present (New York: Vikmg Studio Books, 1994); and Roderick Kiracofe with Mary Elizabeth Johnson, The American Quilt: A History o fCloth and Confort, 1750-1950 (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1993), which are less explicitly feminist but trace a similar picture of women’s greater access to public spaces by way of their quilts.

^ Nancy Cott, The Bonds o f Womanhood: “Woman's Sphere” in New England, 1 780-1835 (New Haven: Yale Univashy Press, 1977); Mary P. Ryan, Cradle o fthe Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Barbara Welter, “The Cult ofTrue Womanhood: 1800-1860,” in Dimity Convictions: The American Woman in the Nineteenth Century (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976), 21-41.

8 formal; they were organized by selfconsciously professional quiltmakers or by “do-

gooders” lookmg for ways to provide employment to impoverished rural women while

preserving what they perceived to be a dying folk art^** Articles have also been written

about how women, as individuals and in groups, used quilts to raise money for church

women’s groups and other organizations like the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.

This money was used to support benevolent societies, missionary work, church building,

and other activities. The quilts themselves were often memorials to clergy or to other

male or female leaders." These works tend to be biographical sketches or are

descriptions of the activities of particular groups of women or the development of

particular businesses or quilt-related products. Research also documents how local and

Cuesta Benberry, “Quilt Cottage Industries; A Chronicle,” in Uncoverings 1986, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1987), 83-100; Nancy Callahan, The Freedom Quilting Bee (Tuscaloosa: The University o f Alabama Press, 1987); Ricky Clark, “Ruth Finley and the Colonial Revival Era,” in Uncoverings 1995, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American (Juilt Study Group, 1995), 33-65; Pat L. Nickols, “Mary A. McElwain: Quilter and (^uilt Businesswoman,” in Uncovermgs 1991, ed. Laurel Horton, (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1992), 98-117; Naida Treadway Patterson, “Marion Cheever Whiteside Newton: Designer of Story Book Quilts, 1940-1965,” in Uncoverings 1995, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1995), 67-94; Elly Sienkiewicz, “The Mariceting of Maty Evans,” in Uncovering^ 1989, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1990), 7-24; Merikay WaldvogeL “The Marketing of Anne Orr’s Quilts,” in U ncovering 1990, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 7-27; Merikay Waldvogel, “The Origin of Mountain Mist Patterns,” in Uncovermgs 1995, ed. Virgmia Gunn (San Francisco: American Quüt Study Groi^, 1995), 95-138.

^ ^ Debra Ballard, “The Ladies Aid of Hope Lutheran Church,” in Uncovermgs 1989, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quüt Study Group, 1990), 69-80; Sandi Fox, For Purpose and Pleasure: Quilting Together in Nineteenth-Century America (Nashville: Rutledge lEU Press, 1995); Pat Lon& “Quiltmaking in the Richland, Pennsylvania, Church o f the Brethren, 1914-1937,” in Uncovering 1988, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American (^uilt Stucty Group, 1989), 73-85. national fairs and contests showcased women’s talents m exhibition halls and newspapers. These venues provided small amounts of public recognition and prize money and large amounts of status among other quiltmakers/^

In addition to the large body of historical work on quilts and quiltmaking, there is a smaller body that focuses on literary, aesthetic, and cultural issues. Literary scholars look at texts in which quilts or quiltmakers play a central role; mysteries are the genre most frequently associated with quilts, though novels, poems, and plays about women’s friendships and family relations are also common. More frequently, however, literary critics and often other scholars use quiltmaking as a metaphor to explore issues of social diversity, non-linear narrativity, and the discontinuous nature of women’s domestic work.''* Art critics explore the graphic qualities of quilts, the impact of the three-

Barbara Brackman, “Quilts at Chicago’s World’s Fairs,” in Uncoverings 1981, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982), 63-76; Virginia Gunn, “Quilts at Nineteenth Century State and County Fairs: An Ohio Study,” in Uncoverings 1988, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1989), 105-28; Merikay WaldvogeL Soft Coversfo r Hard Times: Quiltmaùng and the Great Depression (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1990).

See, fbr instance, Judith Elsley, “A Stitch in Crime: Quilt Detective Novels,” in Uncoverings 1998, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1998), 137-153; Anne L. Bower, “Reading Lessons,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the B attent, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 33-48.

Audrey BHger, “ ‘A History Reduc’d into Patches’: Patchwork and the Woman Novelist,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 18-32; Elaine Hedges, “A Nineteenth Century Diarist and Her Quilts,” Feminist Studies 8:2 (Summer 1982): 293-308; Uma Parameswaran, ed.. Quilting a New Canon: Stitching Women's Words (Toronto: Sister Vision, Black Women and Women of Colour Press, 1996); Cheryl Torsney, “ ‘Everyday Use’: My Sojourn at Parchman Farm,” m Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 11-17.

10 dimensionality of textiles and threads on the processes o f creating art and experiencing the finished pieces, and the difficulties that quiltmaking’s real and mythic associations with women and domesticity have created for modem artists working with fabric and sewing techniques/^

Much of the cultural work about quiltmaking has been written by Womanist scholars, who assert that a specific style of Afiican-American quiltmaking exists. They draw on quilts as metaphors and actual elements in fictional works and on the authors' personal memories about their families and communities. These authors make connections between the multiple perspectives, improvisational methods, and unconventional patterns that characterize Black communities and can be found in

Afiican-American quiltmaking.*®

Pattie Chase and Mimi Dolbier, The Contemporary Quilt: New American Quilts and Fabric Art (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978); Jonathan Holstein, The P ieced Q uilt: A n American Design Tradition (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1973); Jonathan Holstein, “The Whitney and After... What’s Happened to Quilts,” The Clarion (Spring/Summer 1986): 80-85; Robert Hughes, Amish: The Art O f The Quilt, with plate commentary by Julie Silber (New York: Alfied A. Knopf, 1993); Penny McMorris and Michael M. Kile, The A rt Q uilt, with introduction by John Perreault (San Francisco: The Quilt Digest Press, 1986); Charlotte Robinson, ed.. The Artist and the Quilt (New York: Alfied A Knopf, 1983). Other forms ofneedlework have sparked similar debates. See, for instance, Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Old Adistresses: Women, Art and Ideology (New York: Pantheon-Random House, 1981).

*® Elsa Barkley Brown, “Afiican-American Women’s Quilting: A Framework for Conceptualizing and Teachmg Afiican-American Women’s History,” Signs 14:4 (1989): 921-929; bell hooks, “Aesthetic hiheritances: History Worked by tim d,” in Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 115-122; Margot Anne Kelley, “Sister’s Choice: C itin g Aesthetics m Contemporary Afiican-American Women’s Fiction,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 49-67.

11 Such hîstoricaU literary, aesthetic, and cultural essays have provided necessary background information but my goals here differ in that I will be looking at quiltmaking in order to draw relationships across generations and between gender roles, labor, commodification, and leisure.

C onceptual Fram ework

One of the major questions behind this study is, “why do women continue to make quilts?” Embedded in this question are two significant assumptions. The first is that it is women, rather than men or even girls, who make quilts. The second assumption is found in the phrase “continue to make quilts,” which suggests both that quiltmaking has a history and that quiltmaking is now an anachronistic activity that is no longer directly cormected to its past. In other words, this assumption implies that women used to make quilts for a reason—presumably a necessary and even valiant one—but that that reason no longer exists. Taken together, these two assumptions, and the truths and non­ truths behind them, are the mental space within which the myth of the fiugal quiltmaker can be used to enlarge women's personal claims to so-called family resources or to create a market fbr their quilts.

Several authors have helped me to recognize and shape my answer to the question of “why do women continue to make quilts?” In “From Myth to Maturity: The Evolution of Quilt Scholarship,” Virginia Gunn discusses the persistence of the mythology about quiltmakmg that I have introduced. Her primary object in this essay, in addition to defining the concept of quütmakrDg myths, was to explore how inaccurate perceptions of the past can nevertheless shape contemporaneous ideals and actions and hoice acquire a real historical presence. Gunn cites certain myths about quilts and quiltmaking saying 12 Patchwork quhts [were] distinctly American textiles which have been important parts o f the American scene since the earliest colonial days when women o f every class and background pieced together the tiniest hagments of precious scarce textiles by candlelight in order to make warm bed-coverings to protect loved ones.

She suggests that these myths have attained a historical presence and that they persist

Women continue to make quilts because the myth and the making of quilts reinforces

American ideals about self-sufhciency and family independence, especially during times of economic difficulty,'^

Gunn’s essay was instrumental because it encouraged me to see quiltmaking as both a real activity with historically specific characteristics that changed over time and in relation to economic and social forces, and also as a relatively static iconic metaphor that could be invoked by women as they negotiated—both with their internal sense of necessity and obligation and with their spouses, children, and community members—for time, space, resources, and respect. Gunn’s essay was seminal for my thinking and invited further exploration of the persistence of the myth and of quiltmaking in the twentieth century.

Other authors have put forth their own arguments about this persistence. These arguments generally focus on the contemporary quilt world and on the perceived conflict between the fingal and domestic imagery and the apparently new commercialization and commodification of quiltmaking. Three essays exemplify these works and delineate some important values and issues. They do not, however, adequately answer the question, with its embedded assumptions, o f why women continue to make quilts.

Gunn, “Myth,”195. See also Lasans^, “Myth,” 108-119.

13 ùi “Quilt-Value and the Maixist Theory of Value,” Nora Ruth Roberts explores why many contemporary women value quilts so highly/* Roberts argues that the Marxist concept of use-value, even when it includes the value of fetishistic items, does not encompass the value of the family-centered oral history associated with heirlooms.

Roberts borrows anthropological concepts of gift-giving to suggest that quilts acquire an

“aura” as they pass from person to person. This aura consists of the original owner's memories of the item, mingled with the memories of each successive owner about how she interacted with previous owners before receiving the item herself. Throughout her essay, Roberts suggests that women have a stronger sense of this “quilt-value” than men because of women’s roles as housekeeper, caretaker, and family historian.

Roberts’ essay introduces family-centered female gender roles as a factor in the continuing popularity of quilts and quiltmaking and helps to explain why women—rather than male adults or young females—are associated with quilts. However, it does not explore why the more generalized mythology of quiltmaking is accepted, along with the possibly more reliable and definitely more personal 6mily history. More importantly, it explains why women might collect old quilts but not why they continue to make new ones.

'* Nora Ruth Roberts, “Quilt-Value and the Marxist Theory of Value,” in Q uilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern^ ed. Cheryl B. Torsnqr and Judith (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 125-133.

14 Susan Bemîck expands this exploration of the gaidered aspects of quiltmaking in

“A Quilt Is an Art Object when it Stands Up Like a Man.”^® Bemick compares the value placed on quilts by traditional quilters, art quilters, and feminists. She defines traditional quilters as women who make quilts as objects for everyday use in the home and as an avenue of creative expression. Of the three groups, traditional quilters are the only ones with an “authentic” connection to historical quiltmaking in the United States, a history

Bemick implies is rooted in a dual use-value/quilt-value philosophy. She ai^ es that art quilters value quilts only for aesthetic or financial reasons. The group includes collectors and curators, as well as artists working with fabric and sewing techniques. While most textile artists and some collectors and curators are women, the most influential art quilters are men. Bemick argues that this group exploits traditional quilters, both contemporary and historical, because they strip quilts of both their use-value and their quilt-value. For instance, art quilters sometimes seek to raise the status of quilts by displaying them in museums and galleries purely as designed objects, separated from their association with domesticity and femininity.^®

Bemick argues that feminists have attempted to bridge the differences between these groups by suggesting that the artistry of old quilts is increased because of the domestic context in which they were created. In works such as The Quilters, Hearts and

Susan Bemick, “A Quilt Is an Art Object when it Stands Up Like a Man,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 134-150.

“ See, for example, Jonathan Holstein, American Pieced Quilts (Washington: Smithsonian histitution, 1972).

IS H ands, and Shared Threads, feminists have celebrated the aesthetic value of quilts while providing the stories behind their creation and use, thus championing their quilt-value and acknowledging their use-value as both domestic and public objects.^^

Bemick’s definition of “traditional” quiltmakers delineates one reason women made quilts—part of the second assumption in my central questioiL Women used to make quilts because they needed blankets, because they already had the mataial resources and sewing skills, and because it was a gender-appropriate creative activity.

This definition aligns neatly with the quiltmaking myths, but does not question their accuracy. Also, and again, it does not adequately explain why women continue to make new quilts.

In “Preserving the Social Fabric: Quilting in a Technological World,” Susan

Behuniak-Long focuses on the contrast between what she calls holistic and prescriptive quiltmaking.^ Quilts made using holistic methods, whether or not they incorporate modem quilt technology (sewing machines, rotary cutters, plastic templates, etc.), express their makers’ individual creative ideas and labor. They preserve presumably preindustrial craft traditions and carry within them the quilt-value described by Roberts and favored by Bemick’s “traditional” quilters and feminists. Prescriptive methods of quiltmaking commodify quilts by using both technology and workers to make quilts to

Atkins, Shared Threads; Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Buferd, The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978); Hedges, Hearts and Hands.

^ Susan Behuniak-Lon^ “Preserving the Social Fabric: Quilting in a Technological World,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: Universify of Missouri Press, 1994), 151-168.

16 611 speci6c marketing niches. Behuniak-Long argues that companies that sell traditional- looking new quilts capitalize on the nostalgia associated with handcrafted items in order to sell mass-produced items. In a sense, mass-marketers are a fourth group in Bemick^s schema, one that exploits traditional quilters by attaching a market-value not only to the use-value of quilts but also to their perceived quilt-value. In this schema, quilt myths function as a marketing tool by exploiting an anti-market niche. They suggest to modem quilt lovers that, regardless of whether they make or purchase their quilts, the values of family love, safety, and security will be preserved.

This essay touches more closely than others do on why contemporary women make quilts: quilts embody a set of ideals that provide a haven in a society that is perceived to be dangerous and unstable. However, in erecting a distinction between individually made and mass-produced quilts, Behuniak-Long continues to obscure the connection between quiltmaking, both in the past and in the present, and mass-market industrial capitalism. This argument assumes that one makes quilts either for the personal pleasure of doing so or to 611 a marketing niche.

The notion of quilt myths functioning as marketing tools and as ways for quiltmakers to justify their expenditure of time and money have been explored in two dissertations. Lorre Weidlich, an ethnologist, studied women’s quiltmg groups and festivals during the late twentieth century quilt revival. She traced a potential and often an actual conflict between women’s domestic and family responsibilities and their

17 quîltmakmg activities.^ Weidlich argued that women chose to emphasize quiltmaking because it bad more lasting results than housework and pulled women into contact with other women. It validated women as (potential) artists andjustiGed them spending money and time on themselves. This msight has become a central aspect of my argument—that women feel more able to claim resources for them own creativity if that creativity is expressed in quiltwork rather than in some other form of art. Weidlich’s insight is, however, limited by her focus on women who began making quilts only during the late twentieth century revival. She assumes that the motivation of late twentieth century quiltmakers is different from that o f their predecessors.

Jane Przybysz, a specialist in performance art and theory, also provided useful insights in her focus on how quilt shows and other quilt revival events gave women the opportunity to perform expressively and exuberantly within a safe, female-dominated environment. Przybysz also explored the performances of Marie Webster, the author of the first book o f quilt history in the United States.^'* Webster’s book. Q uilts: Their Story and Haw to Make Them, was published in 1915 and developed and popularized an inaccurate history of quiltmakmg in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The book’s popularity was both cause and consequence of what is now recognized as the first twentieth century quilt revival, beginning in the early 1910s and lasting through the

1930s.

^ Lorre Marie Weidlich, “Quiltmg Transformed: An Anthropological Approach to the Quilt Revival” (PhJ). diss.. University of Texas at Austin, 1986), 4-5,104-120.

Jane Ellen Przybysz, “Sentimental Spectacle: The Traffic in Q uüt^ (PhD. diss.. New York University, 1995), 91-118,204-298.

18 Pr^bysz argued that Webster promoted the image of the quiltmaker as a frugal housewife as a way to justify her pursuit of a career as an author, lecturer, and entrepreneur. Webster’s imagery in her book and lectures combined an idealized vision of the American colonial past with a depiction o f the “modem” housewife as better educated and more artistic than her Victorian grandmother. Przybysz suggested that during the early twentieth century revival, quiltmaking provided a release from the tensions of women’s evolving roles in modem industrial society. Making a quilt allowed early twentieth century women to use their increased leisure time both to preserve an old- fashioned craft and to assert their importance to the family by making something long- lasting, beautiful, and usefiil. Przybysz explored in detail two related nineteenth century sources for Webster’s myth-inspired performances, a useful discussion for understanding the scope of the myth and its possible sources. Przybysz did not, however, explore the historical accuracy of the mythic images nor did she directly connect them to quiltmaking in either the first or second quilt revival.

Taken together, these six works of scholarship provide suggestive, though incomplete, answers to the question of why women continue to make quilts. Quilts embody a mythology that associates them with home, fa m ily relationships, domestic warmth, safety, and security—qualities that women more than men are still charged with producing and maintaining. The creativity associated with quilts is also family-centered and either utilitarian or sentimental. In “the past,” a relatively undefined tune period for all accept Gunn and Przybysz, quiltmakmg was the perfect meldmg of family, home, and creativity, in the present, quiltmakmg is a defense agamst intrusive and destabifizmg commodification, hi both cases, quiltmaking helps to keep a femily together. 19 Although, these works address themselves to parts of my central question, none of them treats or analyzes the mythology as such; as a consequence, they unwittingly perpetuate parts of the myth. They also do not adequately explore the functions of myths for contemporary quiltmaking nor do they explore the use of quilts, and the limits of that use, as commodities. This dissertation provides one possible answer to the question of why women continue to makequilts, an answer that analyzes: why women specifically make quilts; the relationship between historical and contemporary quiltmaking; and quiltmakingas a leisure activity and as a source of, and claim on, income. Myargument makes visible the connections between quiltmakers and commodification in the sale of quilt-related products and services. It also makes clear the connections between this myth-obscured commodification and the decisions of some women to preserve and honor gender constructions that make them primarily responsible for home and family.

1 argue that while items that have functional, emotional, artistic, and/or financial value are produced in quiltmaking, those who made quilts during the twentieth century did so because they enjoyed the process. It was, to them, a leisure activity. Because quiltmakers “worked” primarily for the pleasure o f doing so, they were sometimes willing to produce quilts for sale for a small rate of return relative to the amount of labor required. Both the reality of quilts as a “non-essential” but highly valued leisure activity and the perception of them as priceless/valueless domestic artifacts contribute to their commodification. The imagery helps to hide the prices paid by quiltmakers for their supplies and the time spent pursuing their hobby and also justifies both the high prices that buyers pay for hand-made American quilts and the low pay received by sellers. The dif&rence between the high price paid by buyers and the price received by sellers was not 20 due to the calculated exploîtatîoii of labor value by a business owner but rather to the quiltmakers themselves undervaluing their own labor in the prices they charged purchasers. That is, hand-made American quilts were expensive compared to mass- produced and often imported quilts.^ Some of this difference was attributable to the use of higher quality, more expensively dyed fabrics. Some was also due to the markup of

$100 to $200 taken by retail shop owners.^^ However, the amount of labor involved in making a quilt ensured that even quiltmakers who sold their products directly to a buyer would likely have earned well under $1 per hour. Quiltmakers charged such low rates relative to what U.S. citizens generally perceive as fair pay because they, too, saw their work as priceless/valueless and also because they felt they were compensated by the leisure benefits they received firom actually making the quilts.^^

^ Compare, for instance, queen-size quilts (103 inches by 118 inches) being sold for $525 to $800 in 1997 at the Helping Hands (^uilt Shop in Berlin, Ohio, in Holmes Coun^, just south of the location of this study; with queen-size quilts (nineQr inches by ninety inches), available in the Spring 2000 issue of Domestications catalog (12-13) for $90 to $100. Prices for Helping Hands quilts taken firom “Helping Hands Quilt Shop and Museum,” brochure dated August 1993, in possession of author.

Harriet Hargrave, From Fiber to Fabric: The Essential Guide to Quiltmakmg T extiles (Lafayette, CA: C&T Publishing, 1997), 8-10; Ruth Hershberger, owner of Cozy Comer Quilts, I August 1997, Kidron; Lena Lehman, owner or Hearthside QuQt Shoppe, and Cheryl Gerber, manager of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, 15 August 1997. hi order to simply the citation of interviews throughout this dissertation, I have adopted several formatting conventions. The first reference to an interview withm each chuter will list the mterview subjects or group’s name plus any necessary identifying information, the date o f the interview, and the town where the interview was conducted. Subsequent references within that chapter will simply list the individual’s or group’s name. Complete information about all interviews can be found in the bibliography.

^ Jane Becker, Selling Tradition: Appaiachia and the Construction o f an American Folk, I930-I940 (Chapel Hill: University o fNorth Carolina Press, 1998), 234- 23; Judith Elsley, ‘*The Smrthsnnian Quilt C ontrovert Cultural Dislocation,” in 21 In summary, I argue that while the economic, domestic and community contexts within which quiltmaking took place changed dramatically during the twentieth century, some women continued or began to make quilts because it allowed than to engage in a gender-sanctioned creative activity that reinforced the importance they placed on their roles as wives and mothers. In each time period discussed in this study, women had more access to educational and economic opportunities. They were also increasingly likely to experience quiltmakmg not as a pleasurable extension of domestic skills and resources but as a personal, commercialized, consumerized, and commoditized leisure activity requiring the acquisition of new skills and the purchase of specialized products. The women were also more likely as the century progressed to view quiltmakmg as a potential source of income. The widely held belief that “in the past,” quiltmaking had been primarily a frugal domestic activity helped obscure this transformation. Because women and their families appreciated the mythic values and leisure benefits associated with quilts, they were willing to pay for an increasing variety of quiltmaking commodities, and when they sold quilts as commodities themselves, to do so at a price that undervalued their own labor. However, some women, especially in Mennonite groups, used the commercialization of charity embodied in the Relief Sales that began in the 1960s, to increase not only their labor in quiltmakmg but also their authority in denominational organizations.

Uncoverings 1993, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1994), 119-136.

22 A Profile of Wavne County

Wayne County, Ohio, is home to a large and diverse group of quiltmakers who were willing to be interviewed and share the records of their sewing groups. In addition, the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale, which includes a large quilt auction, is held in Wayne

County every August Quiltmakers included in this study ranged from conservative

Mennonite women to established and aspiring iconoclastic quilt artists. I was able to learn from quiltmakers whose life- and work-styles included farmwife, housewife, blue- collar worker, small business owner, professional, and artist Wayne County is also easily accessible from my home in Columbus. Together, these attributes provide an ideal location for a case-smdy approach to the gendered and commodified activity of quiltmaking in both its domestic/utilitarian aspects and its commercial/leisure aspects.

Scholars like Nancy Hewitt and Suzanne Lebsock have demonstrated that important insights into the history of American women in general can be drawn from studies focused on one geographic location.^ Wayne Cotmty is in the center of the northeastern quadrant of the state of Ohio. Sixty percent of the county is farmland; small towns dot the cotmtryside. Wooster, with a population of just over twenty-thousand, is the county seat and the largest community. It has been cited as one of Ohio’s premier

‘^micropolitan” areas, with a strong manufacturing base that includes both, nationally

^ Nancy Hewitt, Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York, 1822-1872 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women o f Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town, 1784-1860 ^ e w York: W, W. Norton and Company, 1984).

23 known companies like Rubbermaid and local companies like FJ Design.^ bi addition, it has a well-respected libaal arts college, a regional theater troupe, a hospital, an arts center, a refurbished downtown with commercial and civic areas, and several shopping centers. The surrounding farmland insulates Wooster 6om nearby Akron/Canton (thirty miles to the east) and Cleveland (fifiy miles to the north) without isolating its residents.

Earlier in the century, when travel to the larger cities was more difficult, Wooster^s role as a commercial, cultural, educational, and political center was even stronger.

Wayne County was founded in 1812 firom land formerly under the Jurisdiction o f

Columbiana and Stark counties.^^ It was settled mostly firom the northeastern United

States. Members of German and Swiss-German Anabaptist groups firom Pennsylvania were among these pioneers. Later, their co-religionists were the major portion of the relatively small immigrantpopulation in the county. Wayne County's population has grown steadily during the twentieth century, with approximately 20 percent of the population living in Wooster. The county population has ranged firom 37,820 people in

1900, with 6,063 people (16 percent) in Wooster; to 101,461 in 1990, with 22,191 people

(21.9 percent) in Wooster.^^

^ “Ohio Hometown: The Case for the Micropolitan Community,” Site Selectiortr February 1996,2,28-29. The article defines a micropolitan area as one with a population of less than 50,000 that is economically, politically, and socially self-sustaining. While a micropolitan a r^ may be near a major metropolitan area, it is not a suburb.

Lawrence J. Marzulli, The Development o f Ohio's Counties and Their Historic Courthouses (Columbus: County Commissioners Association of Ohio, 1989), 17.

Bureau of the Census, Table 19: White, Negro, and Indian Population, by Counties: 1880-1900, and Table 23: Population by Sex, General Nativity, and Color, for Places Havmg 2,500 Inhabitants or More: 1900, Twelfth Census o fthe United States: 24 Wayne Cotmty has a relatively homogeneous population, even for the state o f

Ohio, Throughout the twentieth, century, it was predommantlyviiite. The percentage of

Afiican-American and Asian people in Wayne County’s population 6om 1900 to 1950 was less than 1 percent and only 2 3 percent according to the 1990 census,^ hi 1900,5.6 percent o f Wayne County’s population o f37,870 was of foreign bhth compared to 11.03 percent for the state of Ohio (pop. 4,157,545). Of Wayne County’s foreign-born population, 36.4 percent came 6om Germany and another 32.15 percent came ffom

Switzerland The proportions of Swiss and Germans in Wayne County’s population in

1900 was much higher than for the rest of the state, while its population fiom other countries was signffîcantly lower. These immigrants were the ancestors of some of today’s Amish and Mennonites, joining those who had arrived earlior 6om Pennsylvania.

1900, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Washmgton, DC, 1901), 553,636; Bureau of the Census, Table 3: Race and Hispanic Origin, Table 5: Race and Hispanic Origin, Table 76: Genoal Characteristics of Persons, Households, and Families, County Subdivisions, C ensus o f Population: 1990, General Population Characteristics: Ohio. (Washington, DC, 1992), 21,31,583-84.

This compares to a mmority population in the state of Ohio that was 2.4 percent in 1900, 6 3 percent m 1950, and 12.2 percent in 1990. Bureau of the Census, Table 16: Native and Foreign Bom and White and Colored Population, Classified by Sex, by States and Territories (Calculated), and Table 22: Native and Foreign Bom and White and Colored Population, Classified by Sac, by Counties (Calculated), Twelfth Census o fthe United States: 1900, Vol. 1, Part 1 (Wasbmgto% DC, 1901), 490-91,597; Bureau of the Census, Table 6: Population o f Counties by Nfihor Civil Divisions, Table 14: Race by See, for the State, Urban and Rural, and Table 34: General Characteristics of the Population, for Standard Metropolitan Areas, Urbanized Area^ and Urban Places o f 10,000 or M or^ Census ofPqpulation: 1950, VoL H, Part 35 (Washington, DC, 1952), 22-23,56,98; Bureau of the Census, Table 3: Race and Hispanic Origin, Table 5: Race and Hispanic Origin, and Table 76: General Characteristics o f Persons, Households, and Families County Subdivisons, Census o fPopulation: 1990, General Population Characteristics: Ohio (Washmgton, DC, 19%), 21,31,583-84.

25 The most numerous other immigrant group was the Italians^ who mostly arrived between

1900 and 1940 and settled m Wooster?^

Wayne and neighboring Hohnes, Stark, and Tuscarawas counties are home to a large Amish and Mennonite population. Data from the 1990 Glemnary Research Center survey of church membership showed that 7.94percent o f Wayne County’s church members were Mennonites (compared to 0.42 percent for the state) and 11.89 percent were Amish (compared to 0.66 perçoit for the state). Other dénominationswith large percentages o f members in Wayne County include: Catholic (13.07percent), Methodist

(13.84percent), Presbyterian (10.88percent), Lutheran (8 2 5percent). United Church o f

Christ (6.55percent), and B ^tist (521 percent).^

Because members of the Momonite and Amish groups often adhered to a community-centered non-technological lifostyle, Anabaptist women are associated with quiltmaking. Many of these women currently make quilts that are sold in small shops or are donated to relief and missionary organizations for sale and distribution. Wayne

County has therefore become a destination for tourists and collectors seeking to bity

Bureau of the Census, Table 32: Foreign Bom Population, Distributed Accordmg to Country of Bhth, by States and Territories, Ohio, and Table 34: Foreign Bom Population, Distributed Accordmg to Country o f Birth, by Counties, Ohio, Wayne County, Twelfth Census ofthe United States: 1900, Vol. 1, Part I (Washington, DC, 1901), 732-35,776-77.

^ Martin B. Bradley and others. Churches and Church Membership in the United States: 1990. A n Enumeration by Region, State, and County &tsed on Data Reportedfinr 133 Church Groupings (Attenta: Glenmaty Research Center, 19%), 28-29,312-13.

26 hand-sewn qnilts.^^ The Amish. (called Old Order Mennonites in Canada) and the mmority of U.S. Mennonites are very different in I^sQrle and attitnde. I chose not to include Amish women in this study because their lives as members of a communal socie^ focused on mamtaming strong mtemal ties by avoiding worldly distractions are very different hom those of most Wayne County resi&nts. However, because the patterns of Meimonite denominational change led those g ro i^ into almost complete acculturation with the rest o f modem U.S. society, I have not only included them in this work but have also chosen to focus on how quiltmaking has played a role in defining

Mennonite women’s new roles. My sample is consequently somewhat biased toward the association of quiltmaking with changing gender roles in a conservative community.

Overall, the demographic data suggest that, while Wooster may be known as a fnendly place for manufacturing companies, it is less fiiendly toward minorities than other, probably more urban and heavily industrial, areas. Wayne County is atypically homogeneous within the state o f Ohio. The strong presoice of Swiss-German Anabaptist immigrants and their descendants, with their adherence to the Amish and Meimonite religions, has preserved a unique subculture. It was, in feet, this homogeneity that made

Wayne County an attractive place to study quiltmaking, since it fecilitated networking.

In addition, the evolution o f the practice of selling quilts suited an examination o f the commodification of quiltmaking. In the concludmg chuter of this dissertation, I explore

See^ for instance, ‘Walue Retail Meets Ohio Amish Country: Wooster, Ohio, Complmc to Feature Both Outlet and Amish Retail/* Cham-Store-Age-Executive-With- Shoi^ng-C enter-Agi 69 Qi/iay 1993): II&.

27 more fülly the extent to which my conclusions are unique to Wayne County or might be

applicable to womm in other areas.

Quiltmakmg as a Gendered Activity

Quiltmakmg is by-and-Iarge an activi^ associated with women. SixQr-Sve of the

sbdy-six people who provided demographic m&rmation fi>r this study are female.

Because of this preponrkrance, I will use femmme pronouns to refer to quiltmakers

throughout this dissertation. The one man who was interviewed resembled the rest of the

quiltmakers in all ways except his prhnary occupation. While several quiltmakers had

done fectory work, he was the only one to be mvolved in heavy industry (manufecturing

sheet metal). Several women told me they had taught young sons to sew or embroider as a way to keep them occupied. A few sons had even made enough blocks to make a quilt of their own, although these blocks were “put together” into a quilt by their mothers.

Only one woman said that her son bad remamed interested m quiltmaking after reaching adulthood. The pictures she shared with me suggested that this young man, who had moved to Iowa, was a skilled quilt designer and top-maker.

Most boys stopped making blocks when they were old enough to play with other boys away feom home, and the one male quiltmaker commented that he frequently saw reactions o f surprise and disbelief from both women and men Wien he went to quilt group meetings or purchased fabrics, hi general, husbands were not involved in their wives' quiltmakmg though many women said their spouses were proud ofthefr workor helped them set up bullgr equipment. Only two husbands had been involved in makmg quilts themselves: one man wodred with his wife to make a quilt celebrating theU.S.

Bicentennial, and a quiltmaker wha was severely nearsighted received considerable 2S sewing assistance fiom her husband, although she the design and much o f die sewmg herself.^

Life cycle related activities, especially marriage and childrearing had a strong impact on women’s quiltmakmg. The qudtmakers interviewed ranged in age fiom thirty- three to ninety^three at the time o fthe interview. The average age was shcty-eight. I made no special effort to mterview older quiltmakers. Rather, somevhat true to stereotype, more older women than younger are active quiltmakers. As wül be discussed more thoroughly elsewhere, many of the older quiltmakers had made them first quilts as young women, generally when in their late teens or just befiire they were married. Some had also made them first quilts during them years as young wives and mothers. Most, however, were not heavily involved with quiltmaking until their children left home, they retired finm paid employment, or their husbands retmed fiom farmmg. The younger women interviewed—those who still had children at home or who were still employed— all commented that they had been able to do more quiltmakmg only since their children became old enough to entertain themselves or that they looked forward to retmmg or decreasing their work hours so they would have more time to quilt This observation was confirmed by the 6 ct that even among the Mennonites, most of the women who attended the monthly sewing meetings were at least in their Sties. Both the older and the younger women at these group meetings commented that jobs and children prevented most

Martha Connors [pseud.], I August 1997, Orrville; Kevin Horst, Ifi June 1997, Wooster; Susan Shie, 18 July 1997, Wooster; Mary Sterner, 5 June 1997,Daiton; EsAer Yoder, 18 July 1997, Apple Creek.

29 mothers m thek thirties and forties fiom having time to qoSt> Hgure L I shows the range

o f ages of qudtmakers in this study?^

o 20

30-39 40-49 50-59 60-69 70-79 80-89 90-93 Age o f Respondents

Figure LI : Age at Time o f Interview

Nearly ad of the qudtmakers interviewed were or had been married. The roles of

wifo and homemaker were at the center o f most of the women’s identities. At the time of

the interview, forty-three o f the respondents were currently married and nineteen were

widowed. Three were separated or divorced and only one had n^erm arried. Nmeteen

qudtmakers had been married dfty or more years at the time of the interview or whœ

their husbands had died. Twenty-one qudtmakers had been married between thirty and

fifty years; twelve had been married between ten and thirty years. The four marriages of

JeriFickes, I July 1997, Wooster; Myra Norton, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Eda Rohrer, 29 May 1997, Ortvdle; MEibel Smucker, 30 MayI997, Orrville; Ruth Steiner, 3 June 1997, Dalton.

30 less than ten years duration were second marriages. Most of the quiltmakers would probably describe themselves as socially conservative and unlikely to consider divorce an acceptable option «ccept m extreme situations.

Most respondents married their current husbands (or the ones 6om whom they were most recently widowed or divorced) when they were in their twenties (forty-six of sbcty respondents). O f these, forty married between the ages o f twenty and twenty-five.

There does not appear to be any unusual tendency for the women in this study to have married at a younger or older age than other American women of their age cohorts.

Marriages where the bride was younger than twenty (eight out of sixty) or older than thirty (six out of sixty) occurred throughout the time period studied, though four of the late teen-age wedding occurred during the 1940s and 1950s. The youngest bride— married in 1953—was seventeen at the time o f her wedding. The oldest was forty-three when she married for the first time in 1971.^*

The number and age of children in the household is a significant foctor in determiningwhen in her 1 ^ cycle a womanwas able to be an active quiltmaker. Of the sbcty-three quiltmakers who told me about their fomilies, only three had not become parents, the one vdio did not marry until she was m her forties and two others who were m then second marriages. Most of the quiltmakers had between two and four chilcben

(forty-two o f sixty-three respondents). This group included a roughly equal proportion of women who had begun their fomilies m each, decade between the 1930s and the 1990s.

Bureau o f the Census, Table MS-2; Estimated Median Age at Hrst Marrfoge^ by Smc: I89fito the Present Entemet release date: 7 January 1999, v 2 February 2000. 31 Four quiltmakers had only one cb ilt Wnie fourteen had five or more. As might be

expected, the large fomilies (ranging fiom five to eleven children) belonged to women

who had married during the 1920s through the 1950s. These women began their fomilies

between I92& and 1958 and gave bnth to them last children between 1948 and 1971.

Most o f the quiltmakers began their fomilies when they were m their twœties.

Forty out o f sixty had their first child by the time they were twenty-five years old, including three who gave birth when m their late teens. All but one had had their first child by the age o f thirty-five. Fifty o fthe fifty-six women with more than one child had completed their fomilies by the time they were forty years old. All but one had given birth to her last child by the age of forty-five.

This demographic mformation suggests that the grotq> on Wiich this study is based generally resembles the more socially conservative elements of the U.S. population. It also suggests that one of the factors m the timing of the second quilt revival in the early 1970s may have been that women who had learned to make quilts as young women during the first revival (ending by the early 1940s) only had time to engage themselves in this hobby in the 1970s when their responsibilities for raising children and workmg to educate and start them on them own lives had been completed.

Educational and Occupational htfluences on Q uiltm a^g

The education levels of the quiltmakers in this stucty ranged fiom eighth grade to a doctorate. Ih general, the amount of educatiomthe women gamed was strongly related to the year they were borxL Women v^o were bom b ^ n e 1940 were much less likely to have finished high school than were younger women. Figure 1 2 . shows the level o f educational attainment, gorged by (kcade of birfi. Only fourteen women did not fiiish 32 Hgk school; all but one of them were bom befi)re 1940. The next largest group, sixteeir women, finished high school but did not receive any additional formaleducation.

Twœty-nine qudtmakers, mcludmg the one male, received at least some higher education, with approxhnately one-third o f that group attending nursing school (most completed a three-year program run by a hospital, although a few received bachelor’s degrees m nursmg). Women with more education were more likely to have taken paid jobs outside the home and thus to have more cash to spend on quiltmaking projects.

However, even women with long-term full-thnejobs continued to identify wife- and motherhood as their most valued roles.

20

15

1'o Æ- I 5 -

did not finished nursmg some finished graduate finish high high school school college college school school

1 bom between 1900-1939 1 bom between 1940-1969

Figure 1.2; Education Levels, by Decade ofBirth

Most o fthe women m this stufy^ had been housewives or farmwives ferm uchof their adult lives. The rural womenltalked to emphasized the difference between these 33 two occiçations. Bemg a âimwifë mcliufed a good deal of outdoor wo& in bam,

and fields, cooking fi>r workers, and some o f the bookkeeping fi>r the farm business, in

addition to the cleaning cooking, child rearmg, and decoratmg associated with being a

housewife.^^ Many women had held so-called pink-collar jobs, interspersing paid jobs

with full-time child-rearing and housekeeping. They did clerical work, cleaned houses or

hospitals, served as cooks or waitresses, ran home-based businesses or hotels, or held

sales positions. The women vriio had held fiiU-thne white-collar or professional jobs

clustered in the female gendered fields of education and nursing.^ While quiltmaking

was a gender-appropriate leisure activity, the women tn this study had to claim time for it

fiom among a variety other “appropriately feminine” activities.

The financial status of the q^tm akers included in this study appeared to range

fix)m fairly wealthy to financially marginal. Few respondents were willing to share

specific information about their income levels. Of those providing this information ^ =

See Katherine JeUison, Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 19I3- 1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolma Press, 1993); and Kimberly D. Schmidt, “Transforming Tradition: Women’s Work and the ^fects of Religion and Economics m Two Rural Mennonite Communities, 1930-1990” (PhD. diss.. State University o fNew York, 1995).

While this employment pattern is not significantly different fix>m that o f women o f these generations elsewhere m the U.S., the husbands o f female quiltmakers in this study clustered strongly m the fields of farming, fectory work, automotive work, and various aspects of the construction and housing trades. Fewer than a dozen men had been teachers, ministers, admhnstrators, doctors, or held other Wiite-collarjobs. Several of the younger men in this white-collar groi^ were aigineers and computer progranuner^ often havmg learned on-the-job ratherthaneamîngafi)rmal degree,andone was a airplane piloL While the men had more Gcctq>ational variety than did the women, th ^ were more likely than average American men in their age groups to have spent their lives doing some kind o f manual work.

34 twenty), household incomes ranged 6om açproxhnatrïy $12,000 to $100,000 durmg the year before the research was done. In half of these households, the women had foehr own income fiom current employment or Social Security and pensions. Ail of the women lived in comfortable homes and apartments, although some were considerably larger than others. Many women said they relied heavily on help fiom grown children and government programs to meet medical and household «cp^ises; othas owned winter homes in southern states in addition to spacious houses or condommiums in Ohio.

While quiltmakers fiom all economic and cultural classes were included in this study, their experiences of this activity were not identical. Some women clearly remember making quilts out of scraps because it was an economical way to satisfy several personal and family needs; others have always purchased fabrics specially for making quQts. Even women who said they had never felt the need to keep to a strict budget in purchasing quiltmakmg materials made clear distmctions concerning reasons for patronizing specialty quilt shops or the cheaper cham fobric stores.

Religious Affiliation and Quiltmakers' Gender Roles

Most of the quiltmakers I mterviewed were actively involved in them religious denominations. Only five of the sncty-six respondents said they had no religious affiliationor were inactive in them churches. While Mennonites were the largest smgle religious group, they made up less than half of the total interviews (twenty-five out of sixty-six interviews with demogr^Aic mformation available). Figure 13 shows the religious affiliations o f the quiltmakers I mterviewed. Most of the respondents who were members of Anab^tist denominationsMennonites, Amish* Brethren, and Christian

35 conferences/^ Theûr church buQdmgs^ homes, styles o f 6e ss, and conversations were similar to those of respondents who belonged to mainstreamProtestant denominations.

K 10

* UCC is United Church of Christ. “Other” includes Christian Missionary Alliance, Church o f God, Episcopal, New Age/Pagan, Amish, unspecified Protestant, and no afGliation.

Figure 1.3; Religious Affiliation

Because I identified quiltmakers to include in this study through referral fiom church leaders, my sample may be biased toward more religiously active, socially conservative Protestant women, although eliminating the Amish corrected that bias somewhat Of the eleven respondents contacted through the Tree City Quilters* Guild in

Wooster or by word-of-mouth, fi)ur bad no religious affiliations or were inactive (of the

“Liberal” in this context is a relative term. While most Mennonites do not fellow the strict lifes^le regulations to which conservative Anabaptist groups like the

36 total of five in this category) and two identified themselves as Pagan/New Age. The rest

belonged to mainstream denominations.'*^ This suggests that more interviews with guild

members would have enlarged the number of non-afGliated or socially and theologically

liberal quiltmakers. While the overall argument of this dissertation has implications for

understanding how women in general sometimes use gender imagery, it is based

primarily upon, and is most directly applicable to, socially conservative women for whom

'traditional" gender roles and images form an accepted standard of behavior.

In summary, the quiltmakers in this study were overwhelmingly female. All were

white. Only one had never been married, and most were part of long-term heterosexual

relationships. Almost all of the women had at least one child; the largest family had

eleven children. The quiltmakers ranged in age firom thirty-three to ninety-three, with an

average age of sixty-eight Education levels ranged firom eighth grade through the doctorate, with most respondents (approximately 78 percent) finishing at least high

school. The amount of education received was closely related to age, with the older

women being less likely to have finished high school or received some form of higher education. With few exceptions, the quiltmakers in this study had worked or were continuing to work as housewives, farmwives, or in traditionally female jobs in factories, offices, and the professions. A large majority (approximately ninety percent) o f the

Amish adhere, they are still relatively conservative and traditional m their approaches to gender roles, family composition, and political beliefs.

The fifth religiously inactive quiltmaker quilted with a Mennonite group, which is where I met her, but was neither a member of that church nor active m any other church. Only two respondents had grown up m the Catholic Church; all had Christian backgrounds.

37 quîltmakers were involved m Protestant religious congregations; just over one-tbird of the group were Mennonite. All of these demographic characteristics affected the ways in which the women experienced quiltmaking because they influenced when the women learned their skills, how much money they had to spend on resources, how much time they could spend making quilts, and whether and what kind of quiltmaking groups they joined.

Methodoloev

This dissertation explores quiltmaking in Wayne County, Ohio, from 1915 to

1995 through the use of oral history interviews and written records. This time frame encompasses two periods when quiltmaking became visibly popular and commodifred

(I9I0s through 1930s and 1970s through 1990s) and also the lull between these periods.

Sources

As previous researchers in the histories of quiltmaking and of women have found, written records providing documentation of activities and motivations are often scattered or nonexistent. The situation in Wayne County is no different. There are, however, a range of sources that provided some information about quiltmaking and its role in the lives of Wayne County women and their families and communities. Some of this in&rmation was available in local and state historical societies. However, most of the written material was still in the possession of church group members.

Local newspapers were one source of information for this project. The major newspaper in Wayne County during most of the twentieth century was the Wooster Daily

R ecord (1920-fresent); it provided coverage for Wooster itself and the county as a whole. It replaced both the Wooster Daily News (1905—1920) and the Wooster Daily 38 R epublican (1887-1920). Other newspapers used in this study include the D alton

G azette (1875-1971) and the Kidron News (1934-1971), which merged into a single, still existing, paper under both names in 1972; the Orrville Courier-Crescent (1911-present); and the Sfireve News (1943-1952). These papers represented the major communities throughout the county. All the publications except the Wooster papers were weekly or bi-weekly; all carried local and syndicated stories and ads. Original copies of most issues o f the Wooster Daily Record were available at the Ohio Historical Society (OHS) Library in Columbus and in libraries in Wayne County. Selected runs of the other papers were also available at the OHS Library or in Wayne County libraries.

Newspaper advertisements provided information about quilt-related products available to local quiltmakers and documented trends in quilt fashions and manufacture.

Occasional articles revealed the names of women’s groups or of individuals who made quilts, usually very brief notices of group meetings, some were more detailed and informative. Newspaper reports also documented quilts entered in the Wayne County fair, though those articles did not otherwise prove informative.

Wayne County women’s quiltmaking groups had records of varying usefulness and availability. Women’s groups in some churches, including Mennonite, Methodist,

Lutheran, and other denominations, began meeting early m the twentieth century to make clothing and other items for needy families or missionaries and their clients. Some of these groups still meet on a weekly or monthly basis to sew quilts and knot comforters.'^^

Many Wayne Coun^ residents refer to comforters as comforts, a term that Webster’s ThW International Dictionary associates with the NGdland and Southern U.S. dialects. Both quilts and comferters are “tactile sandwiched in viiich a top and bottom 39 Women^s sewing groups in other churches have ceased meeting on a regular basis because long-time members have become too old while younger women are still working full-time or raising families. The Mennonite women’s groups maintained large collections of records; several groups gave me free access to their archives. In addition, a

Methodist Ladies Aid group located records and shared them with me. These materials document women’s use of quilts and quiltmaking skills to Anther public and quasi-public goals by the sale and rafflingof quilts and quilt-making services.

In addition to the records of the Mamonite women’s groups, I was given access to the records of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Board of Directors. Since 1966, this organisationhas produced a large regional Amd-raising event to benefit Mennonite charitable work. The single largest money-making element of the Relief Sale is a quilt auction. These records provide a valuable perspective on the increasing commercial value of quilts, as well as supporting information about how quiltmaking helped

Mennonite women define new roles for themselves.

In order to ascertain the costs and availabili^ of fabrics, threads, and quilt- specialty products such as patterns, instructions, and remnant bundles, I used Sears catalogs fiom 1915 to 1985. These provided a long-term, consistent source of financial mformation about quiltmaking resources, congruent with local written records indicating that Wayne County women purchased quiltmaking materials through mail-order catalogs.

layer of fabric and a middle layer of batting are stitched together. In a quilt, the stitching takes the form of a pattern of running stitches closely spaced over the whole sur&ce. In a comforter, the stitching consists of a series of knotted ties made o f yam, embroidery fioss, or narrow ribbon, spaced every two to four inches over the surfoce.

40 They also supplied mdicators of the popularity of home sewing; the products I was surveying moved 6om the 6ont of the catalog to the back before disappearing altogether.

However, written records were not the most fontful source for this project. A great deal of the information on which this dissertation is based comes 6om oral history interviews. Both early and later quilt history researchers demonstrate the importance of oral history in making visible the value that quiltmakers place on their work. Several oral historians quoted by Shulamit Reinharz in her survey o f feminist research methods urge that oral history not be used to uncover “facts” about women’s lives. They argue that the desire to learn about women’s activities and networks is a lure that draws the researcher away from listening to women’s subjective experiences.'*^ The distinction between the desire to learn what women did and what women folt about what they did is impractical in a research project like this in which written materials are inadequate. Since the late nineteenth century, craftswomen and designers have published an abundance of articles and books providing quilt patterns and discussing construction techniques.'*^ The surviving quilts themselves document the end results of the quiltmaking activity.

However, there is little written evidence about how and why women chose to make quilts

'*'* Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 141. See Kathy Anderson and others, “Beginning Where We Are: Feminist Methodology in Oral History.” Oral History Review 57 (1987): 103-127; and Michal McCall and Judith Wittner, “The Good News about Life l&tory,” in Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies, ed. Howard Becker and Michal McCall (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), 46-89; for the major discussions summarized by Reinharz.

'*^ Colleen Lahan Makowski, Quilting,l915-1983: An Annotated Bibliography ^detuchen, NJ: The Scarecrow Press, 1985).

41 or use certain patterns, firom where they actually drew thehr skills and inspiration, and to what uses they put their completed quilts. Oral history must thus be used to uncover both women's subjective experiences of quiltmaking and their actual activities and networks.

Participants in this oral history research were located though a process of networking. Through mail and telephone contacts with Wayne County quilt stores, churches, and communia groups, I located existing quilt groups whose leaders agreed to let me attend a meeting and interview members. Some members of these groups also agreed to be interviewed individually. Through these contacts, I also located members of quilt groups that no longer met, quiltmakers who were no longer active members of existing groups, and quiltmakers who were never members of quilt groups. Business owners were contacted through these methods or by direct contact after visiting the store.

I completed fifty-eight oral history interviews with long-time residents of Wayne

Coun^ based on three questionnaires; the first focused on the activities of individual quiltmakers; the second helped to establish a profile of the dynamics of quiltmaking in church sewing groups; and the third provided a brief introduction to contemporary quilt- related businesses. With the subjects’ permission, interviews were tape-recorded. Both closed-ended and open-ended questions were included. Closed-ended questions established the subjects’ demographic characteristics, including ages of the mdividuals or groups, education levels, occupations, and numbers and ages of children, and helped make the subjects more comfortable talking to me and being tape-recorded.^^ Open- ended questions asked about group and individual decision-making processes, why and

^ Remharz, Feminist Methods, 25. 42 with whom subjects made quilts, when in their lives they have made them, where they got their supplies and inspiration, and what they did with quilts or quilt-tops when they were completed. Most of these conversations included a comparison of the women’s current practices with what they had done in the past The sessions closed with an opportunity for the quiltmakers to comment on the interview itself and were often followed by the subject showing me her quilts or her workspace. When feasible, these informal conversations were also recorded. In all cases, I made extensive notes on the circumstances of the interview immediately following each session.

I conducted thirty-eight interviews using the individual quiltmaker questionnaire, although three of these were conducted with groups of two or three people. 1 conducted fifteen interviews with church groups (Meimonite, Lutheran, Methodist, Church of the

Brethren, and Christian Missionary Alliance), and five interviews with owners of quilt- related businesses. In all, ninety-two people were interviewed, of whom sixty-six provided detailed demographic information about themselves and their femilies.**^ While the group of people interviewed was in no way a statistically representative sample, the demographic information available suggests that the quiltmakers involved in my study were similar to Wayne County women in general, with the exception of a higher percentage of Meimonite women.

Before the interview began, each subject was given the opportunity to suggest a pseudonym or to request complete anonymity. Copies of the Human Subjects Review Exemption, the permission form, and final versions of all three questionnaires are included in the appendices.

43 Some historians are uncomfortable with oral history because it relies on people’s m em ories of what happened rather than on what was written when the events in question actually look place. The assumption is that such written records reflect more faithfully what happened than does memory, although many written sources are just as subjective and “after the fact” as oral narratives. Concerns about the subjectivity and variabili^ of memory are valid, as are questions about the role of the researcher in “creating” the information on which research is based.**^ To counter these concerns, I took great care to administerquestionnaires consistently and flexibly, allowing space for research subjects to express themselves on various issues that were personally important When there were inconsistencies in the women’s stories, I renamed questions to get clearer explanations.

Finally, 1 also documented the physical and experiential situation of each interview, including whether the quiltmaker was eager or reluctant to talk with me or was distracted by household or church group dynamics. These supplementary notes helped me to contextualize the oral interviews and evaluate whether the information I was given was likely to be as complete as possible.

In spite of these precautions, I am extremely conscious that much of the data on which this research project is based was a product of my actions as a researcher. While I feel that the information my subjects shared with me is an accurate reflection of their memories of quiltmaking and of growing up, creating their own households, raising children, and developing new roles as older adults, I had the distinct impression that many of my questions were about issues that they themselves did not consider to be

Reinharz, FemmfsrAfe/Aorfe, 19. 44 important. Often the questions that I, as an academic researcher and novice quiltmaker, felt would be particularly rich sources of data turned out to be rather uninformative. For instance, I expected to hear extended “genealogies” of how quiltmaking skills were passed along within networks of families and Mends. In fact, while all the women could remember fiom whom they learned to make quilts, very few seemed to attach any emotional significance to having learned the skill, nor had they ever spent much time thinking about how their teacher had learned. Similarly, questions about what kinds of fabrics were used in quiltmaking and where they were acquired were welcomed eagerly by those who took up the craft in the last twenty years, but tended to mystify women with a longer history, who were less likely to view acquiring fabric as part of the pleasure of quiltmaking.

Early interviews revealed several issues about the dynamics of quiltmaking of which I was unaware. This required me to add several questions to my later interviews to ensure that I collected this information for all subjects for whom it was relevant. One of these issues was the fact that some quiltmakers do not enjoy the entire process of making a quilt. Many women generally only do the tasks that they like, hiring other quiltmakers or purchasing items to produce a complete quilt. This pattern of behavior indicated an intemal economy among quiltmakers and suggested unexpected ways to group quiltmakers around their experiences.

My analysis of the oral history sources is based at least in part on the interaction between my subjects and me. I was not a “conduit,” allowing otherwise inarticulate or silenced individuals to tell their stories. Neither was I an “archaeologist,” merely

45 uncovering and preserving intact memories and stories.'*^ Rather, my subjects and I created my data out of their experiences and my questions. Had I not been there, asking the questions I did, the stories told to me would likely not have existed in the forms that 1 preserved, though the knowledge and articulateness would certainly have been there.^°

Throughout this dissertation, I have avoided using quiltmaking metaphors.

However, one excerpt 6om a fictional memoir is relevant to understanding my use of oral history interviews in this work. Aunt Jane o f Kentucky was a set o f short stories presented as the recollections of a rural Kentucky quiltmaker told to her city-bred niece.

In one story. Aunt Jane tells the narrator, that:

The neighbors will give you a piece [of fabric] here and a piece there, and you’ll have a piece every time you cut out a dress, and you take just what happens to come. And that’s like predestination. But when it comes to the cutting out, why, you’re firee to choose your own patterns. [ ... ] And

Kirin Narayan, “How Native Is a Native Anthropologist?,” in Situated Lives: Gender and Culture in Everyday Life, ed. Louise Lamphere, Helena Ragone, and Patricia Zavella (New York: Routledge, 1997), 23-41; Frigga Haug, “The Hoechst Chemical Company and Boredom with the Economy,” in Materialist Feminism: A Reader in Class, Difference, and Women’s Lives, e

hi reproducing parts of these interviews and the related written records as quotations in tWs text, I chose not to fiag grammatical or other errors. Other stylistic conventions I adopted to preserve the tone of the origmal materials and to provide consistent guides to the reader include a plain ellipsis (...) to mdicate when the voice of an interview subject trailed off in conversation. Vocal inflections are shown using italicized text. In most cases, the question I asked that elicited a certain comment is included within the text I have used an ellipsis withm square brackets ([...]) in quotes finm both oral and written sources to show where I have removed words to improve the clariQr o f a thought; words contained in square brackets ( [for example] ) may summarize removed text or provide clarification taken finm the contact of the interview.

46 that is just the way with living. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut them out and put them together pretty much to suit ourselves.^^

Similarly, at my request, Wayne County quiltmakers gave me parts of their life stories, but I am the person who cut them out and shaped them mto this narrative. I have attempted to be as accurate as possible in reproducing the mformation given to me—both the actual words and the additional meanings given to those words through physical setting and vocal inflection—but the analysis is my voice rather than theirs.

Organization o f Dissertation

In the second chapter of this dissertation, I wül explore in more detail the development and impact of the quiltmaking myths that are central to my argument and provide a brief history of the art of quiltmaking in the United States. This will include information about how quilts were made that will be useful to the non-quiltmaker when reading the rest of the dissertation.

Chapters 3 through 6 describe in detail the activities and attitudes of quiltmakers in Wayne County, Ohio. Chapter] examines quiltmakers’ attitudes toward the different processes of making quilts and toward other quiltmakers. These attitudes engendered an intemal economy among quiltmakers that was relatively constant through the twentieth century until the commercialization of the second revival. Chapters 4,5, and 6 each focus on a different time period: the 1910s through the 1930s, the 1940s through the

1960s, and the 1970s through the 1990s. The chapters explore how, why, and when

Eliza Calvert Hall,yf Quilter’s Wisdom: Conversations with Aunt Jane, adapted 6om the original publication ^rnirJhne o f Kentucky (publication information unknown, 1907), with introduction by Roderick Kiracofo (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994), vf, 37.

47 womea learned to make quilts; the fabrics and other materials they used; the buying and selling of quilts and quilt-related products and services; and the informal business transactions carried out by church women’s groups. This history demonstrates, in particular, how quiltmaking helped Meimonite women gain a larger institutional presence in their congregations as that denomination experienced a fundamental transformation in the mid- to late twentieth century.

Chapter 7 analyzes several quilt businesses nm by individual women as examples of commercialization. In chapter 8 ,1 explore the development of the Ohio Mennonite

Relief Sale, which prominently features a large quilt auction. These chapters exemplify many of the themes of commodification, leisure, women’s roles, and the myths and images associated with quiltmaking developed in earlier chapters.

Conclusion

While this dissertation is based on the experiences of a subset of quiltmakers in

Wayne County, Ohio, my conclusions have a broader applicability since the demographic profile of these women is generally congruent with quiltmakers researched by other scholars. This study illustrates the ways that some women have used the domestic gendered values embedded in myths about quiltmaking to claim ‘Tamily-owned” resources of time, space, and money for an empowering and individualistic leisure activity and to earn money in a way that did not, to them, carry connotations of labor. At the same time, the context in which they carried out their activities changed drastically.

Throughout the twentieth century, quiltmaking became less an extension of domestic skills and more a commodified maricer of personal creativify. During the first quiltmakmg revival m the 1910s through the 1930s, Wayne County women made quilts 48 fîrom both sewing scraps and newly purchased &brics. Some of these quilts saw hard use on beds and elsewhere around the house, whUe others were made and preserved to mark family milestones. Women were just beginning to view quiltmaking as a viable way for individuals and church groups to earn money. From the 1940s through the 1960s, commercial patterns and specially purchased fabrics became more common, and even quilts that were used daily were more likely to have been made as a special gift rather than as a routine bedcover. Individual women and especially members of church sewing groups began to sell quiltmaking skills to meet financial goals.

By the late twentieth century quiltmaking “revival,” beginning in the 1970s, quiltmaking had become highly visible as a commodified leisure activity and quilts were recognized as valuable commodities. Shopping for new fabrics and supplies was part of the pleasure of quiltmaking, both for shop owners and for customers. Individuals learned to make quilts in commercial settings, and made quilts to express themselves or to use as household decorations and gifts. Some church groups continued to sell quiltmaking skills while others found that making completed quilts for sale produced a better return. Even as quiltmaking became less connected to household needs and hence moved further away firom the mythic images associated with it, women reiterated the mythology of quiltmakmg as an expression of domestic and familial warmth, and reified it in advertisements for the Mennonite Relief Sale. Paradoxically, the commodification characteristic o f the second '^revival,” (a word that suggests little if any change) that made charity into a business and provided further economic and social opportunities for some women, threatened cherished values and perhaps therefi)re made the mythology even more necessary. It certamly sold quilts. 49 CHAPTER 2

QUILTMAKING IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: MYTH AND REALITY

Introductioa

The popularity of quiltmaking has waxed and waned throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It seems safe to say that there have always been four ^ e s of quilts made in the U.S.: the comforter, in which the three layers of fabric and batting are held together with knots rather than quilting; the utility quilt, intended primarily for warmth, with relatively little attention given to appearance; the nice quilt intended both to provide a warm bed-covering and to highlight the maker's design and sewing skills; and the heirloom or masterpiece quilt, conceived primarily to showcase a woman’s needlework skills, her class position, or certain milestones in her life or the life of her family or fiiends. Of the four strands, the heirloom quilt was originally the most

Aequently made, though it was by no means conunon. Heirloom quilts have been made in the U.S. at least since the mid-eighteenth century. Comforters may or may not have as long a history. Quilts—with small running stitches holding the layers o f fabric and batting together and the top layer of fabric fiequently produced via piecework or appliqué—intended for general use in the home did not ^tpear in any significant quantity until after the industrialization o f the textile industry in the & st third of the nineteenth

50 centuiy. Both the popularity of quilts and comforters as bedcovers and also the popularity of quiltmaking as a creative activity have shifted over time.

Until the 1980s, books written about the history of quilts and quiltmaking in the

U.S. tended to obscure rather than clarify these differences in type and their shifting popularity. This is especially true of books written early in the twentieth century. These older books—the most well-known and widely available of which are Q uilts: Their Story and How to Make Them, written by Marie Webster in 1915, and Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them, written by Ruth Finley in 1929—perpetuated an image of quiltmakmg that suggested a monolithic experience o f womanhood centered on the white Family and the pioneer or lower-middle-class home.‘ In this image, quiltmaking was a necessary part of the housewife’s domestic work. It provided her family with warm bedcovers; it made frugal use of worn clothing and leftover scraps of cloth; and it provided her with a creative outlet and a potential source of beauty in an otherwise harsh existence. In other words, the third strand—the nice quilt that was both attractive and warm—was assumed to be the universal norm. Utility quilts and comforts were portrayed as being made only under the most primitive conditions, and heirloom quilts only rarely made at all.

^ Marie Webster, Quilts: Their Story and Haw to Make Them (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1915; reprint Santa Barbara: Practical Patchwork, 1990); Ruth Fmley, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them (McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1929; reprint, McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1992). A third book. The Romance o f the Patchwork Quilt, was published by Carrie IM I and Rose Kretsinger m 1935 (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd.). The book is based heavily on contemporaneous news clq)pings and on Webster’s and Fmley’s book. Because of its derivative character, 1 have chosen not to analyze the book m this chapter.

51 Marie Webster and Ruth Finley were quilt designers and collectors wiio were

&irly accurate in documenting eighteenth and nineteenth century quilt designs.

However, they created a context for that documentation that sentimentalized and romanticized life in colonial America and the early United States. They exaggerated the importance of quilts and quiltmaking to that time period, and obscured the reality of quiltmaking as a multi-faceted activity that included domestic, cultural, and leisure aspects but that was initially more likely to be found in a wealthy, urban home rather than a poor or rural one. These works on quilt history minimized the effect of technological and social change on quiltmakmg practices through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, obscured class and race differences among quiltmakers, ignored the buying and selling of quiltmaking supplies, and did not explore the different meanings utility, heirloom and other quilts had for their makers. Because of the influence of Webster and

Finley on later quiltmakers and historians, this simplified view of both quilt history and women's history has wide currency among people interested in quilts.

Even after researchers, many of whom were afSliated with the American Quilt

Study Group, began to unravel and document these separate strands of quiltmaking, the mythic images persisted among quiltmakers, even among quiltmakers who were not explicitly familiar with the work o f Webster and Finley.^ hi other words, while Webster

^ The American Quilt Study Group was formed in 1980 to encourage and support accurate research about quilts and quiltmaking. AQSG holds an annual conforence, the proceedings o f which are published as Uncovering. AQSG members are both quilt enthusiasts without formal scholarly training and academic specialists in social and women's history, material culture analysis, tactile conservation, art and literary theory, sociology, folklore, anthropology, or women’s studies.

52 and Finley aiticulated the myths early in the twentieth century and sales of their books throughout the century disseminated them widely, they did not completely originate the myths. Those mythic images—colonial and fiontier American antecedents, an association with domestici^ and frugali^, and isolation from technological change— persist among quiltmakers and are developed and distributed as much at the grassroots level as by “authorities” and manufrcturers because they provide some twentieth century women with a culturally defensible justification for spending time, money, and household space on themselves.

I am not denying that at various times and places and in various economic and cultural groups, quilts have indeed served a purpose as warm and reasonably economical bedcovers. Rather, 1 am saying that the choice of any individual woman to make quilts had as much to do with her desire to use her own time and other family resources in that way, as it did with the “grimness of economic need” so generally portrayed as the original motivation behind quiltmaking, especially in the twentieth century, when even those who actively promoted the myth admitted that it was no longer the reason

‘Modern” women made quilts.^ In this chapter, I will discuss the mythic images of quiltmaking developed and articulated in the works of Webster and Finley and place this discussion withm the context of more detailed research and less mythic views about quiltmakmg developed since the 1980s.

^ Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 33; Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 111-114,155- 156.

53 Colonial Revival Writers on. Quilt History: The Articulation nf Oirilt Mvths

Historians have identified the years between the 1870s and the 1930s as the

Colonial Revival era.'* Encouraged by the same uneasiness about industrialization and urbanization and the massive new migrations firom eastern and southern Europe that caused their politically-inclined neighbors to push for progressive legal and social reform, some Americans sought to preserve and re-create the “best” elements of colonial life.

Colonial revivalists perceived the entire time period fiom the arrival of English settlers in

Massachusetts to approximately the 1820s as a period when American society was most purely American: white, Protestant, and hard-working, with harmonious class relations and minimal racial conflict They focused their gaze most strongly on New England, although southern plantations and Dutch farms in New York were sometimes included in their cultural geography.

Colonial revivalists founded many museums, including both traditional gallery- style museums and the innovative house and village museums like Colonial

Williamsburg that purported to show how people had lived “in the old days.” They also began to amass large collections of colonial style furniture and other household items, some fine and artistic, some folksy and everyday. These collections were used to furnish

'* See, fisr instance, Harvey Green, “Lookmg Backward to the Future: The Colonial Revival and American Culture,” in Creating a Dignified Past: Museums and the Colonial Revival, ed. Geoffiey L. Rossano (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Die., 1991), 1-16. For the colonial revival in general, see Alan Axelrod, ed.. The Colonial Revival in America ^ e w York: W. W. Norton and Co., in conjunction with the Winterthur Museum, 1985); and Geoffiey Rossano, ed.. Creating a Dignified Past: Museums and the Colonial Revival (Savage, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1991).

54 and supply the museums, often with little regard 6)r whether individual pieces were authentic to the time being showcased in the museum, or mdeed, for whether the pieces were authentic antiques at ail or merely reasonably accurate re-creations of period pieces.

For colonial revivalists, strict historical accuracy was much less important than creating a comfortable ideal image of how America used to be before it was, in their opinion, threatened by the cultural dislocations of religious, racial, and ethnic plurality and cultural and class differences that characterized later U.S. society.^ Marie Webster and

Ruth Finley wrote their books on quilt history within this colonial revival context.

Marie Daugherty Webster was bom in 1859 in Wabash, Indiana, to a well-to-do family. Her father was a successful banker and entrepreneur; her mother raised a large femily. Webster completed high school and would have gone on to college had a severe allergy not intervened. Instead, she continued her education at home with a tutor.

Webster’s formal and informal education focused on the traditional classics of western education: the history, literature, and philosophy of Egypt, Palestine, Greece, Rome, and

Western Europe. As a young adult, she wrote and edited stories for the local newspaper.

In addition to her educational and journalistic projects, Webster enjoyed doing the fine embroidery she had learned from her mother. Marie Webster married a banker m 1888;

^ See, in particular, Kenneth Ames, introduction to The Colonial Revival in America^ ed. Alan Axelrod (New Yorit: W. W. Norton and Co., m conjunction with the Wmterthur Museum, 1985), 11-13.

55 they had one son.^ Compared to other women of her generation, she had fewer family responsibilities and more leisure time.

Webster made her first quilt top in 1909. At age 50, married to a successful businessman, she was inspired by the ongoing colonial revival movement rather than by any need to produce bedcovers for her family. The colonial revival, the Arts and Crafts movement, an effort to encourage hand production of beautiful and useful items, and the

“discovery’^ o f Appalachian culture by scholars had converged to create an increased interest in quilts and quiltmaking among financially comfortable American women. In deciding to make a quilt top, Webster was an early participant in this quilt revival.

Because she did not like the pieced patterns most commonly associated with late nineteenth century quilts, Webster designed her own appliqué pattern based on a traditional rose design.

Shortly after completing her top and with the encouragement of family and fiiends, Webster submitted a photograph of the quilt and sketches of the pattern to The

Ladies ' Home JotoTtal. The JotoTial had been publishing quilt patterns since the 1880s, including commissioning new, “more artistic” patterns firom artists such as Maxfield

Parrish. The Jotim aV s editor, Edward Bok, invited Webster to submit more designs. By

1912, feurteen of Webster’s designs had been published. At the urging of Bok and his

^ Biographical material about Marie Webster and information about her publications are taken firom Rosalind Webster Perry, “Marie Webster: Her Story,” in Quilts: Their Story and Haw to Make Them, Marie Webster (Santa Barbara: Practical Patchwork, 1990), 205-224; and Cuesta Benberry, “Marie Webster: Indiana’s Gift to American (^uüts,” in Quilts o f Indiana: Crossroads o f Memories, ed. Lidiana Quilt Registry Project (Bloomington: hidiana University Press, 1991), 88-93.

56 friend Frank Doubleday of Doubleday, Page, and, Co., Webster began collecting information from libraries and museum catalogs for a book about the history of quiltmaking. Webster’s research drew heavily on the textile traditions of the geographic areas covered by her classical education. The book. Quilts: Their Story and How to

M ake Them, was published in October 1915 to such popularity that a second printing was required before the end of the year. Q uilts was further reprinted several times in the

1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and remained available through the 1960s. Webster’s granddaughter, Rosalind Webster Perry, produced a new edition with corrected footnotes and a biographical essay in 1990. Webster thus played a significant role in shaping ideas about quiltmaking during both the early and late twentieth century quilt revivals.

Based on the popularity of her published designs and of Q uilts, Webster began to lecture about quilt history and to sell her own designs. She produced and sold patterns, partially assembled kits, unquilted but otherwise complete tops, and frnished quilts. In

1921, Webster, her sister Emma, and two women friends founded a business called

Practical Patchwork Company to facilitate the production and sale of Webster’s designs and products at a time when female-owned and operated businesses were unusual, especially among wealthy women.

The name Practical Patchwork is somewhat ironic, although probably unintentionally so. Webster’s quilts were of lightweight, light-colored, cotton fabrics and were carefully sized to cover a bed as a decorative spread rather than as a utilitarian blanket In this sense, they were practical for the housewifo looking for an “authentic” quSt for her colonial revival bedroom décor. In addition, Webster’s products, like other early twentieth century quüt kits, were practical in that even the most basic pattern sets 57 included the design, templates of shapes to be cut, a photograph, and fabric samples/

The irony in this business name—and really, the contradiction between Webster’s designs and her interpretation of quilt history—is that Webster’s designs were clearly for decorative/heirloom quilts made of newly purchased pastel and white fabrics carefully applîquéd in graceful and sophisticated floral and juvenile patterns by leisured twentieth century housewives, while her history emphasized quilts as utilitarian bedcovers painstakingly pieced from carefully hoarded scraps by hard-working, beauty-starved colonial and frontier helpmates. The irony is furthered by the fact that the detailed history of appliqué and quilting in the classical world and western Europe, and most of the actual quilts pictured and described in Q uilts, are closer in intent and meaning, if not always in design, to Webster’s own quilts than to the utilitarian quilts Webster believed to have been produced in huge numbers by colonial and frontier women.

In 1930, Webster stopped designing new quilt tops. She and her sister retired from Practical Patchwork Company in 1942 and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, to be near Webster’s son. Her partners continued the business for several years until they, too, retired. Webster died in 1956.®

^ Perry, “Marie Webster,” 217-218. See also Anne Copeland and Beverly Dunivent, “Kh Quilts in Perspective,” in Uncoverings 1994, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American (Juilt Study Group, 1995), 141-167; Xenia E. Cord, “Marketing (Juilt Kits in the 1920s and the 1930s,” in Uncovering^ 1995, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American C^uilt Study Group, 1995), 139-173.

^ Rosalind Webster Perry resurrected the Practical Patchwork name in the late 1980s to republish Q u ilts and Webster’s quilt designs. Perry, “Marie Webster,” vii.

58 Ruth Ebrîght Finley came fiom a background similar to that of Marie Webster.

She also had some similarities in her career in that, although she was of a prosperous and socially prominent family, she pursued a career and had few domestic obligations. Finley was bom in 1884 in Akron, Ohio, to a politically active family with a strong sense of its own colonial roots. Her father was active in Republican politics and supported his family through political appointments, mostly as Postmaster of Akron. Her mother did civic, charitable, and political work, serving as one of two official hostesses during William

McKinley’s terms as governor of Ohio. It was through Finley’s mother’s family in

Connecticut that Finley drew much of her connection to and information about colonial

American iife.^

Finley attended Oberlin and Buchtel colleges, but did not stay long enough at either school to receive a degree. She then spent three years travelling and fieelance writing before accepting a job with the Akron Beacon Journal in 1907. At the Beacon

Journal Finley wrote muckraking stories, often going undercover as a worker. She met her future husband, Emmett, a reporter with a law degree, during one of these assignments when he playacted the role of her beau in order to divert her coworkers’ suspicions. Finley and her husband had no children. They left Akron for Cleveland in

1910 and later moved to the New York City area as Emmett rose through the ranks of the

^ Biographical material about Ruth Fml^r and information about her publications are taken fiom Ricky Claric, Tluth Fmley and the Colonial Revival Era,” in Uncovering^ 1995, ed. Vhgmia Gunn (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1995), 33-65; and Barbara Brackman, introduction to Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them, Ruth Fmlqr (McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1992), 7-15.

59 Sciîpps Howard news empire. Fîniey continued to work as a âeelance writer and editor o f newspaper women’s pages, often for papers vdiere Emmett was working.

Finley had begun collecting quilts as early as 1915, while still living in Ohio.

Biographer Ricky Clark suggests that Finley and her maternal family were ideally situated to exemplify the colonial revival spirit. As a family with long and well- documented roots in colonial New England, the Bissell descendants had all the antiques and genealogical material they needed to decorate their homes in “authentic” colonial style and to take leading roles in the Daughters of the American Revolution and similar organizations. While Finley herself appears to have done only a minimal amount of needlework, her quilt collection exemplified the antiquarian aspect of the colonial revival. Whenever she could, Finley augmented her quilt collectioa by recording the stories of the women fi’om whom she purchased quilts.

In 1920, Finley and her husband purchased a house on Long Island that had been built in 1810. She began collecting quilts and stories in earnest, partially to decorate her house “authentically.” In 1929, she published Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women

Who Made Them, based on her collection of oral history notes, augmented by research in her family’s papers. The book was well marketed via book reviews in papers in the

Scripps-Howard chain. It was reprinted four times before the 1980s. Quilt historian

Barbara Brackman wrote a new introduction with some biographical and critical information for the 1992 edition.

Unlike Webster, who disdained pieceworic quilts, Finley was fascinated with the block designs and with the possible/perceived symbolism of their names. While Webster sought the roots of appliqué, piecework ^rtray ed as appliqué’s poor cousin), and 60 quiltmg in. the classical Mediterranean world and western Europe, Finley discussed how piecework blocks were constructed and also explored how pattern names may have reflected the social, political, and religious values of colonial and frontier women. She also provided an accurate if romanticized description of the importation and production of textiles in colonial America and the early United States.

In the 1930s, Finley wrote a biography of Sarah Josepha Hale, long-time editor of the popular nineteenth century women’s periodical, G odey’s Ladies ' B ook. After the publication of this book, Finley shifted her energies to Republican women’s politics and to committees dedicated to preserving “folk culture” in general. She died in 1955.

In spite o f their different sQrlistic preferences and emphases, Webster and Finley seem to have independently developed remarkably shnilar narratives about quiltmaking in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. Clark suggests there is some evidence that

Finley had read Webster’s book, but since they wrote about different aspects of quiltmaking, there is little overlap in the actual history covered. Both authors wrote specifically for audiences seeking to apply the values of an earlier time perceived to have been simpler, more noble and courageous to the tumultuous, industrializing, urbanizing world of the early twentieth century. Webster’s and Finley’s narratives played into that colonial revival fiamework.

Both authors relied on newspapers, letters, and wills, on anecdotes shared by quiltmakers and acquaintances, on material-culture style analyses of quilts themselves, and on published history texts. Both made a few errors m dating particular quilts or quilt series, translating ftireign languages, or quotmg inaccurate sources, and Finley had a distressmg habit of not documenting her source materials. Later research reveals that 61 both, however, were generally accurate in recounting the history contained in their

sources. That is, they provided descriptions and constructed typologies of quilt styles,

design names, and to a certain extent, the tuning of popular trends, that quilt studies

scholars still rely on.

Unfortunately, both. Webster and Finley believed, apparently unquestioningly,

that quilts had been the universal form of bedcoverings before the advent of

industrialization. In fact, wool bed-rugs and various woven bedcoverings, as well as furs

in cold climates, were most commonly used on seventeenth and eighteenth century beds.

Quilts and comforters were indeed used, but they were by no means predominant.

Webster and Finley believed that colonial, then pioneer, and then poor rural women had

continued this “tradition” of quiltmaking after their more privileged sisters back in

Europe and England, back East, or in the cities had turned to manufactured bedding.

Both argued that in “early times” or when firontier conditions or poverty made it

necessary, women had pieced together tops 6om whatever scraps of fabric they had available. They thought these most primitive quilts, made purely for use, were “crazy quilts” of randomly sized fabric scraps sewn together without extensive cutting or

See, for instance, Finley, 21,92; Webster, 60-67. For more accurate inh)rmation about colonial bedcoverings, see Gloria Seaman Allen, “Bed Coverings m Kent County, Maryland, 1710-1820,” m Uncovering^ 1985, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1986), 9-31; Lynn Bonfield, “Production of Cloth, Clothing and Quilts in 19 Century New England Homes,” in Uncoverings I98I, ed. Sally Garoutte ^iCll Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982), 77-96; Sally Garoutte, “Early Colonial Quilts in a Bedding Contact,” m Uncoverings 1980, e& Sally Garoutte ^ # 1 Valley, CA: American C^uilt Study Groiq», 1981), 18-27; Carol Shammas, The Pre-'lndustrial Consumer in England and America (OxArd: Clarenden Press, 1990), 169,173,181.

62 shaping in order to minimize waste. Both Webster and Finley were therefore somewhat bemused by and unable to explain why cra ^ quilts “resurfaced” among privileged women quiltmakers in the 1880s, who “anachronistically” used luxurious silks, velvets, brocades, and elaborate embroidery embellishments to make what were theoretically archetypal utility quilts.* *

Webster and Finley argued that as economic conditions improved and transportation increased access to “civilized” areas and material goods, quiltmakers cut and shaped their fobrics and gave more consideration to aesthetic design. They first constructed regular but simple designs (rectangles sewn in rows or grouped into blocks o f three), and progressed through more complex geometric patterns involving squares, triangles of various kinds, diamonds, rhomboids, hexagons, and combinations of shapes.

Appliqué quilts—which Webster believed afforded the quiltmaker the greatest freedom in developing truly “artistic” designs—were the last to be developed. Since appliqué involves sewing pieces of fabric on top of a background fabric, it could theoretically only be an appropriate design choice for a quiltmaker who had easy access to both fabrics and other bedcovers or who was making the long-contemplated masterpiece of her quilt career. According to this ontogenetic scheme, similar to other evolutionary schemes developed by historians at the time, a woman who had made appliqué quilts while living in New England might frnd herself forced to return to making simple nine-patch quilts or maybe even crazy quilts when she moved West with her husband. Likewise, according to

** Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 64-67; Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 31-32,48- 54. See also Roderick Kiracofe with Mary Elizabeth Johnson, The American Quilt: A History qfCloth and Comfort, /7J0-/P50 ^ e w York: Clarkson Potter, 1993), 146-149. 63 Webster, at least, the Southern lady was able to make appliqué quilts earlier m the eighteenth century than was the New England ferm wife. The “backward” women of the

Pennsylvania Dutch areas or the Appalachian mountains rarely “progressed” to appliqué quilts because their cultures—both intellectual and geographic—forbade them to participate in the benefits of modernization and economic progress.'^

While both Webster and Finley proposed evolutionary schemes to explain the progression of quilt designs, their schemes had significant differences. As noted earlier,

Webster sought the sources of quiltmaking in ancient Egypt and classical and medieval

Europe. She devoted most of the first sixty pages of her book to appliqué and quilting in those areas firom the time of the Pharaohs up to the eighteenth century. The items she was able to cite—taken firom museum collections and archeological books—were clearly luxury items. She discussed wall-hangings, flags, clothing, and bedcovers. Some items were quilted, some appliquéd or embroidered, and a few were both appliquéd and quilted, but all were associated with people living in wealthy and royal households. As her narrative progressed fix>m Egypt through Greece and Rome and up to the Renaissance, she asserted that the quality of materials, the skill o f execution, and the “real” artistic merit of the pieces she described increased. Periodically throughout the narrative,

Webster asserted, without documentation, that “peasants” and “poor people” pieced together their fabric scraps and, whenever possible, tried to mimic the “naturally” more

Finley, Old Patchwork Quits, 31-32,37-40,42,48-54,56-57,65-66,99-100, 118-128. Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 64-67,74-76,78-81,83-84,93-97,116-117,135- 136,150-152.

64 desirable designs and techniques of their social and economic superiors. She also asserted that ail the bedcoverings of the lower classes and also the everyday items used in wealthy households had long since deteriorated 6om hard use. While she may have been correct in this assertion, she in&rred 6om this that the very absence of pieced quilts 6om the archeological record or archival sources is adequate proof of their original existence.

Pieced scrap quilts were so common that no one bothered to save any of them or to write about them.^'^ Webster argued that British and other settlers in the North American colonies thus brought with them long and proud traditions of both beautihil needlework and also homemade bedcovers. Because of scarcity, these settlers were forced to “return” temporarily to primitive pieced quilts before being able to progress gradually to the more pleasing appliqué techniques.^^

Unlike Webster, whose evolutionary scheme allowed for regression as well as progression in the creation of original designs, Finley assumed that, except for various shifts in stylistic emphasis during different time periods, the evolution of quilt design was complete by 1750. Like Webster, Finley believed that European peasants had used piecing and patching techniques to maximize their clothing and bedding options.'^ The special conditions of life in the American colonies—their isolation from Europe in terms of both designs and resources—and the idealistic and individualistic nature of the people

See, for instance, Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 38-39.

Webster, Q uilts: Their Story, 3-59.

Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 60-88.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 22.

65 who settled there created the conditions the development of a new domestic item and

feminine art form based on this tradition of fingahty.^^ American quiltmakers in the

original east coast settlements first pieced crazy quilts, then made one-patch, two-patch,

four-patch, and nine-patch variations before developing designs based on diamonds and

other shapes. A few appliqué quilts were being made by 1750, as well as an abundance

and variety of pieced quilts. While some women were forced by frontier conditions or

poverty to make less elaborate quilts, Finley tended to assume that once Americans began

moving about, settling the lands they acquired firam the Native Americans, French, and

British, they began to share the large variety of previously regional quilt designs. While

new patterns and names were always appearing, these tended to be easily recognizable

modifications of older patterns. Like Webster, Finley asserted that the lack of evidence

for this large body of pieced quilts during the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was

due to their deterioration fium use and was no reason to assume they had never been

made.‘*

{Catherine Anne McHugh argues that early nineteenth century domestic advice writer Lydia Maria Childe helped to create this association between American identity and fru^lity in The American Frugal Housewife, published in 1829. Finley may have been inspfred by this tradition. Kathleen Anne McHugh, American Domesticity: From How-to Manual to Hollywood Melodrama (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 17-34.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 19-40,48-54; see especially pages 22-24,29,31.

66 The Frugal Housewife: Reality and Myths ahout Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century

Omltmaking

There is no evidence to support Webster’s and Finley’s assertion that colonial

Americans relied on quiltmaking for bedding. In fact, the available evidence suggests that quilts were outnumbered as bedding items by woolen and linen-woolen bed rugs, woven coverlets, and furs. Diaries, wills, and estate documents of this time list quilts with other luxurious household textiles such as embroidered bed hangings and table linens, as well as embroidered and quilted petticoats.

Extant quilts from the eighteenth century—the earliest ones in the U.S., although a few earlier examples can be found in Europe and England—were clearly luxury items in the households of their owners/producers. They were often made of chintz or calico fabric imported at considerable expense from India via England.^® The high price of both chintz and calico reflected not only the cost of the printed cotton fabric, at that time still

Allen, 9-31; Carleton L. Safford and Robert Charles Bishop, A m erica 'r Q uilts and Coverlets (New York: Bonanza Books, 1985), 17-27,53-73; Bonfîeld, “Production of Cloth,” 77-96; Garoutte, “Early Colonial Quilts,” 18-27; Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 169,173, 181.

Both chintz and calico are plain-weave cotton fabrics printed with one or more colors. The primary difference is that chintz has been given a surface treatment that makes it sli^tly shiny. In the eighteenth century, chintz tended to have large, colorful, all-over patterns while calico patterns were smaller, less elaborate, and involved fewer colors. Until the second quarter of the nineteenth century, calico produced m England and the United States had a rougher texture and less skillfrilly dyed patterns than did calico from India. S. D. Chapman, The Cotton Industry ht the Industrial Revolution (London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1987), 15-16,42-44; Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 154-187; Florence Montgomery, Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens, I700-I850 (New York: The Viking Press, a Winterthur Book, 1970), 22,28,34- 39.

67 one of the world^s luxury 6brics, but also the financial duties imposed by British

imperialism. Other quilts made during this time were of silk or finely woven wool, again expensive 6brics that could not be easily produced in the British North American colonies.

Chintz quilts were generally worked with an appliqué technique called broderie perse, in which the large floral designs fiom the chintz fabric were cut apart, rearranged, and sewn down on a piece of background fabric that was larger (and often of cheaper grade material) than the original chintz. This large panel often acted as a central medallion, surrounded by several borders that may have been pieced or appliquéd or may have been unworked printed cloth.^^ Broderie perse was thus an economical way to maximize the use of expensive fabric. It was not, however, an inexpensive technique.

While pieced quilts or areas of piecing on appliqué quilts were not unknown, most calico, wool, and silk quilts were neither pieced nor appliquéd. The tops were made by sewing two or three large panels of cloth together. The fine cotton, wool, and silk fabrics and the thin or nonexistent batting permitted the quilter to make small stitches and follow an elaborate quilting pattern.^

Safford and Bishop, America’s Quilts, 145-146; Kiracofe, The American Quilt, 53-55,66-69. Broribrc perse is French for “Persian embroidery.” The technique of appliquéing printed chintz fabric to a plain ground is sometimes hypothesized to have been developed as a way to quickly hnitate the elaborate crewel embroideries found on luxurious European bed fiimishmgs.

^ Safford and Bishop, ^merfca's Q uilts, 29-51,75-85; Kiracofe, The American Q uilt, 45-69.

68 Webster and Finley both provided documentation of quilts of this although they assumed that what they were citing were the most elaborate specimens of quiltmaking and that more common examples had existed but not been preserved. For example, Finley cites an unidentified Boston newspaper in 1716 that ran an ad listing quilting among the kinds of needlework taught to ‘^gentlewomen and children” by a particular establishment.^ Finley’s schema led her to ignore that this quote suggests the association of quilting with embroidery and making artificial flowers and with

“gentlewomen” rather than “goodwives,” i.e., that quilted items were unlikely to be perceived as the common household articles she argues they were.~'^ She also spent fifteen pages explaining why printed cotton was so expensive (England attempted first to ban its sale and then restricted and taxed its importation and sale in order to protect the

British wool and linen industries), but then went on to assert that those printed cottons were nevertheless the favorite and most frequently used fabric of colonial quütmakers.^

She was probably correct about the dominance of printed cotton quilts, but discoimted her own evidence indicating that only wealthier women could have afibrded to make them.

If, as she asserted, printed cotton in the colonies cost the 1929 equivalent of $2 per yard while the same fabric in England would have cost 500 (itself not an insignificantsum).

^ Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 20-21.

See especially Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 22-42,29,118.

^ Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 155-172.

69 very few women could have afforded that fabric—even if it was originally purchased for clothing and only the scraps and less-worn bits saved for quilts.^^

Webster made similar mistakes when she cited a 1774 auction in which nineteen

‘‘coverlids” were among the itons sold firom the household o f a wealthy Virginian to

George Washington.^ Her possible error here is twofold: not only did she overlook the class-status of the people involved in this transaction, but she assumed that coverlids must have been quilts, when in fact they could have been one of several kinds of

“worked” bedcovers.^*

That luxury and heirloom quilts were not the only kinds of quilts produced in the eighteenth century can be found in a few diaries. In A M idwife’s Tale, Laurel Thatcher

Ulrich documents that Martha Ballard recorded in her diary that her daughters and nieces made several quilts shortly before and after the young women were married. Ulrich speculates that these quilts had tops of imported fabrics, with wool battings and home- woven backs. However, because the brides and their relatives and fiiends were able to complete a variety of other household tasks and social activities on the days they wo±ed on quilts, the quilts were unlikely to have been elaborate.^^ In addition, the Ballards do not appear to have made the thirteen quilts for each bride that Finley asserted the early

^ Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 162-165.

Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 71-72.

^ Allen, “Bed Covermgs,” 18-19.

^ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, ^ ^ ZWe: The Life o fMartha Ballard, Based on H er D iary, 1785-1812 ^ e w York: Alfied A. Knop]^ 1990), 143-144,146.

70 republican trousseau was expected to contain.^® Jane Przybysz cites extensive research

saying that diaries written before 1850 mention quilting relatively infiequentiy and

usually in the context of fancy needleworic or socializing. On the other hand, quiltmaking

is mentioned much more frequently, and in more mundane contexts, after the middle of

the nineteenth century.^^

It is somewhat unfair to hold Webster and Finley to modem standards of

historical scholarship. In their day, scholars had not yet begun the tricky project of

discovering what life was like for “ordinary” people, or even for extraordinary people on

ordinary days, and in any case, neither purported to be a professional historian. The new

field of anthropology was just beginning to develop what we now know was the

erroneous assumption that isolated “mountain fbll^ in Appalachia had actually preserved

colonial culture and were thus an educational resource, a step up from the previous idea

that they had resisted or been passed over by the advantages of modernization and hence

were a burden and a disgrace.^^ It is not at all surprising—and in fact, suggests a certain

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 36. Jeaimette Lasansky asserts Finley originated this myth. Jeannette Lasansky, “Myth and Reality in Craft Tradition: Were Blacksmiths Really Muscle-Bound? Were Basketmakers Gypsies? Were Thirteen Quilts in the Dowry Chest?,” in On the Cutting Edge: Textile Collectors, Collections, and Traditions, ed. Jeannette Lasansky (Lewisburg, PA: The Oral Traditions Project, 1994), 112-113.

Bonfîeld, “Production of Cloth,” 77-96; Jane Przybysz, “Sentimental Spectacle: The Traffic m Quiltÿ* (PhD. diss.. New York University, 1995), 83-87. See also Lynn Bonfîeld, “Diaries of New England Quilters before I860,” in Uncoverings 1988, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1989), 171-197.

^ Jane S. Becker, Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction o f an American Folk, 1930-1940 (Chapel ffill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1998); Henry D. Shapiro, Appalacftia on Our Mind: The Southern Mountains and Mountaineers in the American Consciousness, 1870-1902, (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina 71 common sense—that, given the lack of in&rmatfon about actual colonial household practices and the relative significance of quilted bedcoverings in wealthy households,

Webster and Finley and their readers would find it sensible to assume that quilts were more widespread than they were. The evolutionary schemes also make a certain amount of sense if one assumes, as did Webster and Finley, that quilts were widespread and met a household need not filled in any other way.

Nevertheless, the effect of Webster’s and Finley’s well-intentioned and understandable misinformation was to create a very strong association between quiltmaking and the preindustrial beginnings of the United States. According to this image, not only was quiltmaking common among “our [white Protestant] colonial foremothers,” but it was associated with the highest American values: thrift and local production (so as to minimize contributing to the greed of the British empire), family- centeredness, individuality in expression, and courage and nobility (in giving up the comforts of Europe for higher political and religious ideals).^^ By obscuring the luxurious nature of eighteenth century quilts and the relatively small role they played in the lives of most colonial and early republican women, Webster and Finley created fer their readers—not only in the 1910s through the 1930s but throughout the rest of the twentieth century—an image of quilts as useful and necessary household products that every woman knew how to make. Quilts became, in essence, an icon for colonial and

Press, 1978); David Whisnant, All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics o fCulture in an American Region, (Chapel HOI: University ofNorth Carolma Press, 1983).

^ See especially Finley, Old Patchwork Qmlts, 104-110.

72 pioneer women. They suggested that the modem woman who spent her leisure time makinga quilt was doing something that differed only in degree 6om what ail women had done generations ago.

The Diffusion of Qufltmalcfngin the Mid- and Late Nmeteenth Century

As tactile production was industrialized in both England and the U.S. in the early nineteenth century, the amount of fabric available to American women increased. As a result, the amount of sewing they did also increased. Wardrobes, both clothing for people and covers for beds, became larger and more elaborate.^"^ In addition, and most significantly for quiltmaking, thin fabrics that lent themselves to piecework, appliqué and fine quilting became widely available for the first time. Improved dying and printing technology made possible the varied of colors and patterns that characterize the

American quilt^^

It was only in the second quarter of the nineteenth century that the widespread production of quilts for practical use and creative expression became possible. Ruth

Finley made a strong point of noting that quilts made after 1830 were much more available to the colonial revival collector than those made earlier, though she attributed this to more quilts surviving than to more quilts being made.^^ It was also in the 1840s

^ Bonfield, “Production of Cloth,” 77,89-90; Shammas, Pre-Industrial Consumer, 187-188.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 165-170. Also, Chapman, Cotton Industry, 42- 44; Elaine Hedges, Hearts and Hands: Women, Quilts andAmerican Society, with cations by Pat Ferrero and Julie Silber ^ashvüle: Rutledge ffill Press, 1987), 38-39; Montgomery, P rin ted Textiles, 34-35,47.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 22-24.

73 that the first quiltmaking fad surfaced among American women. Album quilts, Wiich often featured elaborate appiiqued pictures on relatively small squares of fabric, with the small squares sewn together into a larger top, drew on the floral appliqué and piecing techniques used in the eighteenth century chintz quilts and heralded the mid- and late nineteenth century emphasis on geometric piecework techniques in their use of the block format.^^ Both Webster and Finley viewed appliquéd album quilts as proof that

American quiltmaking skills had reached their most evolved point. Such quilts were usually made as group projects in which each woman contributed one block to a quilt made as a gift for a fiiend, the minister’s wife, or as a special quilt for a new bride’s trousseau. Both perceived these album quilts to be the most treasured survivals of a large collection of otherwise mundane pieced quilts rather than as evidence that quiltmaking was becoming more widespread.^*

Like Webster and Finley, late twentieth century scholars initially believed album quilts were primarily the products o f leisured women along the eastern seaboard, since many of them were made of fairly fine cloth and had sophisticated and difficult to sew floral designs. Album quilts in general are closely associated with a particular subset of quilts that ^pear to have been made in or near Baltimore, Maryland, and share a set of characteristic colors, construction techniques, and design motife. Further research into these Baltimore Album quilts has revealed that some of the blocks may actually have been made firom kits o f pre-cut fabric purchased feom seamstresses in the Baltimore

Kiracofe, The American Quilt, 80-82. )Aeà%es^ H earts and Hands, 34-36.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quits, 30; Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 93-97.

74 area.^^ Since it was not necessary to purchase enough fine fabric to make a whole top, album quilts—even appliqué album quilts—made it possible for a larger number of women to engage in the creative act of quiltmaking. By allowing women to make a single block and to participate in the bee to quilt the final product, these apparently elite products may actually have served to democratize quiltmaking as a leisure activity among women who, because of emerging industrialization and the removal of women’s productive work firom the home, now had more leisure time to spend.

Not all album quilts were group projects. Consistent sewing skills and family records document that many Baltimore Album and other album-style quilts were made by a single person. But even an individually produced quilt of this type could have been more accessible to middle- and lower-income women than the earlier chintz appliqué, central medallion, and wholecloth quilts. Because more fabric was available at a cheaper price, more could be purchased and saved for making into quilts. In addition, modem collector and curator Jonathan Holstein suggests that the block-based construction technique was itself a cause of the increasing popularity of quilts. Since a small segment of the whole could be conceived of and completed as resources became available, it was not necessary to acquire a large quantity of fabric before beginning work on a quilt top, as had been the case with the eighteenth and early nineteenth century quilt styles.'"’

Hedges, Hearts and Hands, 34-36,100; Elly Sienkiewicz, “The Marketing of Mary Evans,” in Uncoverings 1989, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1990), 7-24; Elly Sienkiewicz, “Albums, Artizans & Odd Fellows: The Classic Age of American Quilts,” F o lk Art 19 (Spring 1994): 32-41.

Jonathan Hblstem, “hi Plam Sight: The Aesthetics of Amish Quilts,” in A Q uiet Spirit: Amish Quilts From the Collection o fCtmfy Tietze and Sttuirt Hodosh, ed. Donald 75 Another factor in the democratization of quiltmaking in the early nineteenth century may have been the activities of African-American women. Numerous oral traditions recall slave women making frne heirloom quilts for plantation mistresses during the day and functional utility quilts for their families at night. While the quilts made for or with white owners use the same thin fabrics and wholecloth, appliqué and pieced designs as northern and midwestem quilts produced by white women, the few quilts reliably documented to have been made by African-American women in the pre- and post-Civil War period tend to have a different look.^^ Characteristics of this look include string piecing—long, thin strips o f fabric sewn together lengthwise to create a striped look—bright color combinations, irregular shapes (though not the deliberately chaotic look of a crazy quilt), large stitches, and non-floral appliqué shapes. Some quilt scholars assert that these design elements are survivals of West African textile traditions.

Others dispute the claim, citing the lack o f verifiable connections between the two textile traditions.^^ If enslaved women did reinterpret male-produced Asante and Ewe kente

B. Kraybill, Patricia Herr, and Jonathan Holstein (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, 1996), 78-79.

Gladys-Marie Frye, Stitchedfrom the Soul: Slave Quiltsfrom the Antebellum South (New York: Dutton Studio Book, in association with the Museum of American Folk Act, 1990); Hedges, Hearts and Hands, 46-48; Schnuppe von Gwinner, The History o fthe Patchwork Quilt: Origins, Traditions, and Symbols o fa Textile Art (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1988), 152-156.

Kermeth L. Ames, “The Stuff of Everyday Life: American Decorative Arts and Household Furnishings,” m Material Culture: A Research Guide, ed. Thomas J. Schlereth (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985), 92; Cuesta Benberry, There: The African-American J^esence in American Quilts (Louisville: The Kentucky ()uilt Project Inc., 1992); Kurt C. Dewhurst, Betty MacDowell, and Marsha MacDowell, Artists in Aprons: Folk Art by American Women, with a forward by Agnes Halsey Jones 76 cloth and Fen appliqué banners m a female-produced domestic context, they—rather than

European American women—could have initiated the pictorial appliqué on smaller pieces of fabric characteristic of album quilts, the design ideas thus passing feom slave cabins to plantation houses to urban areas/^ IC on the other, hand, Afirican-American women were in fact adapting European American needlework traditions to an impoverished situation where fabric choices were limited and of variable quality, and tools and time to work with them more difhcult to acquire, this quilt tradition still testifies to the spread of quiltmaking to a much larger group of women after the industrialization o f textiles production.**^

(New York: E. P. Dutton, in association with the Museum of American Folk Art, 1979), 82-83; Roland Freeman, A Communion o f the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers, and Their Stories (Nashville, Rutledge KKli Press, 1996); von Gwinner, History o fthe Patchwork Quilt, 29-32; Maude S. Wahlman, Signs and Symbols: African Images in African-American Quilts (New York: Studio Books, 1993). Also, Claire Robertson, note to author, 8 December 1999.

See bell hooks, “Aesthetic Inheritances: History Worked by Hand,” in Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Po/ftfcr (Boston: South End Press, 1990), 118- 119, for further speculation about how widespread quilt traditions could have begun in slave cabins.

^ Hedges, Hearts and Hands, 45, explicitly makes the point that poor white women made quilts that have characteristics shnilar to those ascribed to Afiican- American quilts. Several other studies document these series among some groups of contemporary white and black quiltmakers. See Susan L. Davis, “Quilts and Quilters of Floyd County, Virginia,” in Uncoverings 1986, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1987), 127-140; Margaret Susan Roach, “The Traditional Quiltmaking ofNorth Louisiana Women: Form, Function, and Meaning” (PhD. diss.. University o f Texas at Austin, 1986), 117-132,204-232. In addition, I interviewed two white women in Wayne County who made quilts in this style. In both instances, the deshe to make quilts quickly with whatever materials were available motivated the strip piecing and “random” color combinations. See Estella Nussbaum, 10 June 1997, Apple Creek; and Doris Schar, 16 May 1997, Creston.

77 While album quilts seem to have declined in popularity by the 1850s, block-based designs in general became more common. From the 1850s through the 1870s the piecework quilt—with blocks of elaborate geometric patterns made 6om contrastmg colors of patterned fabric—became popular. This technique made use o f the wide variety of fabrics available, and also capitalized on the “cult of domesticity," which proclaimed that middle-class white women, 6eed firom domestic drudgery by both industrial production and cheap servants, should spend their time in activities that were both decorative and usefiil.'^^ Lower-class women were now able to participate in quiltmaking to a wider extent than ever before possible because of the increasing availability of fabrics, the new fad for exchanging fabric with fiiends and relatives, and the economics of the block-based format. While sewing machines were not widely available until the

1870s, women who had them did use them for making quilts. They were especially useful for sewing the long seams that joined blocks into rows and rows into whole tops.^

In addition, it is possible that batting for quilts was now easily available to most women for the first time. Hargrave noted that Steams and Foster, a company that still exists, developed and marketed the fhst cotton sheet batting in the 1840s, although production at that time was rather slow.*^ With batting available commercially, it was no longer

Dewhurst, MacDowell, and MacDoweH, in ApronSy 35-41,44-54; Hedges, H earts a n d Hands, 24-29; Holstein, “hi Plain Sight,” 78-79; Kiracofe, The American Quilt, 97-98.

^ Barbara Brackman, Patterns o fProgress: Quilts in the Machine Age (Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Herit%e, 1997), 21-23.

Harriet Hargrave, From Fiber to Fabric: The Essential Guide to Quiltmaking Textiles (Lafayette, CA: C&T Publishing, 1997), 96. Also Vickie Paullus and Linda 78 necessary for women, to locate a farm or merchant with cotton or wool fleece available for sale in the relatively small quantity needed to fill a nice or heirloom quilt

Arguably, the myth about the colonial ubiquity of quiltmaking «(tolled by

Webster and Finley may have had its actual roots during this mid-century fad for pieced quilts. It is also possible that the uncomfortable question of what the newly leisured housewife ought to do with her time gave strength to that myth, hi 1859, Harriet Beecher

Stowe published a book called The M inister’s Wooing, The book is set in the 1790s in a

New England community. As news of young Mary Scudder’s engagement to the local minister filters through the village, the women make plans to hold a quilting bee in her honor. The quiltmaking aspect of the bee is actually of minor significance to the story; its real function is to bring the characters together for a series of conversations that foreshadow the end of the book. Many of the images associated with quilting and the quilting bee are, however, manifest in these pages. Stowe represents the quilting bee as an event that is already common and well integrated into the community structure at an early, preindustrial period of U.S. history. It functions as a formal announcement of

Mary’s engagement to the minister and the quilt being worked on is part of her dowry.

Women of different generations, religions, and classes meet together around the quilt frame to discuss both personal and public issues. Interestmgly, the group welcomes a black woman but she spends her time preparing food rather than quilting a significant if probably unintentional comment upon the invisibility of black women in the history of

Pumphrey, Mountain M ist Blue Book o f Quilts: Celebrating 150 Years o f the Perfect Quilting 1846-1996 ([unknown]: Steams Technical Textiles, 1996). Steams and Foster is now Steams Technical Textiles. 79 quiltmaking. She prepares an elaborate meal to serve to the guests. Male relatives and

Mends, including the minister/bridegroom, appear at the end of the quilting bee to engage in a heterosocial event that places the homosocial world of the quilting bee in its proper, family-centered context.

These scenes are not, in themselves, much different than the quiltings mentioned in Martha Ballard’s diary. However, in Stowe’s story, quilting is apparently the only domestic task that women in Republican New England accomplished in a social context.

Ulrich makes clear that in Ballard’s community in Maine, women frequently combined socializing with a variety of shared domestic tasks. Stowe’s ahistorical description of a quilting bee in the early Republican period contributes to the creation of a specifrc misimpression about quiltmaking.'^

Jane Przybysz has argued that as early as 1863, women were using scenes fix)m

The M inister's Wooing as a basic script for public reenactments of colonial life. At a

Sanitary Fair (a popular Civil War frmd-raising mechanism) in Brooklyn in 1863, and at other public frmd-raising venues aroimd the U.S., women dressed up in versions of colonial costumes and acted out routine household tasks, including the quilting bee.

Their performances of the fîctionaüzed event reifred quiltmaking as one of the central characteristics of early American family life. Significantly, these colonial kitchen events

Harriet Beecher Stowe, The M inister's Wooing{\%59\ in Tfwee Novels: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Lÿè among the Lawfy; The M nister’s Wooing; and Old Town Folks, ed. Katherine Kish Sklar (New Yoric: Literary Classics o f the United States, 1982), 788-804; Uldch, A Midwife's Tale, 143-144,146.

80 have also been cited as precursors to the colonial revival house and village museums/^

While there are a few earlier examples of public expressions of the ‘‘qudts are already old-fashioned” theme—6 r example, Finley quotes an almanac firom the 1820s as saying a particular quilt pattern was “ ‘a great favorite with your grandmothers’ —none were as visible, either in terms of visual imagery, access, or social authority, as Stowe’s novel or the Victorian re-enactments of the colonial kitchen and quilting bee.

Webster included the central portion of Stowe’s quilting bee scene as the concluding section of her book. She edited out the critical conversations, including the most significant one between the firee black servant woman and the local seamstress, thus erasing clues about the class status of the novel’s central characters. Finley also cites the scene in her book. Both authors assert that the story is an authentic portrayal of “a real old-fashioned quilting” that enables modem readers to “gain some insight into its various incidents o f sociability and gossip, typical of an early New England seafaring village.”^*

As further support for this assertion, Finley introduces in her text a song called “The

Quilting Party,” written by Stephen Foster in 1856, that raises many of the same images as Stowe’s book. In the song, a young man woos his sweetheart by walking her home

Pr^bysz, “Sentimental Spectacle,” 53-61,69-79,81-84. See also Rodris Roth, “The New England, or Old Tyme’ Kitchen Exhibit at Nineteenth Century Fairs,” in The Colonial Revival in America, ed. Alan Axelrod (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., in conjunction whh the Wmterthur Museum, 1985), 159-183.

Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 74.

Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 158-168; Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts, 36. (Quotation is finm Webster, 158. Carrie Hall included an even longer excerpt fiom this scene in The Romance o f the Patchwork Quilt, 23-26, though she, too, edited out the conversations.

81 firom a quilting bee. Finley declares that such a song would not have been written “in those slow-moving days” were the quilting bee not already a widespread custom as

“characteristically American as ‘Yankee Doodle’ and ‘Dixie.’ ” Curators Lynne Bassett and Jack Laddn» however, suggest that the song is an example of associating quiltmaking with a romanticized U.S. rural past^

The repetition of these scenes is significant for two reasons. First, they document that quiltmaking in the 1850s through the 1880s was already perceived of as an old- fashioned, widespread, cross-class and cross-cultural activi^, even though modem archival and material culture research reveals that quiltmaking was actually reaching a greater audience at that point than ever before. While quiltmaking d id exist before the mid-nineteenth century, it had not been as widespread or as accessible to non-elite women as mid-nineteenth century women portrayed it to be. Second, these scenes added weight to Webster’s and Finley’s otherwise undocumented (and perhaps at that time, undocumentable) assertions about the importance and cultural meaning of quiltmaking in colonial and early United States history. If such well-known cultural authorities as

Harriet Beecher Stowe and Stephen Foster appeared to proclaim the ancient, family- centered provenance of the quilt and the quilting bee, how were “modem” writers to dispute it?

Pieced quiltmaking as a leisure and domestic activity for well-to-do and middle- class women dropped in populari^ after the 1870s. While there were still quilts being

^ Fmley, Old Patchwork Qmlts, 33-34. See Lyrme Z. Bassett and Jack Larkin, Northern Comfort: New England's Early Qmlts, 1780-1850 (Nashville: Rutledge ffill Press, 1998), 111, for the full text of Foster’s lyric. 82 made throughout the U.S.—possibly more than ever before, and in greater variety, and finally including all the major design styles and uses (utili^, heirloom, and mixed), women’s magazine and newspaper column editors/writers proclaimed that making quilts was appropriate only for the poor or rural housewife and the young girl learning to sew, or perhaps for the woman who wanted or needed to be particularly fiugal in her leisure activities. For mstance. Jinny Beyer quotes a newspaper column called “Mrs. Kate

Hunnibee’s Diary,” taken firom Hearth and Home Newspaper of 4 June 1870. The fictional Mrs. Hunnibee is supposedly reporting on the recent church sewing day she attended. She notes that “there was quite a discussion among the ladies in the library about patching quilts." One woman remarked that piecing quilts is a good way to teach girls to sew and that she treasured the quilt, apparently the only one, she had made as a girl. A second woman says:

But it always seemed a great piece of folly to me to buy calico for the express purpose o f cutting it in pieces that it may be sewed together again. For my fancy, white Marseilles spreads and rose blankets are more tastefiil, less burdensome as a covering, and more agreeable than quilts and comforts.

A third woman replies:

But if one has pieces enough in the house—and most everyone has—it is certainly a good plan, in hours of leisure, to put them in so enduring and usefiil a form as a quilt I have a box in which every thing of this kind is kept and firom which I make the little girls that come to see me presents for their dolls’ toilettes and bedding.

83 la this obviously composed piece, quiltmaking is portrayed as a somewhat-Iess-than- desirable leisure activity for the sensible housewife and an unlikely source for bedcoverings for the middle-class home.^

This image of quiltmaking changed briefly in the 1880s, when the c ra ^ quilt became a fad among upper- and middle-class white housewives. The c ra^ quilt generally retained the now familiar block format but, rather than being constructed of regularly shaped pieces of relatively thin cotton fabric, its pieces were odd and irregular shapes cut from heavier luxury fabrics like silk, brocade, and velvet Often these fabrics were saved and traded among friends and family, though they could also be purchased as kits or remnant bundles. Crazy quilts were embellished with elaborate embroidery stitches along all the seams and inside of some patches. Some cra^ quilts even took on a three-dimensional character, with the addition of small mementos or stuffed sections.

Some crazy quilts were most likely reinterpretations o f crackle-frnished Japanese pottery that had been exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876; the lines of piecing and embroidery resembled the ‘‘crazed” lines of glazing on the pottery. The elaborate construction methods of cra^ quilts and use of luxury fabrics were only the first indicatioa that these were not intended to be heavily used on beds. Most crazy quilts were much smaller than even late nineteenth century beds; at most they were sized to lie comfertably across the lap. hi addition, most cra^ quilts were not filled and quilted.

” Jinny Beyer, “Sources for Quilt Patterns,” m The Quilter's Album o fBlocks and Borders (McLean, VA: EPM Publications, Inc., 1980), 7. See also Vfrginia Gunn, “Victorian Silk Template Patchwodc in American Periodicals, 1850-1875,” m Uncoverings 1983, ed. SaHy Garoutte (Mill Valley: CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1984), 9-25. 84 Rather, a thin backing may have been added to protect the back of the embroidery stitches; the back was discreetly tacked to the top to keep the two layers from shifting.^

Crazy quilts thus returned to many of the characteristics of eighteenth century American quilts: they were the products of leisured women who had access to luxury fabrics to produce heirloom quilts that highlighted their social status and needlewodc skills.

Omltmaking and Quilt Mvths in the Twentieth Century

The First Revival: 1910s through 1930s

In the twentieth century, quiltmaking has risen in popularity twice. The first revival began in the 1910s or a bit before and continued through the 1930s. As noted above, Marie Webster and Ruth Finley were both products and promoters of this revival.

The colonial revival architectural and decorating trend, the Arts and Crafts movement’s efforts to preserve craft skills while creating a refined, linear aesthetic, and the

‘‘discovery” of Appalachian quiltmaking and other crafts and their interpretation as preindustrial artifacts are the major factors cited for this revival. While some suggest the persistence of quiltmaking into the 1930s was due to economic depression, other authors

^ Virginia Gunn, “C ra^ Quilts and Outline Quilts: Popular Responses to the Decorative Art/Art Needlework Movement, 1876-1893,” in Uncoverings 1984, ed. Sally Garoutte QMill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1985), 131-152; Kiracofe, The American Quilt, 146-149; Safiford and Bishop, .4mmcan Q uilts, 296-303. Many crazy quilts made in the early twentieth century were actually heavy utility bedcovers made of recycled clothing, usually fix>m wool suits and coats. It Is mterestmg to speculate whether their makers were inspfred by the 6 d for luxury cra^ quilts, internalized the myth o futility crazy quilts, or developed the style on their own. I was shown several examples of foese quilts during the oral history phase of my research. Betty Moomaw, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Ruth Steiner, 3 June 1997, Dalton.

85 imply that the actual motivation for quiltmaking in that decade remained the same for most women, but that the myth resonated more strongly for some/^

Quilt patterns developed or popularized during this revival were more linear and simple than either the crazy quilt or the “traditional” patchwork or appliqué quilt. Fabric colors were light and cheerful and designs were often set against white backgrounds.

Commercially produced khs, including those of Marie Webster, and syndicated newspaper columns all featured lively floral patterns to appliqué and embroider. Ad copy remarked how much more “artistic” these quilts were than the dark, complicated quilts made by “our grandmothers.”^® Women in those social and economic groups who had found quiltmaking to be economically usefiil in the late nineteenth century continued to make quilts as both attractive and utilitarian bedcovers. These women would have been only tangentially affected by the revival, since its emphasis on “artistic” appliqué and embroidery tops and elaborate scalloped edges would have been extraneous to most of their projects. Some of the characteristics of the first revival styles would, however, have made their way into quilts made by these women because of changes in what fabrics were

Kiracofe, The American Quilt, 183-199,209-236; Penny McMorris and Michael M. Kile, The Art Quilt, with an introduction by John Perreault (San Francisco: Quilt Digest Press, 198Q; Merikay Waldvogel, Soft Coversfo r Hard Times: Quiltmaking and the Great Depression (Nashville: Rutledge Hill Press, 1990).

Copeland and Dunivent, “Kit Quilts,” 141-167; Cord, 139-173; Erma H. Kirkpatrick, “Quilts, Quiltmaking and the Progressive Farmer: 1886-1935,” in Uncoverings 1985, ed. Sally Garoutte (MHl Valley, CA: American ()uilt Study Group, 1986), 137-145; Merikay Waldvogel, “Quilt Design Bcplosion o f the Great Depression,” in On the Cutting Edge: Textile Collectors, Collections, and Traditions, ed. Jeanette Lasansky (Lewisburg, PA: The Oral Traditions Project, 1994), 84-95.

86 available and also because even women who made ntili^ qmlts also made the occasional special quilt for a wedding or “for pretty” in which the new patterns were an option.

The image of the quiltmaker as fiugal housewife became an effective marketing tool used by Webster and other designers and manufacturers because it combined the romance of an idealized American past with an image of the modem housewife as better educated and more artistic than her Victorian grandmother. Jane Przybysz argues that

Marie Webster’s success as a designer and author rested on her promulgation of the image.^’ When Steams and Foster, one of the largest manufacturers of quilt batting, decided to publicize the name and image of the woman who designed their promotional quilt patterns, they chose the name Phoebe Edwards because they felt the name had more

“of a colonial ring to it” than the designer’s real name of Phoebe Lloyd. The name was retained and used by the company after the original Phoebe Edwards lefl.^*

Marie Webster did not pretend that the historical reasons for quiltmaking that she presented in her book were still valid for early twentieth century women, but gave several other reasons why quiltmaking had become popular then. She said modem quiltmakers were motivated to make a handsome bedcover for themselves or as gifts for fiiends.

Quiltmaking was also a “diversion” for restless fingers or a way to fill listless and lonely

Pr^bysz, “Sentimental Spectacle,” 91-118. See also Merikay Waldvogel, “The Marketing of Anne Orr’s Quilts,” in Uncoverings 1990, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 7-27; Merikay Waldvogel, “The Origin of Mountain Mist Patterns,” in Uncoverings 1995, ed. Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American (^uilt Stutfy Group, 1995), 94-138.

Paullus and Pumphrey, B lue Book, 28; WaldvogeL “Origin of Mountain Mist Patterns,” 112-117,129-131.

87 hours. Primarily and ideally, however, Webster believed women o f her generation made

quilts for the love and interest of doing it. In other words, it was a purely leisure activity.

Webster summed up her assessment of the popularity of quiltmaking in the 1910s by

saying that for both isolated rural women and city women surrounded by distractions,

quiltmaking provided:

A fascinating yet nerve-soothing occupation. Not only is there a sort of companionship between the maker and the quilt, but there is also the great benefit deriving firom having found a new interest in life, something worthwhile that can be built up by one’s own efforts.^’

Interestingly, Ruth Finley thought when she wrote her book that quiltmaking was

a dying art She believed that technological innovation and feminism both were drawing

middle-class women out of the house and mto the professions—a move she applauded

and defended in Old Patchwork Quilts.^ Because she saw quilts as rooted in financial

necessity, she believed they were anachronistic in the twentieth century, accept as

cherished antiques. Not being a needleworker herself, she only partially perceived the

ongoing revival of which she was a part and did not see quiltmaking as an attractive

leisure activity for most women.

The Drop in Popularity: 1940s through early 1970s

During the 1940s through the early 1970s, quiltmaking dropped out of the public eye. Quiltmaking skills were not lost, but they were not championed by those who set the

standards of fashionable women’s activities. Some of the businesses begun during the

Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 155-156.

Old Patchwork Quilts, 196-198.

88 quilt revival folded; both Webster and Finley ceased to write and lecture about quilts.

However, many businesses and quilt designers continued to prosper and a few books were published.^^ New designs marketed during these years tended to continue the light- colored appliqué and embroidery patterns of the early twentieth century revival. Many of these designs were of stylized babies or animals, or were based on popular children’s books, thus suggesting that quilts made using commercial resources were intended as special quilts for children and grandchildren.

Home sewing in general declined during the middle years of the century, despite the persistence of home economics classes for girls and 1950s housewifely imagery.

Historians of fashion and o f the textile trades have noted that by the 1930s all major categories of women’s clothing (casual and formal daywear, formal eveningwear, nightwear, and undergarments) were easily available through a wide range of catalogs, department stores, and other ready-to-wear outlets.^ Consequently, there was less need for adult women to sew unless they enjoyed the process as a leisure activity or unless

Marguerite Ickis, The Stcmdard Book o fQuiltmaking and Collecting (New York: Dover Publications, hic., 1949), 171; Pat L. Nickols, “Mary A. McElwain: CJuilter and Quilt Businesswoman,” in Uncoverings 1991, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American C^uilt Study Group, 1992), 98-117; Naida Treadway Patterson, “Marion (Zheever Whiteside Newton: Designer of Story Book (^uüts, 1940-1965,” in U ncovering 1995, ed., Virginia Gunn (San Francisco: American (Juilt Study Group, 1995), 67-94; Merikay Waldvogel, “Mildred Dickerson: A Quilt Pattern Collector of the 1960s and 1970s,” in Uncovering 1994, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1995), 45-72; Waldvogel, “Origmof Motmtain Mist Patterns,” 94-138.

^ Allen Cohen, Marketing Textiles: From Fiber to Retail (New Yoric: Fairchild Publications, 1989), 224-227; Wendy Gamber, The Female Economy: The Millinery and Dressmaking Trades, 1860-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 3,216; Claudia Kidwell and Margaret C. CZhristman, Suiting Everyone: The Democratization o f Clothing ht America (Washmgton, DC: Smithsonian histitutfon, 1974), 91.

89 then: skills were such that sewing at home was a better investment of time than earning cash to purchase clothing. As a consequence o f fewer women routinely sewing their families’ clothes, fewer women would have had sewmg scraps firom which to make attractive and functional scrap quilts.

Significantly, and related to the decline in home sewing, quiltmaking supplies like thin cotton fabrics, batting, and quilting thread gradually became less ubiquitous in retail outlets. In the 1940s these materials were sold in most department stores and in national catalogs like Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward. Stores and catalogs carried many colors, patterns, and grades of fabric and thread, as well as wool, cotton, and (after the

1950s) polyester batting in weights suitable for fine heirloom quilts, utility quilts, and heavy comforters. In the Sears catalog, fabrics were located near the firont o f the book, just after the women’s and children’s clothing.” By the end of the 1960s, however, far fewer fabric choices were available fi-om outlets such as Sears, and the fabric section had moved well toward the back of the book. Polyester batting bad almost completely replaced the natural fiber batts and relatively few weights and sizes were available. In addition, retail fabric stores began a significant decline in numbers and local department stores gradually began to drop their fabrics and notions areas.^ Department stores themselves began to be replaced by large discount retailers with limited notions departments.

” All references to the Sears Catalog are based on the author’s survey of catalogs firam I9I0 through 1995. The survey focused on the larger FaH-Wnter “Wîshbook” issue.

64 Cohen, Marketing Textiles, 245. 90 ùi addition to &brics and other quilting supplies becoming less available, the cost of making a quilt at home began to rise during the 1940s through the 1960s, both relative to costs earlier in the century and also, for comparative purposes, relative to the costs of other kinds of bedding. For example, materials for a fairly plain full-size quilt (96 x 100 inches), made of newly purchased fabric and thread (ten yards of printed cotton for the firont, ten yards of plain muslin for the back, three hundred yards o f quilting thread and a two-pound cotton batt) would have cost an average of $4J6 in the 1930s. By the 1960s, the same purchase (though with a polyester batt) would have cost $14.86. Figure 2.1 shows the average cost of quiltmaking materials during the Srst two-thirds of the century, with the amounts adjusted for inflation.^^ The figure also shows the average cost of a large wool blanket or a machine-made quilt during the same time periods.

Figures taken firom the Sears Catalog, hifiation figures were based on the Consumer Price hidex, compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The index chosen was the annual rate fiom the “Current Series for All Urban Consumers,” with the base period being 1982-84. This index was chosen because it provides the broadest, most generalized figures. Data accessed firom the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Most Requested Series,” , 29 June 1999. The formula used to adjust prices was “TargetYearS= (StartYearS/StartYearCPI) x TargetYearCPI,” with the target year being 1995.

91 Quilt Materials Wool Blanket Machine-Made Quilt 1995 Dollar 1995 Dollar 1995 Dollar Raw Data Equivalent Raw Data Equivalent Raw Data Equivalent 1910s $3.64 $41.96 $8.83 $110.63 Not sold in Sears catalog 1920s $3.99 $35.51 $10.81 $95.87 $3.95 $35.20 1930s $4.36 $46.36 $8.62 $91.43 $2.96 $3158 1940s $7.75 $62.98 $8.67 $7021 $4.71 $37.96 1950s $11.04 $61.42 $13.69 $75.87 $9.05 $50.45 1960s $14.86 $71.83 $15.30 $73.99 $13.16 $62.96 1970s $2721 $77.14 $32.18 $87.53 $22.73 $65.16

Figure 2.1: Costs of Materials and Bedding

This data suggests that before the 1940s, &om the perspective of materials alone, making a quilt, even o f new materials, was actually considerably cheaper than purchasing a heavy wool blanket. It was, however, comparable to, and sometimes more expensive than, purchasing a machine-made quilt After the 1940s, the cost for quiltmaking materials began to approach the cost to buy a wool blanket and remained more expensive than buying a mass-produced quilt. In this situation, the non-rinancial costs of making a quilt—in particular, the amount of time spent on the project—became more significant.

While it may have made sense earlier in the century for a “firugal housewife” to invest her time making a quilt when the materials cost approximately half of what a heavy wool blanket would have cost, that edge was lost when the financial outlay for the two types of bedcovers were nearly equal. The decision to make a quilt a fta the 1940s was thus even more clearly a choice to engage in a leisure activity. It could be argued that the higher costs for quiltmaking materials would have been ofBet by making quilts of fabric scraps

92 left over from other sewing projects or from recycling frimily clothing. However, as

noted above and as will be discussed more specifically for Wayne Coun^ in later

chapters, fewer women had an extensive collection of sewing scraps after the mid­

twentieth century. In addition, few quiltmakers were actually using recycled clothing in

their quilts. This data strongly suggests that the middle years of the twentieth century

marked a critical change in the validity of the image of quiltmaking as a frugal domestic

activity.

The Second Revival: 1970s through 1990s

Quiltmaking rose again in popularity in the mid-1970s. Like the early twentieth century revival, the late twentieth century revival stemmed firom a variety o f sources.

These include: a renewed interest in American history and old-frshioned crafts due to the

Bicentennial celebrations; the back-to-nature movement sparked by the energy crisis; a growing artistic appreciation of modem art that exhibited the same sorts of contrasting colors and geometric patterns that could be seen in piecework quilts; and feminist réévaluations of the importance of women’s unpaid work within the home.®® This late

®® See, for instance, Liz Greenbacker and Kathleen Barach, “The History of Quilts and Quilting,” in The Confident Collector: Quilt Identification and Price Guide (New York: Avon Books, 1992), 15-34; Jonathan Holstein, “The Whitney and After... What’s Happened to Quilts,” The Clarion (Spring/Summer 1986): 80-85; Lorre Marie Weidlich, “Quilting Transformed: An Anthropological Approach to the Quilt Revival” ^ h D . diss.. University of Texas at Austin, 1986); Mary Louise Woods, “The Canatfian ()uilting Revival, 1970-1990: Explaining the Meaning of Quilting in Women’s Lives” (PhD. diss., York University, Canada, 1993). The varied emphases can also be seen in such works as Pattie Chase and Muni Dolbier, The Contemporary Quilt: New American Quilts and Fabric Art York: E. P. Dutton, 1978); Freeman; Hedges, Hearts and Hands; Jonathan Holstein, The Pieced Quilt: An American Design Tradition (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, Ltd., 1973); Patricia Mainardi, “Quilts: A Great American Art,” M s., December 1973,58; Letty Cottin Pogrebin, “New Generation O f Quilt 93 twentieth century revival promises to continue into the twenty-first century. Some studies suggest that more people than ever before are making more quilts than have ever been produced.^^ Quiltmaking has taken its place as an art form with galleries, national and touring museum shows, and large commissions for custom-made quilts paid out of corporate and community public art fimds. Groups wishing to make political or social statements have used the quilt motif. These forums include the highly visible AIDS quilts, but there are also numerous quilt projects calling for world peace and ecology, among other issues.^^ Both large and small businesses rely on the activity. For instance, an industry-sponsored survey found that in 1997,12 percent of all American households included at least one quiltmaker. Those quiltmakers spent an estimated $1.21 billion on quiltmaking fabrics and equipment in one year.®’

Several scholars have sought to define the nature of the late twentieth century quilt revival. Important characteristics include a tendency to have learned quiltmaking fi-om a class, book, or video rather than firom a female family member or firiend; the purchase of books and magazines and attendance at classes, workshops, and retreats in

Makers,” M s., March 1983,52-53; Miriam Schapiro and Faith Wilding, “Cunts / Quilts / Consciousness,” H eresies 24 (1989): 6-13.

See, for instance, Holstein, “In Plain Sight,” 81.

See, for instance, Jacqueline Marx Atkins, Shared Threads: Quilting Together, Past and Present (New York: Viking Studio Books, in association with the Museum of American Folk Arts, 1994), 82-87,96-105,112-114,121-129.

“(Juilting in America, 1997,” Survey commissioned by Q uilters N ew sletter M agazine and International C^uilt Market/Festival, prepared by NFO, Inc. and ABACUS Custom Research, available on request fit>m Qm lter's Newsletter Magazine, Golden, CO.

94 order to leam new designs and techniques and participate in a larger communia of quiltmakers; and the popularly of quilt guilds that feature lectures and demonstrations about quilt-related topics, as well as show-and-tell events, in which members bring completed quilts and works-in-progress to share with friends. The late twentieth century quilt revival includes; quiltmakers who work primarily with conventional patterns; those who prefer new designs that often reveal a more free-form, twisting, pictorial, and/or multi-dimensional aesthetic; and those who consider themselves primarily artists working with fibers and fabrics.’®

As in the early twentieth century revival, there is little pretense among late twentieth century quiltmakers that their own projects are driven by firugality.

Nevertheless, the distorted images of quiltmaking that began in the mid-nineteenth century and were articulated by writers such as Marie Webster and Ruth Finley continue to circulate. Both early twentieth century quilt revival books were republished in the

1980s. Many contemporary books and articles about quilts include a discussion of quilts as household necessities in eighteen and nineteenth century farmhouses and pioneer cabins. For example, German writer Schntippe van Gwirm«^s well-researched history documents appliqué, piecework, and quilting in elite situations the world over, but reiterates an association o f poverty and quiltmaking in the United States. These particular statements are often not ftx>tnoted but strongly echo the words o f Webster and

™ Marilyn Davis, “The Contemporary American Quilten A Portrait,” in Uncovermgs 1981, ed. Sally Garoutte (NQIl Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982), 45-51.

95 Finley, who are inciuded in von Gwinner’s bibliography In another example, a set of mystery novels by Margaret Lawrence set in Maine in the 1780s rely heavily on the works of authorities like Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Mary Beth Norton, Linda Kerber and other historians of the early United States m creating characters and situations, but perpetuate the image of quilts as the nearly universal form of bedcovers at this time. The series’ midwife-heroine is a noted quiltmaker who saves all the fabric scraps she encounters and remakes old dresses into elaborately pieced quüts.^ Nationally syndicated newspaper stories on topics ranging 6om a show of contemporary political quilts in Chicago to quilts as modem decorating elements state that “quilts have long been identified in American culture with warm domesticity, with home and hearth, with comfortable patterns and simple colors,” that “women would sit at home and piece together discarded swatches of fabric,” and that “the American style of quilting [... ] came about by necessity. In the earlier days, women hoarded every scrap of fabric, stitching them together to make blankets.”^

von G winner. History ofthe Patchwork Quilt, 9,12-18,48-49,64-66,75-76, 82-85,96.

^ Margaret Lawrence, Hearts and Bones (New York: Avon Books, 1996); Margaret Lawrence, Blood Red Roses (New York: Avon Books, 1997); Margaret Lawrence, The Burning Bride (New York: Avon Books, 1998). Lawrence lists her sources in the Acknowledgements o f The Burning Bride, 392.

^ Rosemary Sadez Friedmann, “Quilting Was Social, Often Marked Passages,” Colum bus D ispatch, 21 June 1998, sec. Ill (circulated via the Scripps Howard News Service); Diane Benson Harrington, “Quüts Offer Warmth as a Blanket or Artwork,” Columbus Dispatch, 6 February 2000, sec. 115 (circulated via the Los Angeles Times Syndicate)', Patrick T. Reardon, “Quüts O fia Pointed Commentary, Not Comfort,” Columbus Dispatch, 5 March 1998, sec. E3 (originally appeared in The Chicago Tribune).

96 Quiltmakers—both those who fit within the late twentieth century revival

Framework and also those who began making quilts earlier in the century—believe that modem quiltmaking is anomalous in its use o f new fabric rather than sewing scraps and recycled clothing. They also believe they are the first generation of quiltmakers to make quilts purely for gifts, decoration, or the pleasure of doing so. Even older quiltmakers believe they have outgrown the economic need to make quilts they that they attribute to their mothers. The body of this dissertation will deal in detail with these attitudes.

Conclusion

Studies like that of Przybysz, Weidlich, Woods, and others—and even Marie

Webster herself—acknowledge the leisure-time nature of quiltmaking and provide reasonable explanations for the popularity o f quiltmaking in the twentieth century.

Quiltmaking is work that results in a tangible product rather than endlessly repeated domestic chores; it presents the possibili^ of connecting with other quiltmakers, past and present; and it facilitates the joy of being creative and producing something beautiful and symbolically meaningful. These studies do not, however, address why the accompanying myth has also persisted fiom its mid-nineteenth century origin, through its articulation in the early 20*** century, and its further propagation since the 1970s. Knitting, crochet, and embroidery (especially cross-stitch) have all enjoyed periodic revivals of interest among women in the United States, but those revivals have neither had the longevi^ of the quilt revivals nor the association with a mythology that links them to an idealized vision of preindustrial domesticity and enforced frugality.

Why has quiltmaking repeatedly beai a popular leisure activity for women across two centuries, in addition to its role in providmg some families with utilitarian 9 7 bedcovers? Why have generations of American quiltmakers been unwilling to see their predecessors as being motivated by aesthetic and recreational desires? Why does the scrap quilt rather than the quilt made of new materials dominate the popular image? Why does quiltmaking seem to have increased in popularity through the twentieth century, when women have had an increasing number of other options? Why have quiltmakers created and/or internalized a set of mythologized hnages about their chosen activity?

Why have they continued to portray themselves as continuing—albeit in a perceptibly

“tainted,” commodified form—this idealized tradition? What link is there between quiltmaking and the myths about it that some twentieth centiuy women have felt it necessary/desirable to maintain? And finally, what can the answers to these questions tell us about the broader questions of the choices women make as they struggle to find a worthwhile and dignified way to live their lives?

98 CHAPTERS

MAKING QUILTS IN WAYNE COUNTY: SHARED EXPERIENCES

Introductioa

In contrast to the previous chapter, where I discussed the elements of a pervasive

mythology about quiltmaking, I will, in the next several chapters, turn my attention to the

attitudes and activities of twentieth century quiltmakers in Wayne County, Ohio. In this

chapter, I will explore attitudes and experiences shared by all of the quiltmakers I

interviewed. In chapters 4 through 6 ,1 will divide and discuss the quiltmakers based on

when they learned their skills and began to make quilts. This division is similar to, and

supportive of, the concept of the first and second quilt revivals, and the time in between them, that were outlined in chapter 2. These four chapters will include an exploration of the activities that the quiltmakers I spoke with most enjoyed, the organizations they

formed and joined, and the ways they used quiltmaking to raise money. Questions about the values (emotional and financial) assigned by their makers to quilts and quiltmaking processes m each of the three tune periods are inherent in these issues. These chapters will highlight the similarities shared by Wayne County quiltmakers and quiltmakers elsewhere, while also showing the variety of experiences quiltmaking offers its practitioners. They will also stress changes that occurred over the twentieth century.

99 Shared Experiences

While there were distinct patterns of differences in age, teacher, motivation, group membership, and occupation among the women I interviewed, ail shared a set of experiences and attitudes. These included: when in their life qrcles they were most able to work on quilts, their experiences of quiltmaking as a positive and pleasurable activity, and their beliefs that, in the "old days,” quiltmaking had been, if not always a necessity, then at least primarily a frugal use of resources.

Regardless of when they learned to make quilts, most of the women included in this study “really started” to make quilts when their children were in their teens or older.

Of the fifty-six quiltmakers with whom I discussed the differences between when they learned to make quilts and when they started to consider themselves quiltmakers, only eighteen had both learned to make quilts when they were fairly young (under age thirty) and also continued to make them on a regular basis throughout their lives. These quiltmakers started making quilts before or shortly after they married and kept making them while they raised their children. Eleven of these women started to make quilts during the end of the first quilt revival or during the lull between revivals, while the remaining seven learned to make quilts Just before or during the second quilt revival. For the other two-thirds of the women I talked to, quiltmaking was an activity that was either not begun or was pushed aside until after their children were mostly grown or had left home for their own lives.

Marie Gresser said, “I knew about quilts firom day one. My mother quilted. I remember crawling tmder the quilt [and she would say] ^Get out ofthereT But when I really started I guess when I started making baby quilts for the grandchildren” in the 100 late 1960s. She said, ‘^I dida^t have time to quilt until I had grandchildren,” because she had been busy with other housework and sewing projects when her own children were at home. Similarly, Shirley Fetter learned to piece quilt tops in the late 1930s, when she was ten or eleven years old. She also remembered her mother quilting with neighbors at that time. However, she did not begin to piece and embroider her own quilt tops until the late 1970s. At that point, her sons had both left home and her widowed mother-in-law had come to live with her and her husband. “Mother Fetter” was an avid quiltmaker and the two women worked together to make tops that Mother Fetter quilted.'

Myra Norton had watched her mother quilt when she was a girl in the 1920s but did not start herself until the 1970s, when she and her husband owned a small hotel. She recalled that “I had many hours there, waiting for people to come in. And I hooked rugs, and needlepointed, and started to quilt.” She increased her skills and the amount of quilting she did after selling the hotel. Mary Lou Berkey and Elizabeth Partridge both bought quilt-making kits in the late 1970s or early 1980s and followed that experience with formal quiltmaking classes. Mrs. Berkey’s children were in their forties and ftfties by this time. Mrs. Partridge’s sons were still at home, though they were both in their teens. Nfrs. Berkey said that when the Wooster Recreation and Parks Department’s Art

Center offered a class on appliqué, she thought, “ ‘I’d like to do that, just to see if I liked appliqué,’ and I got fascinated with it.” Mrs. Partridge had done a number of other crafts over the years, “but none have had the appeal of quilting, and none have had holding

' Marie Gresser, 1 July 1997, Smithville; Shirley Fetter, 30 May 1997, Smithville.

101 power.”^ Regardless of whether they had learned to piece or quilt as girls or not learned until they were adults, the majority of women in this study were among those who contributed to the surge in quiltmaking in the late twentieth century.

In spite o f the differences between when and why quiltmakers learned to make quilts, all of them expressed similar opinions about why they had continued to make quilts or resumed making them after stopping to raise families. Many of the women I interviewed used phrases like “relaxing,” “therapeutic,” “stress-relieving,” and

“empowering” as reasons why they enjoyed the activity. Ha Berg, aged eighty-nine in

1997, said that whenever she had a &ee moment, she would sit down with her quilting needle, because “I just was relaxed and just loved the time I put in on it and how beautiful it turned out.” AUyson Leisy, among the youngest women at age forty-four, quilted one evening a week with a church group in the early 1990s. She said, “Insurance isn’t always a real stress-free job, so when I’d get home at night from that, I would be real tired and not want to go out.” But she continued, “I found that once I got down there

[to the church], you kind of got revived. Because it took your mind off of things, and it really was very soothing.” Mrs. Partridge articulated the balance between the objectives of relaxation and empowerment when she described her attitude toward piecing quilt tops:

Sometimes I enjoy just the monotony of sewing, sewing, sewing. It’s almost a meditative state that you get into. And I like the challenge, because it’s not always easy. And I like being able to think, “Now, there’s

^ Myma Norton, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Mary Lou Berkey, 23 June 1997, Smithville; Elizabeth Partridge (pseud.], 23 October 1997, Wooster.

102 gotta be a way that I could make this border fît this pattern. Now, how would I do it?”^

Ofîen, ironic health-related comments were made in reference to quiltmaking.

Jane Wilson, aged seventy-nine, said that she enjoyed quilting because it was “so relaxing to sit down and just stitch away,” but she also lauded and said that she’d “rather quilt than eat.” Marilyn Tokheim, who began quilting with her new mother-in-law in the late 1960s and later started designing and piecing tops, commented that once someone gets started quiltmaking, she becomes addicted: “You just want to make another one!

You see a pattern, and you think ‘Ah! I’ve gotta do that one!’ ” She jokingly implied that quiltmakers believe if they collect enough fabric and patterns, they’ll “live to be a hundred-and-some to get ‘em all done!” Eighty-fîve-year-old Estella Nussbaum had a photocopied flyer in her kitchen with the words “Warning: Quilt Pox! Contagious to

Adults. No Known Cure!”^

For some women, the notion of quiltmaking as therapy was probably more than figurative. For instance, RoseMarie Baab attempted to make a quilt based on a pattern fiom a newspaper in 1957, when her prematurely bom baby was still in the hospital. She needed something to do and thought making a quilt fer the baby would be appropriate.

The single block she managed to complete was “such a disaster” that she didn’t make another block for that top, though she did make a few simple quilts during the 1960s and

^ Ila Berg, 8 May 1997, Walnut Creek; AUyson Leisy, 8 May 1997, Wooster; Elizabeth Partridge.

* Jane Wilson Q)seud.], 17 Jtme 1997, Wooster; Marilyn Farver Tokheim, 31 July 1997, Smithville; Estella Nussbaum, 10 June 1997, Apple Creek.

103 then began takmg classes in the 1970s. Florence Martin started to make embroidered quilts after her husband suffered a stroke in 1973. She said, ‘^When I had him home

[firom the hospital], why, that’s when I started in learning how to quilt I had a lot of time” since he was unable to do much outside the house in the seven years before he died.

Mabel Smucker, who had learned to make quilts much earlier in her life, began to make them more often after she became a widow in 1988. Designing and sewing quilt tops helped her cope with her loneliness and sadness about approaching the end of her own life.^

Almost all of the quiltmakers believed that '*oId-fashioned” quiltmakers had been primarily motivated by the need to produce blankets out of scarce resources. Older women who had made quilts firom sewing scraps for everyday use on family beds believed that their experiences were universal. For instance, Mrs. Nussbaum said that

"the beginning of the quilt making was a necessity, you know, because you needed them for warmth. And... there wasn’t, probably, enough money to biqr.” Marian Bennett, aged seventy-two, echoed this idea:

Back then, in those years, most people made their own clothes, and so that was one way to use a lot of those scraps. They needed bedcovers to keep warm, and so that was one way to use up those scraps and also provide a bedcover. I thmk, in my thinking, that is what brought on quilting.

Even younger women emphasized that homemade quilts had only recently become more expensive than purchased bedding. Ruth Steiner, fiffy-one, commented that farm women

^ RoseMarie Baab, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Florence Martm [with East Chippewa Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship], 3 June 1997, Orrville; Mabel Smucker, 30 May 1997, Orrville.

104 of her mother’s génération had access both to sewing scraps and fabric feed-sacks for quiltmaking. She said, “Back then, when probably the price of a purchased blanket was a lot more compared to what they could put together at home, then it probably would have been cheaper [to make a quilt]. [...] Nowadays, [chuckle] it’s kind o f reversed.”^

The experiences of the older women and the actual costs of bedding compared to quiltmaking materials through the twentieth century demonstrate that fougality was a consideration at certain times; none of the women in this study were aware that heirloom and nicer quilts had once been significantly more common that utility quilts.

Favored Quiltmaking Activities

Except for a minority group of dedicated quiltmakers, most women found quiltmaking too consuming of time and space to be indulged in when young children, paying jobs, farm work, and gardens vied with housework for time and attention. When women did begin working on quilts, they began their negotiations with themselves, their spouses, and their children for time and space in which to work. They also began to explore their skills and expectations and to make decisions about purchasing materials and selling services and completed quilts in ways that they believed were different fiom what their foremothers had done. All of these points of contact—with themselves, with family members, with businesses and other consumers—revealed assumptions about women’s roles as fiimily members, community members, and autonomous individuals.

^ Estella Nussbaum; Marian Beimett [pseud.], 11 June 1997, Wooster; Ruth Steiner, 3 June 1997, Dalton.

105 Makmg a quilt mvolves five distinct processes» with, three of them clahning considerable time, creativity, and attention. The main activities are designing the top or choosing the pattern; making the top itself using piecing, applique, and/or embroidery techniques; and quilting the top to the back and batting. The other two processes are marking the quilt and binding the edges. Marking a quilt is the process of tracing the design to be quilted onto the finished top. It is done using a pencil, chalk, or some other means, and a variety of rulers and template shapes. Binding is the process of finishing the raw edges of the otherwise completed quilt, usually by sewing long strips of fabric around the perimeter. Each of these five processes can be more or less elaborate, depending on the desires and skills of the quiltmaker.

Although almost all the quiltmakers had made at least one quilt fi:om start to finish, many had favorite processes and rarely got involved in other aspects of making a quilt Some women even became strongly associated by other quiltmakers with a particular process; for example, several women were identified to me specifically as a quilter or a marker. By grouping the comments and attitudes of quiltmakers according to which activities they favored, it is possible to identify several significant patterns in the activify of quiltmaking. In general, quiltmakers of all ages were as Iflcely to prefer one activity over another, although, slightly more of the older women in my sample preferred quilting to top-making, vriiile yotmger women were slightly inclined toward top-making.

106 simple piecing top-makmg top-making appliqué, and quilting — and quilting 18%' embroidery, or 13% / elaborate elaborate piecing piecing and 18% quilting 28%

lostly quilting art quilts 13% 4% only quilting quilting _ 20% primarily 33% comforters 4%

Figure 3.1: Preferred Quiltmaking Activities

Figure 3.1 illustrates the choices made by the quiltmakers included in this study.

Forty-one percent said they enjoyed designing, making, and quilting tops equally w ell/

Of these, a subgroup (15 percent of the total) primarily used nineteenth and early twentieth century blocks and patterns, making few if any design changes, while another subgroup (28 percent of the total) enjoyed designing and executmg more elaborate quilt patterns. Of the quiltmakers I mterviewed, 33 percent were primarily quilters. That is, these women preferred to quilt and had made relatively few if any tops during their

^ See Marilyn Davis, “The Contemporary American Quüten A Portrait,” m Uncovermgs I98I, ed. Sally Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982), 49-50, for brief discussion of t ^ “balance.”

107 quiltmaking lives. Another 20 percent of the women placed their emphasis mostly on designing tops and putting them together. These top-makers tended to favor appliquéd or embroidered tops or created complex pieced patterns that were only sometimes based on traditional block designs. A &w women in the study only made comforter tops

(generally squares of fabric arranged in an orderly way before being sewn together).

Two women also defined themselves primarily as artists who had chosen layered textiles as their primary medium. For the purposes of this discussion, I will talk primarily about quilters and top-makers, though the opinions of those quiltmakers who enjoy both processes will be included where appropriate.

The decision of most quiltmakers in this study to specialize in one process or another emphasizes the leisure nature of quiltmaking for these women. None of the women—even those who made quilts while raising young children, when money and time can be presumed to have been the tightest—felt she needed to produce a whole quilt herself in order to save money or to justify the time and effort spent on quiltmaking.

Those who did produce complete quilts on their own did so because they enjoyed all aspects of the project. Since just over half of the quiltmakers in this study tended only to produce tops or only to quilt completed tops, they needed to find a “source” in the community to complete the part of the quilt they did not enjoy making. While quiltmakers in other communities traded quiltmaking skills, relatively few of the women included in this study did so. For instance, Ha Berg quilted tops that her mother had made, and Estella Nussbaum initially donated her skills as a quilt marker to church

108 sewing groups, but eventually decided to charge a fee.^ Most women purchased the

needed skills or products, thus creating an expense within quiltmaking that is often

hidden ftom non-quiltmakers.

Making Tops: Creativity and Technique

Deciding what design to use for a quilt top is the first step in making a quilt.

However, it is the second step (actually making the top) that is the ultimate test of whether the first step was successful, especially if the design was original or if a significant change was made to an older pattern. Would the new design work in fabric as well as it did on paper or m the mind of the designer?

For some women, learning to design and piece tops was a turning point in their lives. For example, both RoseMarie Baab and Juanita Ross commented to me that they had felt fiustrated by art classes in school because they felt they could not paint or draw.

Because these were the only skills designated as artistic that they were introduced to as children, both felt they weren’t creative or artistic people as adults. After taking a few quilt classes—Ms. Baab in the 1970s and Mrs. Ross in the 1980s—both felt fieed fi-om their inhibitions to express themselves in this *^ew” medium. The colors and textures of fabrics, as weU as the ability to modify traditional blocks by changing the size, shape, and proportions of the expected pieces, provided a rich ftamework for self-expression and creativity. Mrs. Ross said:

^ Wendy Norton, conversation with author, Columbus, OH, 9 January 2000; Ila Berg; Estella Nussbaum.

109 Di my mind, I don’t know why, but act consisted of being able to draw, and I couldn’t do it. Thought £ was not artistic. I thought through this and realized that I actually did have some artistic ability within me, but my medium was fabric and colors, and woddng with them that way.

This newfound artistic ability created new options for both women. Ms. Baab was invited to teach classes on drafting quilt patterns and had several original block designs published in a national quilt magazine; A&s. Ross found herself sought after as a top- maker for church groups and fund-raising auctions.^

Most of the quiltmakers who said they particularly liked to design tops did not emphasize it to the extent that Ms. Baab and Nhrs. Ross did. While these two women and several others regularly produced tops that were completely original in design or so far removed firom their initial pattern inspiration as to be almost unrecognizable, most women made only minor modifications to established or printed patterns. Often the only change was to modify the color scheme or alter the size of the quilt by adding a border.

For these quiltmakers, the joy of making a top was in working with the fabric itself. For many, shopping for new fabric was part of the fun; for others, sorting through their collection of fabric was the biggest pleasure. Top-makers often said that they enjoyed quiltmaking for the challenge, the creativity, and sense of control it gave them. They liked to see the colors and shapes come together in visually interesting patterns and to

’ RoseMarie Baab; Juanita Ross, 31 July 1997, Apple Creek. Ms. Baab’s patterns were published in Quiltmaker, Fall/Winter 1985,24-25; and Q u iltm a ^ , Spring 1992, 32-35. no manipulate bias edges and multiple points of fabric into flat, square, precisely matched blocks.^”

For the quiltmakers in Wayne County, creativity was the significant factor in making a top. Kristin Langellier argues that contemporary quiltmakers see quiltmaking itself as a creative act, regardless of the source or originality of the pattern. For some women, just producing something fiom the 'fiaw materials” of &bric and thread was sufficiently creative, even if they did not make an individualistic contribution to the look of the finished piece. For others, making some change to the basic pattern was a necessary part of the creative process. This might, in fact, only involve changing the color scheme or making the blocks larger or smaller, but it might instead involve making significant changes to the proportions of blocks, to the set in which they are put together, or to the way different blocks are combined into a new pattern.* *

Among the quiltmakers I interviewed, some (IS percent of the total group) made relatively few, if any, changes to traditional or published patterns but still felt that, in making their own tops, they were being creative. This feeling of being creative, even though no changes had been made to a design developed by someone else, was shared

Jeri Fickes, 1 July 1997, Wooster; Elizabeth Partridge; Kevin Horst, 16 June 1997, Wooster; Diana Huff [individual interview], 25 June 1997, Wooster; Betty Moomaw, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Ruth Steiner.

* * Kristin M. Langellier, “Contemporary Quiltmaking in Maine: Re-Fashioning Femininity,” in Uncoverings 1990^ ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 34-36. The “set” of a quilt is the pattern in which the pieced blocks are sewn together to make a complete top. The set includes not only the blocks themselves but also the sashmg and borders. Sashing is a usually narrow, internal border filming each block. Both sashmg and borders may be pieced or appliquéd, or may be shnple strgs of fiibric. Ill with, women, who just did quilting: the quilting itself was perceived as a creative act because it made a significant change to the raw materials. A larger group (28 percent of the total), however, insisted that some original work needed to be done in order to feel they had been creative. Some women who made their own tops expressed disdain or condescension for women who made quilts of fabric with a pre-printed quilt design on it, often called cheater-cloth. For instance, one woman commented that a colleague fiom her church quilting group did not “really” make quilts since she didn’t piece her own tops. Mary Lou Berkey recalled that when she took an embroidered quilt to an appliqué class she was taking “one dear lady talked about cheater quilts. And I just folded it up and felt like going right home, because she made me feel like [pause and gesture suggesting something very small] ‘that much.’ ” Mrs. Berkey agreed in retrospect that since she had used a commercial pattern her quilt was not “original,” but she maintained that the embroidery she had done distinguished her top fiom a cheater-cloth quilt.

Colleen Hewitt made a distinction between cheater-cloth quilts and wholecloth quilts. While they are technically the same thing (a single large piece of 6bric, quilted to a batting and back) wholecloth quilts use unprinted fabric, generally white, for the top.

As such, wholecloth quilts showcase the quilting pattern and the quilter’s skill. In contrast, the quilting on a cheater-cloth quilt is usually done along the printed pattern

Velma Eicholtz, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Mary Lou Berkey. Several books on art quilts very strongly exhibit the attitude that individuality and personal expression are at the heart of creativity. These books imply that quilts based on traditional patterns show minimal creativi^. At least one art quilt project was predicated on the separation of design and production. Charlotte Robinson, ed.. The Artist and the Quilt (New York: Alfied A. Knopf^ 1983); Susan Shie, 18 July 1997, Wooster.

112 lines, so that the finished quilt looks more like it had been pieced. Mrs. Hewitt likened this to a complete lack of creativity, saying that a wholecloth quilt “stUI takes some artistry. You get the plain white material, and there’s nothing there until you get some artistry onto it, to do i t To quilt i t ”^^ hronicaUy, quilting cheater-cloth along the printed lines is an effective technique because it is, in fact very common to use the same stitching pattern (called ^stitching in the ditch” because the stitches disappear into the seams) on actual pieced tops. The generally negative feeling toward quilt kits and cheater-cloth among top-makers testifies to the importance of creativity to Wayne County quiltmakers. The more individual effort was put into designing and producing the top, the more value most of the women placed on a quilt.

Very few quiltmakers believed that sewing pieced tops together by hand was a worthwhile or enjoyable activity. Most said that machine-piecing was faster and made a stronger top than did hand-piecing. They implied that hand-piecing was boring and would make finishing a quilt an unreasonably long project As quilt historian Barbara

Brackman makes clear, almost as soon as sewing machines became widely available in the mid-nineteenth century, they were used to piece quilt tops. Indeed, she suggests that the sewing machine was partially responsible for the move toward the pieced block quilt with sashing and a border that is most associated with American quiltmakn^. Even when quilt blocks were hand-sewn, as was still common for appliqued or embroidered quilts, the blocks were sewn into a complete top and the binding attached to the finnt of the quilt on the sewing machine. The numerous long seams that must be sewn to make

Colleen Hewitt, 11 June 1997, Dalton. 113 tops with, blocks and sashmg would have been tedious and time-consuming when done by hand, while they are nearly the most simple and straightforward of sewing when done by machine. As such, machine-sewing can arguably be described as the traditional method for making quilt tops.^'^

While a &w of the oldest women I talked to remembered sewing pieced blocks by hand as young girls, no one cited hand-piecing as her preferred method, either “now” or when she was younger. The women who most strongly remembered hand-piecing blocks knew that these were projects intended primarily to keep their hands occupied or to teach them to use a needle and thread. “Really” learning to sew came when a girl was old enough to learn to use the sewing machine. For example, Mary Steiner was expected to hand-sew a four-patch quilt inl928, when she was seven or eight years old. She remembers starting the project with a hand-sewing needle, but thinks she might have been allowed to finish sewing the top on the treadle sewing machine her mother kept for her daughters to practice on until they were skilled enough to use the faster electric machine.*^

Barbara Brackman, Patterns o f Progress: Quilts in the Machine Age (Los Angeles; Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 1997), 21-24; Jonathan Holstein, “In Plain Sight: The Aesthetics o f Amish CJuilts,” in A Quiet Spirit: Amish Quilts From the Collection o f Cindy Tietze and Stuart Hodosh, ed. Donald B. KraybiU, Patricia Herr, and Jonathan Holstein (Los Angeles: UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural ffistory, 1996), 78- 79.

Mary Steiner, 5 June 1997, Dalton; Estella Nussbaum; Ruby Sykes, 30 May 1997, Creston; Doris Hahn [with Oak Grove Mennonite Church Women*s Missionary and Service Commission], 2 July 1997, Smithville; Marian Bennett

114 Appiîquéd and embroidered quilts were exceptions to the general prohibition against hand-sewing. These tops were often popular with quiltmakers who liked to do other kinds of hand-needlework. Applique quilts in Wayne County tended to show large wreaths of flowers and leaves on white backgrounds, with perhaps smaller groups of flowers around the edges or in the comers. Embroidered designs, usually done in cross- stitch, were sometimes all-over designs similar to the appliqué tops, but were often individual blocks that were eventually set with sashing. The other large group of designs for appliqued and embroidered tops were Juvenile designs, that is, designs intended for baby cribs or children’s beds.

In general, quiltmakers in Wayne Coun^ who made appliqued and embroidered tops started with commercial products. As designer Marie Webster implied by specializing in these patterns in her kits and magazine columns, appliqué designs were often believed to take extra skill and artistic talent to create.*^ Many women in Wayne

County who made appliqué tops confirmed this notion, preferring to purchase a kit with design lines printed on the material so they did not have to decide how to cut out and position the fabric pieces. Ruby Sykes said about her decision to use appliqué kits,

“Well, I think it’s Just easier, you know. Really, it would be an awful problem, to start firom scratch with the ones I’ve made.”^^ hideed, some top-makers, like Kevin Horst,

Marie Webster, Quilts: Their Story and Haw to Make Them (Garden City, NY : Doubleday, Page and Co., 1915; reprint Santa Barbara: Practical Patchwork, 1990), 93- 97.

Ruby Sykes. Also Ella Rohrer, 29 May 1997, Otrville; Lola Farter, 29 May 1997, Otrville; Velma Eicholtz.

115 took it for granted that doing appliqué meant buying either a complete kit or at least pre­ cut fabric shapes. The exceptions were people like Ruth Steiner and RoseMarie Baab, who found designing complex tops and learning new techniques to be particularly enjoyable, or women like Mary Lou Berkey, who were particularly concerned about maintaining control over fabric quality and originality.'^

While there are techniques for using a sewing machine to do appliqué, relatively few of the quiltmakers I interviewed were interested in or had used these methods.

Appliqué, like embroidery, was assumed to be something that was done by hand.

Because appliquéd and embroidered tops were perceived to be more artistic and also required more handwork even when started with a kit, they were generally exempted

&om the disdain shown toward commercial quilt tops. The high value placed on appliquéd and embroidered quilts can be seen in the fact that they were often designated as ‘^'cer^ quilts, to be kept for best or given to adult children or granddaughters as special gifts.'’

Scholars who study leisure behavior have noted that women, especially those who do not work outside the home, have a tendency to combine leisure activities with family or domestic responsibilities. This phenomenon, called “time deepening,” allows women to claim time fi>r something they have chosen as a pleasurable creative activity while continuing to meet societal and personal expectations of wife- and motherhood.

'* Kevin Horst; RoseMarie Baab; Ruth Steiner; Nfety Lou Berkey.

'’ Mabel Smucker; Marie Gtesser; Ruby Sykes; Mary Steiner; Mary Rehm, 21 May 1997, Smithville.

116 Making quilt tops emphasizes individualistic activity. It is also well suited to women

whose household and family responsibilities sometimes claim their physical presence but

not their mental attention, or who can sometimes claim minutes and at other times,

several hours for themselves. The wide variety of fabric colors and patterns, combined

with the relatively simple squares, rectangles, and triangles fîrom which most quilt blocks

are made, allow an infinite number of pattern variations. Designs can be developed and

refined on paper or in the quiltmaker’s head. Depending on pattern and technique, a

single block can be made in a few minutes or closer to an hour even on a sewing

machine, or can be sewn in a month of evenings in the living room with family members.

This flexibility contributes to the image of quiltmaking as a fimgal domestic task rather

than a time-consuming leisure activity. A woman shopping for fabric or workmg at a

sewing machine may appear to be making clothing or household items for her family.

The skills used and the locations occupied are identical. A woman stitching an

embroidery square may appear to be joinmg in her family’s enjoyment of their favorite

television shows when she is, in fact, planning how to Join her finished blocks into a

top.^°

Sociologist Lorre Weidlich noted that among the late twentieth-century revival

quiltmakers she studied, routine household tasks were often neglected in favor of

“ Rosemary Deem, All Work and No Play? A Stuefy o f Women and Leisvre (Philadelphia: Open UnivCTsity Press, 1986), 6-8; Eileen Green, Sandra Hebron, and Diana Woodward, Women's Leisure, What Leisure? (London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1990), 9-10; BCarla A. Henderson and others, A Leisure o f One's Own: A Feminist Perspective on Women's Leisure (State College, PA: Venture Publishmg Co., 1989), 62-67.

117 working on quilt projects?* While Juanita Ross joked that her family members

complained about the lack o f food and the need to navigate around fobric pieces laid out

on the living room floor when she was workmg out a new design, few Wayne County

top-makers allowed their projects to disrupt family iife.^ Making tops allowed women to

claim time and spend money on their own creativity without blatantly challenging the

constraints of their conventionally defined roles of wifo, mother, and housekeeper.

In contrast to the general pattern of Wayne County quiltmakers, whose creativity

was expressed in “amateur” activities performed during the interstices of daily work, two

women in Wayne County self-consciously considered themselves to be quilt artists.

More precisely, they identified themselves as artists whose primary methods were drawn

fiom quiltmaking. Their experiences as artists—as people for whom creativity and self-

expression were fundamental aspects of professional and personal identity—were

distinctly different fiom that of the other quiltmakers. Both women oriented themselves toward the art world and hoped to see their work in modem art museums, galleries,

upscale homes, or corporate offices. While both had some interest in conventional quilts and had made one or two bed quilts, they did not find making these quilts to be of the

same order as their artwork.

Ann Brown had been self-identitying as an artist for six years when I interviewed her. She had ma;ored in theatre in college, specializing in costume construction. After

Lorre Marie Weidlich, “Quilting Transformed: An Anthropological Approach To The Quilt Revival” (PhD. diss.. University of Tetas at Austin, 1986), 4-5,104-120. See also Langellier, “Contemporary QuiltmaKng,” 29-55.

^ Juanita Ross.

118 graduation, she had worked for several companies makmg 6bric awnings and banners.

With the birth of her children, Ms. Brown decided to stay home to focus on motherhood and her artwork. She pointedly refused the title of housewife. While she used a variety of art techniques, her sewing skills were taking her more often to tactile pieces. She had had several local shows of fabric and paper-and-ink pieces, but had not yet earned any income firom her work. Drawing on her experiences with costumes and industrial fabrics,

Ms. Brown’s pieces tended to be heavy and multi-textured, though often recognizably based on traditional quiltmaking techniques and patterns.^

Susan Shie was, with her husband James Accord, able to support herself though selling large and small pieces of fabric art and giving classes in creativity and textile manipulation. She had also had pieces in several national art-quilt shows. Ms. Shie had grown up in a Mennonite household in Wayne County and had learned to sew as a child.

While pursuing a master’s degree in fine art, she rebelled against the expectation that she specialize in drawing, painting, or sculpture and turned to textiles. She acquired specially dyed fabrics through purchase or trade. After painting them with a combination of words, faces, and symbols, she layered several fabrics over each other, and added buttons, charms, and leather objects before quilting the pieces with large stitches using colorful embroidery thread. Ms. Shie’s work was bright, energetic, and thoroughly non- traditional.^

^ Ann Brown, 16 June 1997, Wooster.

Susan Shie. For examples of Sbie’s nationally exhibited work, see Nancy Roe, ed.. Fiber Expressions: The Contemporary Quilt, Quilt National 1987 (West Chester, PA: Schififer Publishmg Ltd., 1987), 37; Nancy Roe, ed.. New Quilts: Interpretations 119 While neither Ms. Brown nor Ms. Shie felt much connection to those making more conventional quilts, a few of Wayne County’s quiltmakers were familiar with

Shie’s work or commented about “art quilts.” For the most part, these comments were negative. Those women who spoke about art quilts did not like the often 6ee-fbrm patterns; the use of paint, three-dimensional embellishments, and odd fabrics; or the use of colors and shapes that they perceived to be harsh and ugly. In one conversation, two women conflated art quilts with so-called Afiican-American quilts, which are argued to be characterized by irregular piecing, unexpected color combinations, and large, uneven stitches, which Gladys-Marie Frye notes are sometimes perceived as ugly by white quiltmakers. Wayne County quiltmakers felt that when people called textile art pieces

“quilts,” they were denigrating “trae” quilts, which they believed to be more attractive and also to have the potential of being used in a domestic environment.^

The reaction of most Wayne County quiltmakers to art quilts was similar to that outlined by Susan Bemick in her essay comparing the reactions of so-called “traditional” quiltmakers, the art-quilt community (artists, curators, and collectors), and feminists to

and Innovations, Quilt National 1989 (West Chester, PA: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd., 1989), 26; The New Quilt I: Dairy Bam Quilt National (Newtown CT: Taunton Press, 1991), 19; The New Quilt 2: Dairy Bam Quilt National (Newtown CT: Taunton Press, 1993), 41; Sue Pierce and Vema Suit, Art Quilts: Plcying With a Full Deck (San Francisco: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1994), 140-141.

“ Arlene Hartzler and Alberta Matheny, 23 June 1997, Smithville. Mrs. Hartzier and Mrs. Matheny had recently read a newsptqier article on AMcan-American quilts, which mspôed them to bring up the subject o f so-called nontraditional quilts and quiltmakers. Rosdand Bentley, “How to Nfeke an AMcan-American C^uilt,” W ooster Daily Record, 22 June 1997, sec. C4. Gladys-Marie Frye, Stitched From The Soul: Slave Quilts From the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Dutton Studio Books, in association with the Museum o f American Folk Art, 1990), 10-13.

120 each other. Wayne County quiltmakers felt that art quilts took unfeir advantage of the positive images and skills associated with quiltmaking, while denying or belittling the domestic context in which quilts were originally created. Like the feminists in Bemick’s essay, the women who commented on art quilts seemed to feel that if artists were going to make quilts or quilt-like objects, they should acknowledge and perhaps even valorize the domestic and traditionally feminized roots of quiltmaking. For Wayne County quiltmakers who were critical of art quilts, this attitude reiterates the importance o f the domestic, feminized image of quiltmaking as a leisure activity. If quilts were something that could be shown in galleries along with fine art paintings and sculptures, quiltmaking would not be perceived as appropriate for a “traditional, conservative” woman.^®

Quilting: A Defining Skill and Determiner o f Value

Once the quilt top has been made, the next major step in producing a quilt is to put it together with the back and batting. There are two main methods used to accomplish this step: quilting and tying. When quilting by hand, a small running stitch— where the thread makes a dotted line along the top and bottom layers—is sewn accordmg to the pattern that has been marked on the quilt top. Some quiltmakers use a sewing machine rather than hand-stitches to quilt along the pattern lines. When Qing a quilt, knots of yam or heavy embroidery thread are tied at regular intervals across the quilt.

While either method will, when done correctly, secure all three layers and prevent the batting firom shifting or clumping when the quHt is washed, many people believe there is

^ Susan Ellen Bemick, “A Quilt Is an Art Object When It Stands Up Like a Man,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Tbrsney and Judith ELsley (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994), 134-150. 121 a fundamental dîfEèrence between a bedcover that is tied and one that is quHted.

Specifically, these people a ^ e that a tied quilt is, in fact, not a quilt at all, btit is instead a comforter. The difference between a quilt and a comforter is not merely one of language.

One of the questions 1 asked during my oral history interviews was what the quiltmaker saw as the difference between a quilt and a comforter. Almost universally, the most significant difference between these two bedcovers was, in fact, the presence of knots rather than either hand- or machine-quilting stitches. While both quilts and comforters could be pieced, comforters tended to be thought of as heavier than quilts, less decorative, and more often made from recycled clothing. Regardless of weight or how the top was put together, however, the presence of knotting rather than quilting was the defining factor. This suggests that Wayne County quiltmakers believed that the ability to quilt was a fundamental quiltmaking skill. In contrast to this perception, both Marie

Webster and Ruth Finley assumed that their readers who wanted to make a quilt would actually just make the top. Both of these “experts” advised their readers to find an older woman or a church group to quilt their tops for them. While they noted that the basic hand-quilting stitch was very simple, they also said that quilting itself was a physically awkward and time- and space-consuming process. Both also asserted that the abüi^ to make the highly desired tiny, even stitches was difftcult to master and was, in fact, a dying art^^

Webster, Quilts: Their Story, 102-109; Ruth Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them (McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1929; reprint, McLean, 122 Some Wayne County quiltmakers indeed viewed quilting as the fundamental quiltmaking skill. Da Berg claimed that she had made over three hundred quilts during her lifetime. Further conversation revealed that she had actually made “only” fifteen or twenty quilts firom start to finish. For the rest, she had quilted tops made by other people.

While Nfirs. B%g was among the most prolific quiltmakers I spoke with, her decision to quilt for other people was common among women in Wayne County who enjoyed quilting but did not like to make tops or did not need or want quilts of their own.^^

Another option for quilters who did not want to make their own tops was to attend the church-based sewmg and quilting groups. These groups had many of the characteristics of the “old-fashioned" quilting bee, though with a different emphasis than is usually associated with that cherished social institutioiL For instance, while the mythic quilting bee was said to bring together maidens and matrons and ended with a heterosocial dance and diimer, these group meetings were almost completely the province of older womeiL^

The youngest woman I talked to who regularly attended a church quilting group was forty-four years old and the mother of four children, although a few younger women

VA: EPM Publications, 1992), 137,196-198. Also, Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, The Romance o fthe Patchwork Quilt (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935), 45-46.

^ Da Berg. Also Martha Connors jpseud.J, 1 August 1997, Orrville; Alice Farnsworth [pseud.], 10 June 1997, Kidron; Jane Wilson. Questions about the income received from quilting wfll be discussed in later chapters.

^ Joyce Ice, “Qmlting and the Pattern of Relationships in Community Life” (PhD. diss.. University of Texas at Austin, 1984), 5-8. See also Harriet Beecher Stowe, The M inister's Wooing (1859), in Three Navels: Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly; The Minister's Wooing; and Old Town Folks, ed. Katherine Kish Sklar (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 1982), 793-804.

123 occasionally attended group meetings. In addition, while men were sometimes invited to the “carry-in’* lunch at noon, this was either by special invitation to a man who had performed some service to the group (such as making and donating a new set of quilting fiâmes) or completely incidental (for instance, if the minister happened to be in the church at lunchtime).^®

Within this firamework of mostly older women, church quilting groups provided a regular social outlet for the women who attended. The Lutheran churches in Wayne

County organized two sewing-related women’s groups. Project Day, which met once a month, drew women firom a relatively broad age group. Its specific focus was to make comfiarters and sometimes other simple and quick-to-complete projects to be sent to local and national service organizations. Day Center, on the other hand, met once a week to quilt. It was deliberately intended to provide a social activity for senior citizens. Group leaders sometimes offered projects that would appeal to men or to non-quilters. For the most part, however, the people who attended were older widows or women like Lola

Farrer, who was caring for a husband with diminishing mental capaci^. Marie Gresser told me she sometimes thought she should attend Day Center but felt that she would rather spend time at home with her husband while she still had the opportunity. Some women, like Mabel Smucker, continued to make quilt tops at home as well as attend

“Minutes,” 7 October 1982, Orrville Mennonite Tina Royer Chcle/Women’s Missionary and Service Commission Records, records in possession of group leaders.

124 quilting groups» but others, like Joyce Irvin or Mrs. Farrer, got their “quilting fix” only at group meetings.^ ^

Some quilters, especially those who wanted to quilt more firequently than at church groups or who wanted to quilt at home, used M)rics with printed quilt-designs or other large patterns. While cheater-cloth was perceived by the quiltmakers 1 talked to as a modem invention, specially printed fabric squares for use in medallion quilts could be purchased in Philadelphia as early as the 1780s and some extant quilts dating to the 1830s and 1840s include borders of printed patchwork fabric.^^ Cheater-cloth was available fix)m Sears Roebuck and other national outlets during the 1930s, and again during the

1970s. Although some people in Wayne County denigrated cheater-cloth quilts because they associated them with a lack of creative effort, many dedicated quilters defended them to me. For instance, Alice Farnsworth told me that, while three of her grown children had received quilts embroidered by her or pieced by an aunt, her twin sons had received cheater-cloth quilts when they turned twenty-five. She spoke somewhat ironically when she said, “They were satisfied with that!” Her true meaning was clear when she explained that, for her, quilting rather than piecing was the most valued part of making a quilt because “you put part of yourself into if’ with the time spent making all

Lola Farrer; Marie Gresser; Mabel Smucker; Joyce Irvin, 4 June 1997, Smithville; Members of the Augsburg Lutheran Church Day Center program, 21 May 1997, Orrville. Shirley Fetter and Mary Rehm also provided information about Project Day and Day Center at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Smithville during thehr interviews.

^ Roderick Kiracofe with Mary Elizabeth Johnson, The American Quilt: A History O fCloth And Con^rtr 1750-1950 (New York: Clarkson Potter, 1993), 54-57; Florence M. Montgomery, Printed Textiles: English and American Cottons and Linens, I7 0 0 -I8 5 0 ÇNew York: The Viking Press, a Winterthur Book, 1970), 86-87,350-359.

125 those stitches. Even though, only one child had received a quüt made completely by their mother, all five had received quilts that she had put her love into. Other quilters remarked that they liked to keep several wall hangings or baby quilts made of cheater- cloth on hand to give as wedding- or baby-shower gifts or to donate as fund-raisers.

They found cheater-cloth to be attractive, convenient, economical, and often easier to quilt because there were no seams firom piecing.^^

While eighteen of the quiltmakers I spoke with had experimented with machine- quilting, only twelve said they liked the results. Aside firom two women who owned commercial quilting machines, only six would regularly consider machine-quilting even their smaller tops. Most members of this small group had learned quiltmaking after the

1970s, when the technique was popularized by books, classes and television shows.^"*

Even among women who did not like to quilt, there was a strong preference for hand- quilting over machine-quilting. Although many were willing to admit that a machine- quilted quilt might be more useful because the stitches would be stronger, they nevertheless believed that hand-quilted quilts were more valuable than those done on a sewing machine.

Alice Farnsworth; Ruth Steiner; Thelma Sollenberger, 23 June 1997, Wooster; Myma Norton.

^ See, for instance, Robbie Fanning and Tony Fanning, The Complete Book o f Machine Quilting (Radnor, PA: Chilton Book Co., 1994); Harriet Hargrave, H eirloom Machine Quilting: A Comprehensive Guide to Hand-Quilted Effects Using Your Sewing M achine (Lafayette, CA: C&T Publishmg 1990); Hettie Risinger, Innovative Machine Q uilting ^ e w York: Sterling Publishing, 1980).

126 There were two related answers to my questions about why hand-quilting was more valuable than machine work. In these responses value was always closely associated with the amount of time, effort, and creativity that went into a quilt, which was applied both to quilting and to top-making. Quilts were perceived to have higher intrinsic value if they contained hand-quilting, if for no other reason than because this work took more time. The more elaborate the quilting design and the smaller the stitches, the higher the intrinsic value was perceived to be. If a quilt was intended as a gift this work was associated with the love and good wishes the maker felt toward the recipient In these cases, the value was emotional. Mrs. Farnsworth’s cheater cloth quilts for her sons thus had as much value as the embroidered quilt for her daughter. Both kinds of quilts carried equal emotional weight for the &mily, in spite of the different values that might be assessed for the tops alone.^® This assumption of intrinsic value carried over to monetary value in quilts that were intended for sale. That is, quiltmakers expected intricately hand- quilted quilts to sell for more at auctions or in stores than less finely worked quilts or quilts done by machine. Indeed, several women suggested that one of the ways you could tell if someone purchasing a quilt at one of the Meimonite auctions was unfamiliar with the craft was if they did not inspect the quilts for close hand-stitching before placing their bids.^^

Alice Farnsworth. See also Nora Ruth Roberts, "Quilt-Value and the Marxist Theory of Value,” in Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley (Columbia: University o f Nfissouri Press, 1994), 125-133.

Ruth Steiner; Alice Farnsworth; Colleen Hewitt

127 I asked several women why finely stitched quilts were more valuable. Some women articulated a straightforward analysis of economic value related to the skills involved. These women said that knowledgeable buyers knew they were paying for the quiltmaker’s skill and time, with the implication that any skillfiilly done, labor-intensive, or personalized item would naturally cost more than something mass-produced.^^ Other women suggested that the same sentiment that encouraged people to buy antiques justified them spending more money for a finely-stitched quilt, an idea that would have been familiar to Ruth Finley and other Colonial Revival quilt lovers.^* This perception relating skill to value was also applied to some instances of machine-quilting. There were two women in Wayne County who ran businesses offering machine-quilting on commercial quilting machines. Local women who paid for machine-quilting, for reasons ranging fiom a desire for a stronger quilt to a need to have the project finished quickly, took their tops to Diana H uffs The Quilting Elf. Although Huffs prices were seen as expensive, her work was described as skillful, intricate, and creative, and hence worth the price.^’ Alternately, Phyllis Pavlovicz advertised her business. Log Cabin Quilts, primarily to tourists. Local quiltmakers who knew about Log Cabin Quilts said the work

37 Arlene Hartzler and Alberta Matheny; Colleen Hewitt; Mary Lou Berkey.

Ruth Steiner; Mary Hodges [individual mterviewj, 13 September 1997, Wooster.

Elizabeth Partridge; Mary Hodges [Individual interview]; personal observation.

128 was too sûnple and did not enhance the design of the top. It was not something they

would pay for.**®

In contrast to these economic arguments, some women attributed the higher

monetary value o f hand-quilted quilts to the emotional value of handwork. This answer

tended to end with inarticulateness or incredulity on the part o f quiltmaker. These

women believed that hand-quilting was emotionally valuable because of the investment

of time and thoughtfulness; they also knew that such quilts tended to sell for more

money. They could not, however, say what the connection was between the emotional

and financial value. Alice Farnsworth’s response to my question about why people might

be willing to pay more money for &ie hand-quilting was typical. Her initial answer was

“Boy, that just kinds of stumps me.” After thinking for a few moments, she said:

People buy them [handmade quilts] and they show them and they tell others about it, you know. [ ... ] But it has a different meaning for them than it does for us who make them. I mean, we like *^em too. . . but for somebody that just buys it. I’m not sure what they’re It’s a beautiful hem. I mean, it’s something they can treasure too, but the basic.. . . The basis isn’t there that we have finm making them, firom putting together and making them. I mean, I really, in my mind, I just It’s really a good feeling if I know I can make something beautiful that somebody else will really treasure. But if somebody just, you know.. . . I wouldn’t want to make a mnlt for somebody that really diAi’t care about it, what a quilt can mean.

This answer, with its hesitations and false starts, demonstrates the difficulty that many women had with the idea of assigning financial value to quilts. Wayne County

Alice Farnsworth; Colleen Hewht; Betty Moomaw; Phyllis Pavlovicz, owner of Log Cabin Quilts, 15 August 1997, Moreland.

Alice Farnsworth. Also Ruby Sykes; Marilyn Tokheim; Thehna Sollenberger.

129 quiltmakors believed the rea l value of hand-quilting was the emotional work done by a

woman who made a specific quilt for a specific loved one. They believed that a quilt

made by a stranger could not have that emotional value, regardless of how skillfiil the

stitches or beautiful the pattern. That some people were willing to pay a higher price for

a hand-stitched quilt, simply because it was hand-quilted and hoice appeared to have that

high emotional content, was illogical to them. While this perception did not prevent many such quilters fiom accepting custom quilting jobs or using hand-stitched quilts as

flmd-raisers, it did limit their willingness to charge what they considered to be excessively high fees. This phenomenon will be discussed in relation to changes over time in later chapters.

While hand-quilting was widely valued in Wayne County, many quiltmakers did not believe that quilting alone made one a “real” quiltmaker.” Unlike Mrs. Berg, who was more proud of the number of quilts she had quilted than the ones she had pieced herself, many quilters almost apologized to me because they had never “put a top together.” Arlene Hartzler joked that she could never learn to piece because she found it too complicated, but she admired a fiiend not only for her ability to piece tops but also for having taught herself to do so. Some women suggested that matching up all those little pieces and colors made them anxious and stressed, while others noted that they just had never taken the time to leam.'^^

Arlene Hartzler; Alice Farnsworth; Myma Norton; Rachel Simmons (pseud.], 6 September 1997, Dundee.

130 Unlike the process of making a quilt top, which could be relatively unobtrusive in

its use of household space and in the appearance o f the quiltmaker, quilting is an activiQr

that calls attention to itself, hi order for the three layers of a quilt to be smoothly stitched

together, they are usually stretched out and fixed into a supporting structure. Some

women in Wayne County used a quilting hoop, a device resembling a very large

embroidery hoop (generally two feet or so in diameter), ofien fixed to a floor stand. This

piece of equipment was relatively small compared to the much more popular quilting

frames. A “stick” fiame, called that because it was made finm long, thin pieces of

lumber, stretched a quilt out to its full length and width. As the quilting was completed

along the sides, the quilt was rolled aroimd two of the strips of lumber to give access to

the center. The smaller “roller” fi-ame used a system of rods and gears to hold the layers

evenly, with a section of quilt two or three feet wide and the width of the fiame long

available for quilting. As the quilting in that section was finished, the next unquilted

section was rolled into place. The space required for either type of frame ranged finm the

size of a large dining room table to the size of a sofa. Even the “diminutive” quilting

hoop on a stand required a space about equivalent to an easy chair.

The decision to quilt thus required a woman to claim a considerable amount of

household space. In addition, because hand-quilting is a foirly slow process, this claim on space was relatively long-term. That somewhat fower young women with childrm still at home preforred quilting over top-making may, in fact, have been related to fewer of them bemg able to clahn time and space for this more visible activi^; it was too labor- mtensive for the household to accommodate. Diana Hufl^ whose busmess centered around women who did not want to quilt them own tops, commented that many of her 131 customers ‘^are younger and have children, and they feel guilt-ridden if they give up time with their children to do something thatthey enjoy.”^ Since makingthe top was easier to work into the &mily pattern, younger women made their own tops but paid to have some else quilt them.

Many Wayne County quilters told me that because their quilting firame was so large, they made a special eSbrt to complete the work as quickly as possible. This was particularly true of women who used stick frames. Ella Rohrer said that before moving to a house with a finished basement, she would schedule her housework over several days so that when she set up her firame m the living room she would be able to finish the quilt

“before we had any other big activities.” Even with those preparations, however, that particular room was chosen as the quilting room because its windows had a view of the bam. Mrs. Rohrer could see when she needed to run out to help her husband.

Many women were able to claim a permanent space in their homes for their quilting frames. For instance, Ruth Steiner kept her roller firame set up in an enclosed porch in the summer and moved it to the family room in winter. Colleen Hewitt, along with many other women, took one o f her grown chilchren's bedrooms for her firame and other quilting supplies. Martha Connors and her husband chose a two-bedroom over a one-bedroom retirement condominium in order to have a room for her stick firame. Even with, permanent space, however, many women still scheduled quilting time around their domestic roles. Jeri Fickes and her husband had designed the family room in their newly

Diana Huf^ owner of The Quilting EK 25 June 1997, Wooster.

132 remodeled basement so the fiame could remain standing year-round, but Mrs. Fickes still limited most o f her quilting time to after her teenage children had gone to bed.'*^

While many top-makers fi)und quilting to be too time-consuming, physically difficult or exhausting, or just plain boring, quilters enjoyed the activi^ because they found it relaxing and soothing. Once they had developed the skill to make small, even stitches and the endurance to sit at a firame, quilting was an activity that allowed them to watch television, converse with firiends and family, or meditate on other aspects of their lives. While the leisure resources of space and time for making a quilt top could be claimed without overtly challenging the selfless qualities ascribed to the ideally feminine housewife, quilting as a leisure activity requhed quilters to be more aggressive in pushing against the assumption that, because she manages the whole house, a woman has no right or need to have a space of her own.'*^ That quilters were able to claim space—some temporarily, but a majority on a more permanent and expensive basis—testifies to the image of quiltmaking as something important enough to family comfort and tradition that it must be accommodated.

Conclusion

The quiltmakers m this study shared several attitudes and experiences. Most found quiltmaking to be somethmg they could fully engige m only after their young children were grown. All believed that Wiile they were prnnarOy drawn to quiltmaking fi)r the creativi^

^ Ella Rohrer; Ruth Steiner; Colleen Hewitt; Martha Connors; Jeri Fickes.

Deem, AH Work and No Play, 81,94-96; Green, Hebron, and Woodward, Women's Leisure, What Leisure, 58,140.

133 and relaxation it provided, their foremothers had made quilts in order to use up sewing scraps by making useful bedcovers. Some began quiltmaking usmg scraps in this foigal tradition, hi addition, most quiltmakers chose fovorhe aspects of quiltmaking on which to spend most of their time. Over half of the quiltmakers I interviewed had a strong preference either for making quüt tops or for quüting. These processes were associated by quütmakers with distinct sets of values and skills. Whüe quüting required a large commitment of household space, the skilled use of a needle, and a certain amount of physical endurance and visual acuity, it also provided opportunity for social interaction and meditation. For many women, the meditative aspects of quüting could unbue a quüt with high emotional value. In addition, hand-quüting potentiaUy added financial value to a quüt Designing and making tops, on the other hand, emphasized creativity and the effective use of either hand- or machine-sewing techniques. Whüe Wayne County top-makers did not feel that they needed to confine themselves to orthodox designs, most expected quüts—even if they were designed and used as wall-hangings—to retam enough characteristics of old patterns to stOl “look like a quüL”

Although some women claimed as much household space for top-making as for quüting, top- making could also be hidden among other domestic and famüy activities.

These sets of preferences, and the values and resource-claims they engendered, coexisted within differing experiences of quiltmakingbased on when the necessary and preferred skills were learned. Women Wio learned during the early twentieth century quüt revival, women who started to make quüts between the 1940s and the 1960s, and women

Wio learned to make quüts during the late twentieth century revival all had distinctly different experiences of learning to sew quilts and making the decisions to incorporate this activity mto their daüy lives. The next three ch^tersw ül explore these issues. 134 CHAPTER 4

THE FIRST QUILTMAKING REVIVAL IN WAYNE COUNTY: 1910s THROUGH 1930s

Introductioa

The quiltmaking revivals discussed in chapter 2 did not initially appear to relate to the experiences of quiltmakers in Wayne County. None of the quiltmakers I interviewed spoke to me in terms suggestive of the colonial revival or the arts and crafts movement, both associated with the early twentieth-century revival between 1910 and 1940; only one knew about the books written by Marie Webster and Ruth Finley during those years.

Very few associated their quiltmaking with formal art, feminism in any of its varieties, or the Bicentennial celebration, all hallmarks of the second revival that began in the 1970s.'

Nevertheless, those quiltmakers who learned their skills during the first revival shared a particular set o f attitudes and experiences, while those who learned during the second revival shared a different set. The group who learned to make quilts during the intervening years (1940-1970) provide something of a bridge between the two revival groups but also had some unique characteristics.

' RoseMarie Baab, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Ann Brown, 16 June 1997, Wooster; Martha Connors |pseud.], I August 1997, Otrville; Juanita Ross, 31 July 1997, Apple Creek; Susan Shie, IS July 1997, Wooster. 135 The differences betweai these three groups of women illustrate the ways

quiltmaking has become a more strongly commodified gender-appropriate leisure activi^

during the twentieth century, while still retaining its image of a fiugal, pleasant extension

of domestic work. The experience of quiltmaking has changed significantly, but the

aspects of it that the women in this study valued have remained relatively constant. In

this chapter, I first outline the experiences of women who learned to make quilts be&re

1940. I then discuss quiltmaking in the church-based sewing groups these women helped

to establish. Because much o f the detail in this section is drawn finm Mennonite

women’s Sewing Circles, I also provide the historical context for these groups.

Learning and Doing: A Close Relation between Mvth and Reality

Sixty quiltmakers could remember a specific time in their lives when they first

learned quiltmaking skills. O f these, twenty-two, all bom before 1928, learned during the

first revival of interest, between 1910 and 1940. Most were young teens at the time,

generally between the ages of ten and fifteen. Only one woman in this group was over

twenty years old when she learned to make quilts.

These women remembered quiltmaking as a common activity among most of the

women they knew. Quiltmaking was something they teamed firom their mothers and

shared with their sisters. For most of these women’s families quilts were indeed a way to

keep warm in drafty farmhouses. Even for these women, however, quiltmaking was an activity in which pleasure and choice coexisted with utility and firugality. Many of the oldest women remembered that their mothers—and later, they themselves—had plenty of fabric scraps left over firom making chesses and shhrts for their families. Rather than throw the scraps out, the women and gnrls used them to make cpnlts. 136 The women gave a variety of responses for why they made this decision. Lola

Farrer said, ‘T d always have some scraps left [fiom making clothes for h » children], and

I would put ’em in a box and every now and then I’d get an urge. I’d get ’em out and I’d

cut a bunch of squares.” When asked why she saved her sewing scraps for this use, she

said, “Well, the memories, and you didn’t waste anything.” Mabel Smucker gave almost

identical reasons for using her sewing scraps this way. Mary Steiner said that when she

was growing up, and later when she was raising her seven sons, her family used blankets

or flannel-covered wool-filled comforters for warmth, but used quilts as “a quick

bedspread. We liked quilts. There was a little more [weight] to [a quilt] than a

bedspread, you know. And it was a quick way to make the bed.” Estella Nussbaum said

that in her family, quilts made fiom scraps left over fiom dressmaking were used on the

tops of beds. Under those quilts were ones made finm men’s shirt material or fiom

recycled clothing. Mrs. Nussbaum said these fabrics “didn’t make nice quilts. Not

lovely quilts, but practical ones.” Ila Berg’s reason for making quilts was more

straightforward. She said she learned to make quilts “because I had a love for them.”^

This group of quiltmakers also purchased new fabrics for their quilts to supplement scraps left over fiom clothing construction. Women in families with many girls often had plenty of leftover material in desirable colors. Other women received fabric fix>m fiiends who did not make quilts or, like Mrs. Steiner, made dresses for nieces so they could collect a larger varieQr of fabrics. The back of the quilt, and sometimes the

^ Lola Farrer, 29 May 1997, Orrville; Mabel Smucker, 30 May 1997, Orrville; Mary Steiner, 5 June 1997, Dalton; Estella Nussbaum, 10 June 1997, Apple Creek; Ha Berg, 8 May 1997, Walnut Creek. 137 sashing or borders, were most fiequentLy made 6om specially purchased fabric.

Unmarried women in their teens or early twenties often bought all new fabric to make a special quilt for themselves. For instance, h&s. Farrer made an embroidered quilt and also bought blue and white fobric for a Drunkard's Path quilt when she was seventeen or eighteen. Only Mrs. Nussbaum remembered cutting worn clothing into pieces for use in quilts, using only the areas of fabric that were still strong, and carefully separating these recycled fabrics firom unused material. Ella Rohrer expressed the long-standing attitude of the women in her family when she said, “It’s not worth putting all that work into used fabrics. I mean, it just isn’t We don’t find it’s the thing to do, to put all that labor into fabric that might disintegrate.” Mrs. Rohrer confirmed that even before she was married in 1935, she had relied on new fabric: “Always. Always new fabrics. But fabrics were proportionate. The fabric was cheap then compared to now.”^

Thus, while quiltmaking added to the family’s comfort and maximized the use of purchased commodities, the reasons women made quilts had to do with women’s desires to be creative or to preserve family relationships and emotional connections. Both creative crafts and family activities have been identified as leisure activities that women with conventional white middle-class role expectations feel are culturally appropriate and thus enjoyable to them.'^ The claim on family financial resources was relatively small

^ Mary Steiner; Lola Farrer; Estella Nussbaum; Ella Rohrer, 29 May 1997, Orrvüle.

* Karla Henderson and othas, A Leisure o fOne's Own: A Feminist Perspective on Women's Leisure (State College, PA: Venture Publishing Co., 1989), 108; Karla Henderson and others. Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives on Women's Leisure 138 and the claun on space and time could be accommodated within the roles of wife, mother,

daughter, and sister.

While these families used quilts daily on their beds, it was not necessary for the

women to make a large number of quilts all at once or to keep making quilts for

themselves once an initial supply had been acquired. For instance, Mrs. Nussbaum

remembered that when she lived with her parents, and later with a married sister, the

women and girls generally made one new quilt each winter, to replace the oldest quilt still

being used in the house. The new quilt would be used on the “best bed” that guests

would use when they visited, while the oldest one might be used outdoors or in the bam.

Similarly, h/hs. Berg worked with her mother in the years after she was married in 1925

to make quilts for her new family. Mrs. Berg's mother made most of the tops during the

summer, when Nhrs. Berg herself was busy with yard- and farmwork, in addition to caring

for her children and house. Each winter, when there was less farmwork to do, Mrs. Berg would quilt one or two tops. When she had enough quilts for herself, her mother stopped making tops. Instead, Mrs. Berg spent her winter firee-time quilting tops made by other people.^

Many women in this group remembered that the first quilt they initiated and made mostly by themselves was made for pleasure. Often, these first complete quilts were associated with getting married. Mrs. Berg’s embroidered blocks and Drunkard’s Path

(State College, PA: Venture Publishing Co., 1996), 197-200; John Kelly, Leisure Identities and Interactions (London: George Allot and Unwin, 1983), 29-33,92-119.

Estella Nussbaum; Ha Berg.

139 top were quilted with her mother just before her wedding. Jane Wilson said she made an embroidered quilt in between finishinghigh school and getting married in 1938. While both she and her mother knew how to quilt, Mrs. Wilson’s natal family didn’t make quilts on a regular basis; the wedding quilt was a special project Mrs. Rohrer said that both her natal and marital family had strong quiltmaking traditions: “It was just accepted. If you didn’t make quilts, there was something the matter with you!” Her first quilts were made for her wedding in January 1935. She helped her mother make an appliqué quilt before the wedding; after the wedding, she helped her new mother-in-law make another nice quilt Most of the women whose & st quilts were wedding quilts had made their embroidered or appliquéd tops fix>m kits or had purchased fabrics especially for the quilt

However, Thelma SoUenberger said that she remembered people using their sewing scraps to make quilts to go m young women’s hope chests. She herself had some quilts in her hope chest when she got married, though not as many, she thought as some other women had.^

Stories of wedding quilts recall the belief mcluded in the texts of Marie Webster and Ruth Finley, that “in the old days,” brides had thirteen quilts, or at least thirteen tops, ready to bring to their new homes. The production of tops demonstrated the bride’s sewing skills, while the quilting bee for the nicest of the tops served as the public

* Da Berg; Jane Wilson [pseud.], 17 June 1997, Wooster; Ella Rohrer; Thelma SoUenberger, 23 June 1997, Wooster. Also Ruby Sykes, 30 May 1997, Creston; Marian Bennett [pseud.], 11 June 1997, Wooster. See also “Rohier-Amknt^ [wedding announcement], Kicb’on Weekly News and Shoppers Guide, 2 January 1935, p. 1.

140 announcement of the engagement^ By the 1920s and 1930s (and contmuîng into later decades), when most of the women in this first group got married, whatever reali^ this image had was reduced to a much smaller quilt trousseau. Despite M s. SoUenberger’s perception that most brides had more quilts than she did, none o f the quiltmakers I talked to remembered making more than one or two quilts for herself before she married. Many received quilts as wedding gifts firom mothers, mothers-in-law, or grandmothers, but none recalled receiving more than three as wedding gifts. Thus, while making a quilt of her own^-often one that showed fine sewing skills—could mark a girl’s entrance into womanhood, it was not considered a prerequisite for marriage. Quilts were a nice addition to a new household because they were decorative and could be useful, but they were not culturally required.

The number of quilts these women had and the materials used were undoubtedly affected by their economic status. When they were young women in the 1920s and

1930s, members of this group of quiltmakers tended to have only small personal incomes, if any. Several, including Sophy Parker and Mrs. Rohrer, had done housecleaning or child care fi)r a few years after leaving school and before marrying when they were in their early twenties. Even those who did not marry until they were in their late twenties or early thirties had, like Mrs. Nussbaum, tended to live with family members or

^ Ruth Finley, Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them (McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1929; reprint, McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1992), 36; Marie Webster, Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1915; reprint Santa Barbara: Practical Patchwork, 1990), 64-67,150-152; Carrie Hall and Rose Kretsinger, The Romance o f the Patchwork Quilt (Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers, Ltd., 1935), 37.

141 neighbors, eammg room and board and a bit of cash in exchange &r domestic work.

Only Ruby Sykes had worked in an ofBce (as a bookkeeper) before she married in 1941 at the age of 28, After marriage, these women had all given up paid work until the 1950s or 1960s, when their children were old enough that educational expenses required an additional family income.^

While most o f the young women who made wedding quilts could thus have purchased their new materials with income 6om their housecleaning jobs, those who made quilts after marriage would have used money earned by their husbands. As noted above, these women were the group most likely to have made quilts ftom fabric scraps left over from making family clothing. Significantly, Mrs. SoUenberger, whose wedding quilts had been made of sewing scraps rather than new embroidered or appliquéd fabrics, had not worked for pay before her marriage. Her mother had died when she was quite young and Mrs. SoUenberger had been unable even to finish high school because, as the only daughter in her famUy, she had too many household responsibiUties. Like the married women, she reUed on male-earned household income to purchase fabrics for clothing and quilts.

Women who learned to make quilts during the first quilt revival came closer than any other quiltmakers I spoke with to experiencing quUtmaking as portrayed by the mythic images discussed in chapter 2. For most of these women, quiltmaking combined pleasure and usefulness. WhUe none of their families would have been bereft of

* Sophy Parker [pseud], 17 June 1997, Wooster; Ella Rohrer; Estella Nussbaum; Ruby Sykes.

142 bedcovers had the women not made quilts, quiltmaking provided blankets while simultaneously providing adult women and their daughters with a creative activity that harmonized with the communi^’s gender expectations. Young womoi could purchase new fabric or embroidery kits for wedding quilts, and married women could build up a stock of leftover fabric for family quilts. Many of the quilts made by these women would have resembled in most ways the nineteenth century pieced quilts described by Ruth

Finley, although they would have also included the new, lighter pastel fabrics and curvilinear designs favored by Marie Webster. That is, most of their quilts would have been made &om fabric scraps left over from making clothing, with the patterns based on geometric or simplified floral designs that had been handed down and modified through family and friendship networks over several generations. The women who made appliquéd and embroidered quilts purchased kits or worked from patterns taken from magazines and newspapers. They did not acquire their materials from Webster’s

Practical Patchwork Company—none of the older women were fomiliar with Webster’s name or business—but they did purchase products similar to or inspired by her paradigmatic designs. Even during the years of the late twentieth century revival, many of these women still had fabric scraps left over fit)m when their children were small.

They continued to use these materials to make their quilts, although they increasingly supplemented them with newly purchased fabric.

Church Sewing Groups

Many women in this group were active in establishing or attending sewmg groups at their churches. While two o fthe sewmg groups I studied m Wayne Coun^ were founded before the first quQt revival, many were begun in the 1920s and 1930s. The 143 oldest women^s sewing circle included in this project was established at Salem

Mennonite Church in Kidron in 1886.’ Other early groups were founded at the Sterling

United Brethren Church sometime before 1900, and at Oak Grove Mennonite Church around 1905. These three were probably not the only women’s sewing groups active in

Wayne Coun^ at that time. For instance, the members of Salem Mennonite had broken away foom their parent church, Sonnenberg Mennonite, because of the desire of the

Salemites to, among other things, organize institutions like Sunday Schools, Bible-study classes, and age- and gender-specifîc mission and fellowship groups. More conservative

Mennonites disapproved of these groups because they were patterned after organizations in area Protestant churches. In fact, liberal Mennonites wanted these new organizations at least partially in order to prevent younger Mennonites from converting to other forms of Protestantism. Similarly, conservative members of the congregation initially opposed the sewing group at Oak Grove Mennonite because they felt it was too worldly.”

’ There are two churches in Wayne County called Salem Mennonite Church. The older one is located near the small town o f Kidron; the other is located near Wooster. I designate the two congregations as Salem (Kidron) and Salem (Wooster) when the context does not supply the location.

” Grant M. Stoltzfus, Memonites o fthe Ohio and Eastern Conference: From the Colonial Period in Pennsylvania to 1963, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, eds. J. C. Wenger and others, no. 13 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1969), 114-119; James O. Lehman, Sonnenberg: A Haven and a Heritage (Kdron, OH: Kidron Community Council, 1969), 106-120; Melvin Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society (part 1],” Mennonite Quarterly Review 37, no. 2 (1963): 118-119. Sterlmg United Brethren Church went through a series of makers during mid-century and foially became Sterling United Methodist Church m 1968. See Wayne County Kstory Book Committee, ed., A Hâtory o f Wayne County, Ohio (Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing Company, 1987), 63, and interview with Doris Schar, 16 Nfay 1997, Creston.

144 Seven othar church sewing groups included in this study were founded before the

1940s. These include the Paradise Church o f the Brethren Ladies Aid, whose founding date is unclear. The church was formed in 1898 and there was very likely a sewing group early in the century, according to some women I interviewed there who remember going as young married women. The Tina Royer Sewing Circle at Orrville Mermonite was founded in 1915." Sonnenberg Mennonite Sewing Circle was founded in 1919. Kidron

Mennonite Sewing Circle, whose members had belonged to the Sonnenberg Circle before founding their own congregation, was organized in 1936. The Salem Mennonite Church near Wooster probably founded a Sewing Circle in the 1930s, in conjunction with the sewing group at Martins Mennonite, their parent church. East Chippewa Church of the

Brethren members recall that their sewing group was founded by at least 1932. Members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance founded a sewing group soon after the church was founded in 1938.'^ While the Mennonite women’s sewing groups allowed them to

" While the ofScial name of the Mennonite women’s sewing groups has shifted over time, the name consistently used in all the archives and oral histories is “Sewing Circle” or often simply “the Sewing.” From 1933 to 1954, the ofGcial name for most of the groups was some variation of “The Ladies Sewing Circle.” I believe the popular usage of “the Sewmg” to describe these groups is a direct, casual translation of the German noun “Nâhverein,” which could be translated as Sewing Circle or Sewing Society. I will use “Sewing Circle” as a general term for the Mennonite sewing groups.

Members of the Paradise Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 4 June 1997, SmithvUle; Wayne County JBstory Book Committee, A History o f Wayne County, 46,50; “Minutes,” 5 April 1915, Orrville Mennonite Tina Royer Circle/Women’s Missionary and Service Commission Records, records in possession of group leaders, hereinafter cited as “Orrville WMSC Record^’; Members of the Sonnenberg Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 9 July 1997, Kichon; Members of the BCidron Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 2 July 1997, Kidron; “Report o f the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle: Organized September 16, 1919,” typescr^ undated but internal evidence suggests it was written late summer

145 claim a unique and important place as their denomination transformed itself during the twentieth century, the goals and activities of ail the groups durmg these early years were very similar. Thus the discussion about Mennonite institutionalization included in this chapter serves primarily as background information about a relatively little understood religious group, and also as a foundation for later chapters.

The Mermonite Context

From their founding in Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands in the sixteenth century. Anabaptists developed a belief system that encouraged them to live lives separated from the worldly political, economic, and social concerns of their neighbors. This practice, along with their pacifism and rejection of the state church, resulted in persecution. Many Anabaptists followed the leadership of a Dutch priest named Menno Simons and are associated today with the Mennonite name. In the 1690s, a group following Jakob Amman broke fix>m the Mennonite group because of disagreements over how strongly to enforce beliefs about separatism and shunning o f erring members. This group became known as the Amish. In the years following, the

Mennonites and the more strictly separatist Amish remained closely related. They frequently lived in close proximity to each other. On some questions about how to live as

Christians, they interpreted thehr shared theologr in similar ways. While both groups

1920, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Church Archives, Kidron Mennonite Church, Kidron, OH, heremafter cited as “Kidron Mennonite Records”; Members of the Salem (Wooster) Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 10 June 1997, Wooster; Stoltzfus, Ohio Eastern C or^ence, 224-225; Members of the East Chippewa Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowsh^, 11 June 1997, Orrville; Members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Church Women’s Alliance, 17 June 1997, Orrville; Lehman, Sonnenberg, 273. 146 maintained social and political boundaries between themselves and their neighbors, the

Mennonites had generally fewer restrictions on clothing and amenities than the Amish.

Even among the Mennonites, however, interpretations of the proper way to live varied by congregation, firom strictly separatist to more liberal and accommodating. Mermonite and

Amish families were among the early settlers of Pennsylvania. Their descendents and later Anabaptist immigrantsfollowed the 6ontier westward in both the United States and

Canada.

In the mid-nineteenth century, many North American Mermonites began to experience what some historians have called a “quickening.” This quickening challenged the customary separatist Anabaptist lifestyle. While the Amish by and large continued to place their focus on their separated communities, crafting adaptations to industrialization that allowed them to remain focused on families and small congregations in rural areas, the majori^ of Mermonites began to adopt institutional structures ftom their Protestant neighbors and to increase their mteractions with non-Anabaptists. Sparked somewhat by

Dwight Moody’s revivalism and more by the pervasiveness of Progressive era organizationalism, some Mermonite congregations established Sunday schools and midweek church meetings for young people. Some groups came together to foimd colleges and charitable institutions; others wrote and distributed newsletters and Sunday

See Cornelius J. Dyck,.dn Introduction to Mennonite History: A Popular History o fthe Anabaptists and the Mermonites, 3"* ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993); Richard MacMaster, Land, Piety, Peoplehood: The Establishment o fMennonite Comrnurtities in America, 1683-1790, The Mermonite Experience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985); and J.C. Wenger, The Mennonite Church in A m erica (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1966), for explorations of early Mennonite and Amish history. 147 school lesson plans. Mennonites began to send out missionaries to cities and foreign lands and to organizerelief projects to aid the needy with whom these missionaries came into contact. The creation of the Salem congregation in Kidron in Wayne County,

Ohio, was part of this movement. For instance, during the lS70s and 1880s, members of

Sonnenberg Mennonite church disagreed ovar issues o f formal education, mission activity, the choice o f mmisters, and whether to establish prayer meetings. Members of the liberal side of this disagreement broke away to form a new congregation which allowed them more freedom to act in the world. Among the “worldly” organizations established by the new congregation was the women’s N âhverein, which translates as

Sewing Circle.

Concurrent with the development of new institutions at the congregational and community level, a Mennonite “superstructure” began to develop. Inter-congregational boards and councils were created to support the activities of local groups by developing and distributing shared resources. The General Council of the Mennonite Church was established in 1860 to support the liberal forerunners o f the movement. Within the mainstream of Mennonite society (generally identifred as the “Old” Mennonite Church, but not to be confused with the conservative Old Order Mennonites, who continued to

James C. Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War: Mermonite Identity and Organization in America, 1890-1930, The Mennonite Experience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 28-29,139-141; Stoltzfus, Ohio and Eastern Cortference, 132; Wenger, The Mennonite Church in America, 177-181.

Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society [part I],” 113-114; LehraaOySormeriberg 106-120,121,136; Members o f Salem (Kidron) Mennonite Church Women in Mission group, 4 June 1997, Dalton; Stoltzfus, Ohio and Eastern Cotrference, 114-115.

148 share many similarities with the Amish), a publications board, a missions board, and an education board were all established before 1895. These working boards were reorganized in the early twentieth century. The Mennonite Board of Missions and

Charities (often called the Missions Board), created in 1906, then played a significant role in the institutionalization of Mennonite women’s sewing groups.By the mid­ twentieth century, even Mennonites following more conservative interpretations of theology and lifestyle than either the General Council or the (Old) Mennonite Church established conferences to provide a sense of coordination and unity. For example,

Sonnenberg Mermonite Church sufiered through a second withdrawal of liberal members in 1936 before finally joining the relatively conservative Virginia Conference in 1952.^^

This process of institutionalization was controversial. The new church structures closely resembled the non-Meimonite organizations in the surrounding communities. For some, this was part of their attraction and indeed, part of why they were necessary. If

Mermonites did not provide their own groups for young adults and even for restless older adults, those people would leave the Mermonite church for other organizations. For others, the prospect of Mermonites adopting such institutions, even when the theology

Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History, 220-221; Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War, 124-125; Wenger, The Mermonite Church in America, 238.

Lehman, Sonnenberg 278-299,321-329; “Proposed Constitution o f the Sewing Circle o f the Sotmenberg Mermonite Church” undated but location in records suggests 1954, Sormenberg Mermonite Women’s Missionary and Service Commission Records, records in possession of group leaders, hereinafter cited as “Sonnenberg WMSC Records.” See also Paul Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970: Modernity and the Persistence o fReliffous Cormmmity, The Mermonite Experience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996), 207-208,268-270.

149 and practice was completely in agreement with Anabaptist belief, amounted to assimilation and worldliness. Missionary work in particular was troublesome because it required too close an involvement with non-Mennonites in establishing new missions or joining existing mission endeavors, either in the U.S. or abroad. Many Mermonites also perceived mission work as an aggressive activity in relation to other people, a stance seen as prohibited by Anabaptist pacifism, although missionary work was a respected part of early Anabaptist history.**

Among the most controversial organizations established during the early twentieth century was the Mermonite Women’s Missionary Society (MWMS). This organization was founded in 19IS by Mrs. Clara Steiner as a coordinating organization for local women’s Sewing Circles and also as an educational outlet for married women.

Both the sewing and educational work were focused on providing support—material, financial, and spiritual—for Mennonite missions.

Mrs. Steiner founded MWMS in an effort to continue her involvement with

Mermonite missions after her husband, a leader in this endeavor, died in 1911. She provided organizational advice to local circles and urged groups to sew items and raise money for missions. She encouraged groups to study mission work in general and the history and geography of areas where Mennonites were serving as missionaries. Steiner also wrote to Mermonite missionaries and other institutional leaders to explain women’s interest in, and support ofi mission work. Eventually, she began to coordinate requests

** Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War, 139-141,286-287; James C. Juhnke, “The Role of Women m the Mermonite Transition fiom Traditionalism to Denominationalism,’’ M ennonite L ^ e 41, no. 3 (198Q: 17. 150 for clothing and bedding from missions and institutions with requests for work foom women’s sewing groups/®

In August 1915, a meeting was held at Wauseon, Ohio, to discuss the need for a formal organization to coordinate Mermonite women’s groups; the discussion reflected the transitional nature of Mennonite institutions at this time. While this meeting took place with the general support and encouragement of the Mermonite Board of Missions and Charities, the women did not receive formal sanction hum that body. Many men on the Missions Board were ‘^mwilling to discourage” the women, but folt their own institutional legitimacy in the eyes of more conservative leaders who questioned the validity of such structures was so uncertain that they would not identify themselves with an organization that placed women in formal leadership positions.^® In 1916, at a Sunday school conference in West Liberty, Ohio, a formal call was made to organize the

Mermonite Women’s Missionary Society. By 1918, there is strong evidence that the

MWMS had a formal leadership structure with Mrs. Steiner as secretary, supported by an executive committee and regional representatives. Six Mermonite women—some

Sharon Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mermonite Church, 1900-1930,” Mermonite Quarterly Review 54, no. 3 (1980): 169-170; Gingerich, “The Mermonite Women’s Missionary Sociefy [part 1],” 123-125.

“ Melvin Gingerich, “The Mermonite Women’s Missionary Sociefy [part 2],” Mermonite Quarterly Review 37, no. 3 (1963): 214-215; Klmgelsmith, “Women in the Mermonite Church,” 198-199.

151 married and working with their husbands, some single—were supported as missionaries in hidia by MWMS?^

Clara Steiner appears to have wanted the MWMS to act as an umbrella organization to support a broad range of women’s activities within Mermonite congregations. In January 1917, Steiner wrote to an unidentified Mennonite woman in Virginia saying that the organization was not a general organization of sewing circles but a general organization of Home and Foreign Missionary Endeavor, including

Sewing Circles, Mothers Meetings, Ladies Aids, Missionary Societies, Young Peoples and Childrens Circles or Societies, Individual Sunday School Classes.’ In the 1920s, the MWMS began to produce a newsletter, prayer guides, and recommended reading

üsts.^

While Mrs. Steiner and her colleagues were moving forward with the development of the MWMS, another institution that would play an important role in the development of the Sewing Circles began to take shape. In the aftermath of World War 1 and the Russian Revolution, Russian Mennonites sent envoys to them coreligionists in

Western Europe, England, the United States, and Canada, asking for material aid like food, clothing, household items, cash, and farmingequipment to rebuild businesses and homes destroyed in the fighting. They also asked for help to immigrate to a land where

Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society ^>art 2],” 215-217; Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mermonite Church,” 171.

^ As quoted in Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 188.

^ Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 188,201-202; Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society ^ a rt 2},” 219-220.

152 war taxes and conscription would not be such a threat The North Americans agreed to provide what help they could. They further agreed, at the suggestion of the Russians, to provide this aid through a single entity rather than having each existing aid group send its contributions separately. On 27 July 1920, four groups held a meeting in Elkhart,

Indiana, to begin this coordinated effort at war relief. Other groups soon joined the effort."** In September 1920, in Chicago, Illinois, the Mennonite Central Committee was formally organized. Their focus was initially to relieve the suffering first of Russian

Mennonites and then of other refugees or war sufferers in the area. This remained the

MCC’s focus throughout the 1920s.^

Even as it was being founded, conservative leaders called for the dissolution of the MCC at the completion of its task of aiding the Russians to rebuild their homes. They were uncomfortable with an organization that took young men away firom home, especially when it brought them into close contact with other religious, secular, and political organizations. The MCC worked most closely with the Russian Mennonites, but it also interacted with and followed the guidelines of Herbert Hoover’s American Relief

Administration and the Red Cross. Conservatives were also unwilling to commit

Juhnke, Visiorir Doctrine, War, 249-250; John H. Unruh, In the Name o fChrist: A History o fthe Mermonite Central Committee andlts Service, 1900-1951 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1952), 13-16.

^ Keith Graber Miller, Wise As Serpents, Innocent As Daves: American Mermonites Engage Washington (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1996), 29- 30; Unruh, ht the Name o fChrist, 13-16.

153 themselves to a permanent body that might seek to influence congregational autonomy by dictating what service projects might be adoptecL^^

In spite of the effort to disband the MCC after its first mission, the organization's generally liberal leadership prevailed in their desire to reestablish the MCC as a permanent organization dedicated to coordinating the relief activities of all Mennonites,

Brethren, and liberal Amish in North America. Part of the push for a permanent organization came firom the desire of many North American Mennonites to help Russian

Anabaptists emigrate. To accomplish this, a permanently organized entity was needed to conduct the necessary international negotiations. To that end, the MCC was formally incorporated in 1937 with a mission to “serve ‘in the relief of human suffering and distress and in aiding, rehabilitating, and re-establishing Mennonite and other refugees, and generally to support, conduct, maintain, and administer relief and kindred charitable projects.’ ” In addition to the diplomatic work required to effect the immigration of the

Russians (initially to Paraguay, though many Russian Mennonites eventually moved to

Canada, Mexico, and Brazil), the MCC helped raise money for transportation and to buy land and build settlements.^^

Clara Stemer’s MWMS did not survive the ongoing conservative / liberal conflict within the Mermonite community as well as the MMC had. From its founding, there was disagreement between the MWMS, the Missions Board, and other Mermonite leaders.

The differences between the MWMS and the Missions Board were primarily

Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War, 251-252,256; Unruh, In the Name o fChrist, 23.

27 Quotation finm Miller, Wise As Serpents, 31; Uxavib, In the Name o fChrist, 35.

154 organizational. For example, there were disagreements about whether it was bettw for the women’s groups to make new clothing for needy mission clients or for them to raise money that would be used to buy clothing at the mission site. There was also an undercurrent of concern about gender roles that centered on issues such as whether resources developed by women’s groups in support of missions should be sent directly firom the local groups to the Missions Board, sent first to a local mission group to forward to the Missions Board, or sent to the MWMS and firom there to the Missions Board.

These gender-related conflicts suggest that the critical question was whether the MWMS, both at the local and national level, was an independent organization, a subsidiary of local church mission boards, or a subsidiary of the Missions Board of the Mennonite Church.^^

Despite this hierarchical unrest, by the 1920s the liberal-leaning Missions Board openly supported the existence and activities of the women’s groups. The sewing groups clearly provided a valuable and consistent source of material aid, especially clothing and bedding, as well as financial support used for housing, food, and other necessities for missionaries and MCC workers. In addition, and probably most significantly, the local sewing groups provided a way for Mennonite women to be involved in the Missions

Board’s world-wide project.^

While conservative Mennonite leaders had reservations about both the Missions

Board and the MCC, the MWMS made them particularly uncomfortable. Even though conservative men often supported the existence of local sewing groups, they felt that the

Juhnke, “The Role of Women in the Mennonite Transition,” 19-20.

^ Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 187-188.

155 womea^s money and products should be channeled to the Missions Board or directly to the missions through male-led mission societies rather than being sent to a female-led group like the MWMS. They were also concerned about the apparent independence of the MWMS, with its dual focus on providing an educational resource fer women as well as clothing and bedding for families, missions, and institutions.^^ There may also have been personnel issues. While Mrs. Steiner herself was a member of a congregation affiliated with the relatively conservative (Old) Mennonite Conference, many of her most visible colleagues were affiliated with the liberal General Conference Mennonite Church.

Mrs. Steiner attempted to downplay the desire of some of her associates for greater independence and autonomy, but she was not always successful.^' This confirmed conservatives* fears that women's involvement in extra-congregational organizations could lead them to worldly, and even feminist, ambitions.

In 1925, Clara Steiner sought a replacement for herself as the secretary of the

MWMS. The Missions Board took advantage of the change in leadership to reconcile the conflicts between itself and the women's group and also between the two organizations and the rest of the increasingly conservative Mennonite leadership. They acted primarily to reduce the women's autonomy and de-emphasize the educational aspects of the women's work. Over the next four years, the Mennonite Women's Missionary Society was replaced by the Women's Missionary Committee of the Mennonite Board of

Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women's Missionary Society |part 2],” 221-225; Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mermonite Church," 189-191.

Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mermonite Church,” 194-196.

156 Missions and Charily. The new organization was to ‘^organize and harmonize” the

Sewing Circle work by coordinatingthe needs of missions and institutions for goods and money with the workers available at the churches. All seven committee members were appointed by the Mission Board, thus depriving the organization of its autonomy. As a result of this change, the more liberal members of the old women’s leadership gradually left the organization.^^

The Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities changed the name of the

Women’s Missionary Committee to the General Sewing Circle Committee in 1933 to reflect the more limited focus of the women’s group under the leadership of Missions

Board.^^ Historian Sharon Klingelsmith comments on a widespread lack o f interest in the educational program by Sewing Circle members after the Missions Board took over leadership of the women’s groups. She suggests that, by the 1930s, most Mennonites— male and female—believed that sewing was the most important function of the women’s groups.^'^

Historians James Junke and Melvin Gingmch emphasize that one of the major issues within Meimonitism during the 1930s was a resurgence of conservatism. This reaction against the liberal strains of Progressive Christianity resulted in a reduction in the number and scope of Mennonite organizations and publications. Efforts were also

^ Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 189; Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society [part 2],” 230-231.

Gingerich, “The Mennonite Women’s Missionary Society [part 2],” 225-231.

^ Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 202-203,206

157 made to increase and emphasize the separation between Mennonites and the rest of the world. The MCC was able to survive and expand its mission in spite of the conservative trend. The women’s groups also survived, but with a more limited objective and less institutional autonomy. This reduction reflected conservative belief that women should remain primarily focussed on local and domestic concems.^^

Wayne County Sewing Groups

Women’s sewing groups in all denominations were founded to meet several related goals: to promote Christian fellowship among female members of the congregation; to provide material aid and spiritual support fer missionary projects; to coordinate the production and distribution of household goods to needy members of the community; and to raise money to meet congregational building and maintenance goals.^^

Funds to support these goals initially, and primarily, came from group members themselves. The Ladies Aid Society at Sterling United Brethren Church charged membership dues of 100 per meeting. Most groups, however, passed a collection plate at each meeting. In addition, some sewing groups, including those at Oak Grove Mennonite

Juhnke, “The Role of Women in the Mennonite Transition,” 17-19; Klingelsmith, “Women in the Mennonite Church,” 203-204.

See, for instance, “Minutes,” 5 April I9I5, Orrville WMSC Records; “Report of the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle,” probably 1920, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records; “Proposed Constitution of the Sewing Circle of the Sonnenberg Mennonite Church” probably 1954, Sonnenberg WMSC Records. There are no specific mission statements for the Ladies Aid at Sterling United Brethren/Methodist, though these goals are apparent throughout Record books for Sterling Ladies Aid, 24 May 1900 to 18 October 1906 and 27 September 1917 to 24 June 1962, Sterlmg Methodist Church Archives, Sterlmg Methodist Church, Sterlmg, OH, heremafler cited as “Sterlmg Ladies Aid Records.”

158 and Sterlmg United Brethroa, collected regular donations from Sunday school classes.^^

During this period, the money was sometimes sent directly to missionary boards, to the trustees of church service organizations like hospitals or orphanages, or to local church building committees. Most often, however, the money was used to buy supplies for the material aid and fund-raising projects o f the local groups themselves.^^

The Ladies Aid at Sterling United Brethren divided their time between social activities, sewing for church members, and organizing fond-raising projects. They used most of the money they raised for upkeep of the church and parsonage. They also regularly paid the pastor’s salary. In December 1929, they made their first recorded donation of $25 to Otterbein House, an old-people’s home and orphanage supported by the United Brethren denommation. Among the group’s papers for January 1927 to

October 1932 was a script for a short play urging a $l per member donation to the

“Otterbein Home.”^^ In addition to plays, the women at Sterling United Brethren held community dinners and organized raffles and bazaars in order to raise money.

See, for instance, “Minutes,” February 1929, Sterlmg Ladies Aid Records; “Minutes,” 7 March 1932, Oak Grove Girls Sewing Circle, in Oak Grove Mennonite Women’s Missionary and Service Commission Records, records in possession o f group leaders, hereinafter cited as “Oak Grove WMSC Records.”

“Minutes,” 4 May 1915 and 4 December 1917, Oak Grove Senior Sewing Circle, Oak Grove WMSC Records; “Minutes,” 2 March 1922, Sterling Ladies Aid Records; “Mmutes,” 6 February 1936, Orrville WMSC Records.

See, for instance, “Minutes,” 5 August 1926, February 1929, December 1929, December 1930, Sterlmg Ladies Aid Records. I was unable to find a location for Otterbein House.

159 Di contrast to this variety of activities, material aid projects were the central feature of the Mennonite women’s sewing groups. While other projects were sometimes undertaken, all of the groups focused on making clothing and bedding fer distribution to local families or shipment to missionaries and institution leaders fer the use of their families or their clients. This focus can be seen in the feunding stories of several groups.

In 1918, the Orrville Mennonite congregation established a Sewing Circle to produce clothing for war sufferers. A Mothers’ Meeting had been fermed at Orrville

Mennonite in April 1916 to provide fellowship, devotional talks, and Bible-study to married women m the congregation. Several male congregational leaders attended the

Mothers’ Meeting on 4 April 1918. Evidently responding to a request for material aid in an article in The G ospel Herald, a Mennonite newspaper, the men urged the women to transform the Mothers’ Meeting into a Sewing Circle. Two motions were made and passed: that the women support a missionary in the field, and that the women sew items for war sufferers, as per the request in the newspaper article. The group organized committees to find out what items were required, to purchase the necessary supplies, and to conduct meetings. After several more meetings with the men, the group was formally reorganized as a Sewing Circle.'*®

The Swiss Mennonite congregation at Sormenberg established its Sewing Circle in September 1919. This was significant because it demonstrates that by the late 1910s even the more conservative Mennonite congregations had become comfortable with the

'*® “Minutes,” 4 April I9I8, Orrville WMSC Records. See Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War, 248, fer a discussion o f the role of Mermonite newspapers m requesting material aid befere and during World War L 160 sort of formalized groups and activities that were common among other Christian congregations. The organization of the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle demonstrates some of the patterns of Mennonite women's congregational lives. A Sewing Circle member who was bom around 1910 remembered that when she was in her early teens, she went with her mother to early meetings of the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle:

It was [started by] an older lady in our church. Well, maybe she wasn’t so old at that time. [... ] She started at the church, just informal. There must have been need someplace. [... ] I think we first cut our own garments. And yet it seems to me she got them somewhere, unless she cut them at home and brought them to church. We just gathered up in the fix>nt of the church, a few ladies. It was very small at first. And then she’d pass out these garments for the women to take home that were there.

Early records of the Sonnenberg Sewing confirm that the group held only devotional and business meetings at the church. They thought that doing the actual sewing at home was more efficient than hauling sewing machines back and forth. In addition, the group wanted to emphasize the devotional aspects of the meeting, because “God’s blessing upon the alms and upon the garments is worth more, in a sense, than the garment itself”'*'

Because of this structure, the Sonnenberg Sewing attracted both women with time to sew and also those whose femily commitments prevented their involvement in anything more than a monthly devotional meeting. The same elderly group-member recalled:

|My mother] didn’t take any [garments to sew] because there were eight children in our family. [... ] They felt like it [the sewing project] was more for those that didn’t have so much work at home, didn’t have a big

“Report of the Sormenberg Sewing Circle,” probably 1920, WMSC Records, Kidron Mermonite Records.

161 family. So ladies took the garments along home, made them, and the next month they’d bring them back again

Younger women were as active as older women in establishing groups, often resulting in the creation of two Sewing Circles in a single congregation. For example, the original Sewing Circle at Oak Grove Mennonite, which had been formally organized in

1905, was joined in December 1920 by the Young Women’s Missionary Circle. This group of young married and unmarried women formed to “take up the Relief Sewing” and provide themselves with a congenial social outlet. Through the 1920s and probably up until 1933, the senior and junior women’s groups met on alternate months. Both engaged in similar work, though they maintained separate leadership structures and financial records until they recombined due to lack of attendance at the younger women’s

Sewing."*^

In 1936, Kidron Mennonite Church was founded as a daughter congregation of

Sonnenberg Mennonite Church. Women who had been active in the Sonnenberg Sewing continued to meet as a sewing group in their homes until they could move into their large space in the new church building when it was completed in 1937.“*^ On 6 July 1938, the

Kidron group divided into senior and junior Sewing Circles. The minutes suggest that the younger women thought they were not being given the chance to lead. An initial proposal was made to create a committee composed of both an older and a younger

Helen Marvin [pseud.], with Members of Sonnenberg WMSC, 9 July 1997, Kidron.

“Mmutes,” 7 December 1920, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

“Mmutes,” 6 October 1937, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

162 woman to lead the entire group. The younger women, however, opted to form a separate organization that would meet at the church on the same day as the senior women.

Sewing projects, leadership structures, finances, and business meetings were organized separately; however, “it was also desired by the elder sisters that the [devotional] program be held together. One month one circle give the program and the next the other circle.” The junior women included in their minutes the statement that:

This circle was not organized because we could no longer work together but that we together might bring more honor and glory to God. May the prayers of the elder sisters and others as well follow us in what ever tasks we undertake to do that we may always do the first things first. May we keep in mind it is not always how much we get done but how it is done and in what kind of spirit it is done. May the Lord bless our work."*^

The two groups continued to meet separately-but-together at least through 1972, though eventually they merged because of a general difficulty in finding enough women willing to take on leadership roles in the seven women's and girls’ organizations that were formed at Kidron Mennonite.'*®

The clothing produced by the sewing groups was quite simple: nightwear, slips, skirts, and simple dresses for women and girls; shirts and pants for boys. Often, the clothing was made fix)m pre-cut pieces purchased from cutting houses owned by the Red

Cross or denominationalorganizations. Bedding was likewise simple: sheets and plain

“Minutes,” 6 July 1938, Dorcas Sisters Records, Kidron Mennonite Records. The Junior Sewing Circle at Kidron Meimonite changed its name to “Dorcas Sisters” soon after it was founded.

“Minutes,” I March 1950, and throughout 1948-1953, Dorcas Sisters Records; and “Minutes,” 25 October 1965, and “WMSA Questionnaire,” April 1969, Women’s Council Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

163 pillowcases, mattress covers, and tied comforters. The groups needed projects that could be completed in a short time and that could be useful to neighbors and strangers alike.

Prodigious numbers of these unstructured and undecorated items could be produced in a single meeting. For instance, at their 5 August 1913 meeting, the Oak Grove Sewing

Circle produced twenly-four sheets, twenQr-four pillowcases, six bed pads, six mattress slips, and two tablecloths for the Meimonite mission in Youi^stown, Ohio.^^ On 1 April

1924 the same group made twelve girls’ dresses, fourteen boys’ shirts, and two petticoats for the Canton, Ohio, Mennonite mission.'** While the quantity o f linens and clothing produced at these meetings was somewhat unusual, the range was not, nor were the destinations.

Lydia Smucker, a group member who wrote a memoir commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Oak Grove Sewing Circle, recalled how members had obtained projects in the years before the MWMS and then the Missions Board’s Sewing Circle committee was established.

Each circle had to get its own order for the Sewing by writing to some mission, asking it to send an order for what was needed The mission workers would send a list of needs as they found them, giving only the ages of boys and girls, and then we would cut the garments according to age size.» 49

“Minutes,” 5 August I9I3, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

'** “Minutes,” 1 April 1924, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

Lydia Smucko*, “Early Developments of the Oak Grove Circle,” typescript. Oak Grove WMSC Records.

164 Other circles operated in a similar way. At their 3 April 1919 meetmg, the OrrvHle circle made ten. boys’ shirts and knotted one comforter/^ Beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1930s, the Orrville Sewing regularly purchased fabric cut into different-sized items of clothing firom a Mermonite-operated cutting room in Elkhart,

Indiana. This clothing was generally sewn at home and then sent to the Mennonite hospital in India, to Russian Mennonite immigrants in Canada, to the Mennonite- managed tuberculosis hospital in LaJunta, Colorado, and to the American Friends

Service Committee for distribution where needed.^' During the 1930s, Orrville also began using money from its treasury to purchase items needed by local families. For instance, at their August 1933 meeting, the women “decided that we would use $2.50 for pillowcases, sheets, and a blanket for [the] Jacob Miller [femily].”^^

After their November 1935 meeting, the Kidron Sewing Circle was able to send a very large bundle of assorted clothes, ranging from children’s underwear and men’s overcoats to comforters, quilts, and a single pillow, to Russian Mennonite émigrés in

Canada.^ These new Canadians may have been beneficiaries of the MCC emigration project. The Kidron Sewing Circle also sent items to India, to Philadelphia, and to domestic institutions like the Mennonite mission in Lima, Ohio. Like all the groups, the

“Minutes,” 3 April 1919, Orrville WMSC Records.

“Minutes,” 1925-1930 and 1933-1944, Orrville WMSC Records. Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War, 184, describes the evolution o f the Mennonite hospital in LaJunta, Colorado.

^ “Minutes,” 2 August 1933, Orrville WMSC Records.

^ “Minutes,” 6 November 1935, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

165 Kidron Sewing Circle also made clothing and bedding and gathered household items for local families. In February 1937 the members made a bed pad for “^Mrs. Begly” and also did other sewing for the Begly family, “the Circle only doing the sewing, Martha brot the material."^'*

Occasionally, the Mennonite groups would engage in non-sewing relief activities as well. For instance, as early as 1913, the Oak Grove Sewing Circle had begun its regular pattern of holding several meetings a year at the Rittman Old Folks Home to clean and sew for the residents there.*^ In September 1913, Lydia Yoder brought canning jars to the Oak Grove meeting. Members took them home to fill when they did their own canning. The filled jars were returned to the Sewing Circle and then sent on to the

Canton mission. Similarly, the Kidron Sewing Circle spent most of a meeting in

November 1935 “schnitzing” ten bushels of apples and one o f peas for drying.®*

Until the 1940s, quiltmaking was a relatively uncommon activity for most of the church women’s groups included in this study. The Sterling United Brethren Ladies Aid appears to be the only group that made quilts on a regular basis during the first quilt revival. Quilts made by church groups in this period were generally given as gifts to ministers or other prominent communier members, although sometimes they were used to raise money. For instance. Oak Grove Mennonite made a quilt for Mrs. P. R. Lantz,

“Minutes,” 3 February 1937, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Minutes,” 7 May 1913, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

®* To schnitz food is to cut it into small pieces, usually in preparation for drying. “Minutes,” 2 September 1913, Oak Grove WMSC Records, and “Minutes,” 6 November 1935, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

166 whose husband was a leader of the congregation.^^ Sterling Ladies Aid members tended to give quilts away or to use them as contest prizes, hi December 1927,6 r example, the winner of a quilt was the entrant who guessed the correct number of beans in ajar. A quilt top donated on the day of that contest was to be “given away to the one who holds the lucky number on a pencil” at the meeting in February. That particular rafQe raised

$28.60 from people in the towns of Sterling, Creston, and Rittman.^^

Even comforters were made only occasionally by the church groups. For example, in July 1915, the Oak Grove Sewing Circle made a comforter for the Sommer family, along with an assortment of clothing.^^ Only once in the early years, on 3 April

1919, did Orrville Sewing Circle knot a comforter.^ Later, in March and November of

1928, the Orrville Sewing Circle paid for batting, fabric, and yam for comforters out of their treasury; the minutes did not note where these particular comforters were sent.^*

Oak Grove sent two quilts, along with a comforter and three dresses, to the Canton mission in April 1913.® This group did not work on a quilt again until September 1914,

“Minutes,” 1 September 1914, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

“Minutes,” December 1927 and 2 February 1928, Sterling Ladies Aid Records. I do not know what the phrase “lucky number on a pencil” refers to. The February 1928 minutes suggest that the contest was a raffle.

” “Mmutes,” 6 July 1915, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

“Mmutes,” 15 April 1916 to 5 February 1920, Orrville WMSC Records.

“Mmutes,” 7 March 1928 and 7 November 1928, Orrville WMSC Records.

® “Mmutes,” 1 April 1913, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

167 when Sister John Conrad donated the top that was quilted and given to Sister Lantz.^ hi

1930, the “Yoder sisters” donated tops, batting, and backing for two quilts “for the

Russians.” On the day those tops were completed, twenty-five pieces of clothing were also finished and shipped to the Mennonite Central Committee Material Aid distribution center in Scottdale, Pennsylvania.^ Group members confirmed that quilt- and comforter- making were not big activities at the Sonnenberg Sewing until the early 1930s. By this time, that group had lengthened its devotional-only meeting to an all-day work session held in members’ homes, where space could be made for several sewing machines, cutting areas, and a quilt fiame.®^

With fabric costs relatively low, most of the sewing groups were able to raise the cash they needed for fabrics, notions, and batting for clothing and comforters through dues and donations. However, because the Sterling Ladies Aid shared responsibility with men’s groups to pay the minister’s salary and maintain the church building, they engaged in a variety of fund-raisers. Quilting for pay would eventually become a favorite technique. According to the minutes of the 3 March 1901 meeting. Ladies Aid members discussed selling their quilting services to women in the community: “Mrs. Good [the president] proposed to the Society to do some quilting to add money to our Treasury and was discussed by the Ladies. But nothing definite arranged.”^^ They did not record any

“Minutes,” 1 September 1914, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

^ “Mmutes,” 3 November 1930, Oak Grove WMSC Records.

Sonnenberg Mennonite WMSC.

^ “Mmutes,” 3 March 1901, Sterling Ladies Aid Records.

168 mcome firom this activity until 1904, and only infirequently after that until the early

1930s.®^

This early and limited involvement in quilting for pay at Sterling United Brethren

foreshadowed later developments. In February 1938, the sisters at Kidron Mennonite

‘^decided that the Circle will make quilts for any family in this congregation that wishes to have some made and do not have the time or room at home.”^^ Throughout the 1940s, other groups began to note earnings firom quilting in their records and to discuss rates in their meetings. All the groups shared the motivation expressed by the women at Kidron

Mennonite. Women in the community had tops that they wanted quilted but did not have the time or the room—or, I would add, the desire—to do it themselves. On the other hand, quilting was something that many members of church sewing groups enjoyed doing. Given the gradually increasing costs for fabric and other quiltmaking supplies after World War H, the money raised by quilting other women’s tops preserved the groups’ abilities to purchase supplies for their own material aid projects. This effort will be discussed more thoroughly in the next chapter.

The work done by the women’s sewing groups provided crucial support to developing institutional structures. While the women retained internal control of their local organizations, they had relatively little authority at the congregational level, and almost none above that. All of the groups conducted business meetmgs at which they

“Minutes,” 31 March 1904,18 September 1904, and 2 March 1922, Sterling Ladies Aid Records.

“Minutes,” 2 February 1938, WMSC Records, Kitkon Meimonite Records.

169 elected leaders and voted on what projects to engage in and how to use their resources.

As long as they were within the accepted boundaries of women’s work of feeding and

caring for people and homes, they were given relative autonomy. They met resistance

when they attempted to direct the activities or finances o f men. For instance, the Ladies

Aid at Sterling United Brethren repeatedly tried and failed to raise enough money fix>m

the congregation to pay a janitor to clean the church; they inevitably ended up having to

do the work themselves.®^ I have already discussed the unwillingness of male Mennonite

leaders to allow women to organize themselves independently of male structures or to

venture beyond supportive activities.

Karla Henderson and her colleagues have noted that since the late nineteenth

century, church women’s groups have been a major leisure resource for women who

wished to retain a “respectable” reputation. Such groups provided places to meet, a

public identic, and sanctioned a variety of non-housebound activities for women. They

also allowed women to use their firee time in a way that reinforced values they considered

positive and meaningful. Henderson, e t aL, also suggest, however, that because these

groups reinforced rather than challenged conventional gender roles, women remained

excluded fix)m positions that exercised real control over social institutions.™ The

struggle between Clara Steiner and her coworicers in the MWMS against the takeover of

their organization by the Missions Board in the late 1920s suggests that some Mennonite

^ “Mmutes Book,” January 1927 to October 1932 and 8 November 1932 to 2 November 1943, Sterling Ladies Aid Records.

™ Kelly, Leisure Identities and Interactions, 21-22; Henderson and others. B oth Gains and Gaps, 39-40,45-48,192-193.

170 women recognized the unfairness o f this arrangement.^^ This awareness was not perceived, or at least not expressed, by leaders of Wayne County Mennonite women’s groups, hideed, men appeared in these records only as the heads of households needing aid or as beloved leaders who occasionally joined the women for a noon meal and brief worship service. Because the women in Wayne County shared the general goals o f the men who led the extra-congregational organizations and institutions, and also because they valued the time spent with other women at the group meetings, they did not perceive themselves as being exploited simply because they did not directly control the distribution of the resources they produced. Indeed, they counted the personal benefits from their work—the fellowship, the ability to further Christian mission goals, and the opportunity to socialize with each other—as much more critical than the material results.

In this way, the leisure aspects of the women’s sewing meetings helped to obscure the economic aspects of their unpaid labor in support of denominational goals. Even though quiltmaking was still a relatively minor part of the work o f church women’s groups in

Wayne County, the leisure-obscured commodification o f that activity was fr>reshadowed.

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed quiltmaking in Wayne County from the 1910s through the 1930s. These years are associated with a revival o f interest in quiltmaking throughout the United States. Women in Wayne County made utility quilts and nice quilts, as well as comforters for the daily use of their families and to donate to missions and other church-related service institutions fix)m unused scrap fabric and very occasionally fix>m

Klingelsmith, “Women m the Mennonite Church,” 186. 171 recycled clothing. They also purchased new fabric, kits, and patterns to make heirloom quilts that were kept for wedding chests, given as gifts, or used at ftmd-raisers.

Quiltmaking as a commodified leisure activity and quiltmaking as a pleasant extension of domestic work were intertwined during these years. For women who enjoyed the entire process, making a quilt was a reasonable financial alternative to buying blankets. Purchased patterns and kits, preprinted cheater-cloth tops, and church groups needing to raise cash enabled women who enjoyed only parts of the quiltmaking process to purchase goods and services to complete a quilt. During the next thirty years, the commodified leisure aspects of quiltmaking would become more visible.

172 CHAPTERS

THE BEGINNINGS OF COMMODITIZATION: 1940s THROUGH 1960s

Introductioa

After the 1930s, quiltmaking became less visible as a leisure activity for women.

There has been relatively little work done on why this was so. Changing styles in home decorating; the increasing number of leisure activities for women, including radio and television; sports and civic groups; and, most notably, the decline in home-sewing of clothing probably all contributed to the contraction. Just because quiltmaking was less visible as a leisure activity, however, does not mean that women did not continue to make quilts. During the 1940s through the 1960s, quiltmaking in Wayne County became more obviously a non-essential leisure activity that entailed the specific expenditure of household funds to purchase fabric and supplies. In addition, the buying and selling of quiltmaking services in the area became more visible. The experiences of women who learned to make quilts in this period shared similarities with those of the earlier generation. They also provided the foundation for the experiences of the next group.

In this chapter, I begin with a discussion o f how women in this group learned to make quilts and their basic patterns of behavior. I then explore changes in the church sewing groups as quiltmaking became more promment among their activities. Since the 173 experiences of Mennonite women in their Sewing Circles varied only a little ftom that of the other organizations, I will continae to provide the historical context for Mennonite institutional change in this period but discuss the actual activities of the groups without regard to denomination. Finally, I consider quiltmaking as a commodified, income producing activity by both individuals and church sewing groups.

Learning and Doing: tradition*’ Becomes a Factor

Seventeen quiltmakers, all bom between 1918 and 1942, first learned to make quilts between 1940 and 1970, during the lull separating the two revivals. They were generally older than the quiltmakers discussed in the previous chapter when they learned their earliest skills: seven were in their teens; seven were in their twenties and three were in their thirties. While even the older members o f this group would not have been old enough to learn more than basic sewing skills during the years of the first revival, these women were not taught to piece or quilt at as young an age as the previous generation. In contrast to the patterns of the first group, where quiltmaking was an activity learned at home at a fairly young age and begun with pleasure before marriage, many of the women who learned to make quilts during the 1940s through the 1960s experienced quiltmaking in a context outside the natal 6mily. Indeed, learning to make quilts was often associated with establishing or strengthening connections in a new husband’s fiunily and community.

While Martha Kaufinan learned to quilt at Ladies Aid meetings she attended with her mother hi the 1940s before she was married, many women in this group learned by becoming involved in church sewing groups only after they were married. Arlene

Hartzler learned to quilt fiom her mother-in-law and the other women in the Paradise 174 Church of the Brethren Sewing Circle. She said she started going to the meetings because that was what the women did when she joined the church after her marriage. She had not learned to make quilts as a girl because she was the only daughter of three who had helped her father and brother with the outside wodc. Lorame Hansen learned to quilt firom her mother-in-law and the members of the Ladies Aid at her church in 1950.

Marilyn Tokheim also learned to quilt firom her mother-in-law and the women in her church group, though she had learned to piece comforters before she was married.^

Like women in the forst generation, many of the women in this group received quilts as wedding gifts firom mothers and grandmothers. That they did not make a quilt of their own before they married was sometimes a matter of personal choice: they had the opportunity to make quilts but had chosen not to do so. Marie Gresser had learned to sew in the mid-1930s, when she was ten or eleven. Her mother was an active quiltmaker, but

^hrs. Gresser told her mother she would never quilt. She recalled that as a child quiltmaking ‘^ust seemed so tedious and such a slow process;” indeed, she did not start to make quilts until the 1960s, when she was in her mid-forties. Likewise, while Mabel

Smucker ‘"fiddled with” her mother’s quiltmaking when she was a girl, she did not become a quiltmaker herself until after she married.^

^ Martha Kaufinan, with Members of East Chippewa Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 9 July 1997, Orrville; Arlene Hartzler, 23 June 1997, Smithville; Lorame Hansen Q)seud.] with Members of East Chippewa Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 9 July 1997, Orrville; Marilyn Tokhenn, 31 July 1997, Smithville.

^ Marie Gresser, 1 July 1997, Smithville; Mabel Smucker, 30 May 1997, Orrville.

175 Another factor in these quQtmakas* late start was the fact that they received more education than the previous generation and were also more likely to have worked before marriage in public institutions (ofSces, factories, or stores) rather than as domestic servants in private homes. Consequently, while they had more time and money at their disposal, they also had more opportunities to socialize outside the home and family environment. Their lack o f quiltmaking skills was not equated by them, their fiancés, or their families with a lack of domestic skills. Learning or polishing those skills after marriage, however, did provide them with a way to make social connections with older women as they took up their new roles as wives and mothers.

For some women in this group, quiltmaking was associated with other kinds of social and personal relationships. Esther Yoder met well-known Wayne County quiltmaker Estella Nussbaum in 1960 when Mrs. Yoder was twenty-five. She had learned to sew when she was a child, but her mother had not made quilts so Nhs. Yoder had not learned fi*om her. After meeting and being inspired by Mrs. Nussbaum, Mrs.

Yoder purchased a kit to teach herself how to piece a top. Colleen Hewitt also learned to piece and quilt fix>m Nhrs. Nussbaum, although since the two were mother and daughter, the learning pattern was more “traditional.” &6s. Hewitt recalled sitting at the kitchen table cutting quilt patches for her mother in the years before television was available.

She began making quilt tops on her own in the mid-1960s, when her husband decided to pursue a college degree at a school an hour away fi»m home. She said quiltmaking “was something that kept me busy, because he was never here. And when the kids went to bed, why, I would just piece and piece and piece and piece.” Because both Mrs. Hewitt and her mother received fabric scraps firom other women in the communia who knew of 176 their interests, the quilt tops were a cheap jform of entertaimnait for her and when quilted, provided blankets for her children. Jean Steffen decided in the 1950s that she should learn how to piece tops from her father's sister, Susan Welty, a well-known Wayne

County quiltmaker, partly because of proximity: Mrs. Steffen and her husband were living near her in one of the houses on the family farm. Mrs. Steffen said, “I thought. I'm living here, it’s something I want to do someday. I should ask her to teach me.” She felt that learning to piece would be a good way to get to know her aunt better while she had the opportunity.^

During the middle years of the twentieth century, older women were still making quilts and many younger women were seeking out and learning quiltmaking skills, but quiltmaking was once again being seen as old-fashioned and dying out. Quilts were less desired as bedcovers. Home decorating fashions had changed, even in conservative, rural areas, and many new brides wanted bedspreads rather than quilts. For example, Alice

Farnsworth said “when 1 was first married [in 1953] the young married women, they would have rather had bedspreads than quilts. It was just kind of an in and out thing.

Quilts weren't in when 1 was first married.” Betty Moomaw had a similar comment She and her husband had received a quilt firom his aunt when they were married in 1947. She said she didn’t 13ce the quüt because she “didn’t like the colors. And you know, when you’re young, at least when 1 was young, quilting was the furthest thing. And 1 would have rather had a nice S t Mary’s blanket.” To Mrs. Moomaw, the purchased St. Mary’s

^ Esther Yoder, 18 July 1997, Apple Creek; Colleen Hewitt 11 June 1997, Dalton; Jean Steffeit 18 September 1997, Apple Creek.

177 brand blanket would have been a luxury item, but a homemade quilt was somethmg to take on picnics and send with her children to church camp because she didn’t care if it got worn out/ In addition to changes in fashion and the social perception of quilts as bedcovers, homes became easier to heat after mid-century as electricity was extended to even the most outlying farms and houses were wired to take advantage of it Heavy covers on the beds were no longer needed, even during the coldest winter weather/

Another fashion that began to change during the middle years of the century was the general reliance on sewing scraps 6om a single family for quiltmaking. Instead, active quiltmakers used their own scraps and also received leftovers from other families where the women did not make qmlts. However, since fewer women were sewing dresses and shirts for themselves and their families, there were fewer fabric scraps available for quiltmaking.^ Thus, all the women in this group spoke more than the previous group had about purchasing new fabrics specifically for quiltmaking.

Sometimes these purchases were just for the back and binding of a quilt, but often they were intended to complement the fabrics already owned or were special purchases for

Alice Farnsworth [pseud.], 10 June 1997, Kidron; Betty Moomaw, 7 May 1997, Wooster.

^ Ruth Hershberger, owner of C o ^ Comer Quilts, 1 August 1997, Kidron.

® Allen Cohen, Marketing Textiles: From Fiber to Retail (New York: Fairchild Publications, 1989), 245; Claudia Kidwell and Margaret Christman, Suiting Everyone: The Democratization o fClothing in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1974), 91.

178 entire quilt tops/ The situation described in chapter 2 , in which the cost of ail-new materials for a quilt began to approach the cost of comparable weight blankets during the middle years of the century, thus becomes much more significant. With the rising costs of fabrics, the decline in home sewing, and the introduction of electric blankets in the

1950s, quilts no longer made as much sense financially as they had in earlier years.

Therefisre, women who made quilts during these years were much more clearly exercising their rights to a leisure activity rather than fulfilling a domestic task.

As noted above, quiltmakers in this second group had often received quilts as wedding gifts finm grandmothers or mothers. Most of these relatives, if they were described during the interviews, were noted as being particularly active quiltmakers. A few women in this group, who were of an age comparable to that of the first group but who learned quiltmaking as adults during the 1940s through the 1960s, learned it specifically to make quilts for grandchildren, both when they were young and when they were old enough to marry. Marie Gresser was one of these. She started making quilts in

1968 when her first grandchild was bom, although she had learned most of her sewing skills earlier, firom her mother and sisters and the women at church. Women who made quilts for grandchildren often made distinctly different quilts for their boys and girls. For instance, Mary Rehm’s grandsons received tied comforters pieced firom their fathers’ and grandfather’s overalls, while her granddaughter received a tied quilt with £q>pliquéd

^ Colleen Hewitt; Arlene Hartzler; Albarta Matheny, 23 June 1997, Smithville; Marie Gresser; Joyce hrvin, 4 June 1997, Smithville; Marian Bennett [pseud.], 11 June 1997, Wooster.

179 Sunbonnet Sue patterns made of fabrics &om her mother's and grandmother's clothing.^

This particular situation was interesting because Nfrs. Rehm had deliberately decided to use recycled fabrics and new sewing scraps in order to make distinct memorial items for her grandchildren. Among members o f the earlier group, specially purchased fabrics would have been preferred for quilts intended as gifts.

Like the women in the first group, the women in the second generation had worked primarily as housewives or fhrmwives after they married. A few, however, had earned money at home. Marilyn Tokheim had sold eggs; Alberta Matheny worked many hours each week as a seamstress. Several also took short-term or part-time jobs when their children were older. For example, Alice Farnsworth began working in a café after her youngest child started school in the late 1960s. A few had worked full-time outside the home, but the personal and family situations of these women were different firom those of most other women in the group: Colleen Hewitt had worked as a bank teller while her husband was in college, and Phyllis Pavlovicz had joined the Army Nurse

Corps after receiving her nursing training. Thus, while all these women were much more likely than women in the first group to have wages of their own, they were still mostly dependent on their husbands for financial support They combined their generally small

* Marie Gresser; Mary Rehm, 21 May 1997, Smithville; Sophy Paricer [pseud.], 17 June 1997, Wooster, and Mary Steiner, 5 June 1997, Dalton, both members o f the earlier generation, also made disdnctly different quilts for grandsons and granddaughtos.

180 personal incomes with that of their husbands and used this family account to purchase items both for their families and for their own quiltmaking activities.^

Another income option adopted by some women in this group, and also by some women firom the older group who were still finding time to make quilts during these years, was to sell quilt-related skills to other quiltmakers. O f the nine^-two quiltmakers included in this survey, twenty-two women told me about earning money fiom their quiltmaking activities. This includes two women who became professional machine- quilters; their stories will be told in the chapter 7. Of the twenty remaining quiltmakers, all but two were bom before the 1950s and learned to quilt before the 1970s. Thirteen of the women who did quiltwork for pay were, in fact, quilters. That is, they were women who loved to quilt and who saw custom quilting as a way to engage in their favorite activity. The remaining seven did a variety of other activities, often including quilting.

For instance, Stella Nussbaiun was a quilt marker; Mary Steiner made and sold complete quilts for a short time; RoseMarie Baab and Juanita Ross both did paid work that involved quilt designs; Colleen Hewitt made tops for other people to quilt; Marilyn

Tokheim designed and made quilted gift items; and Esther Yoder did binding.

Just imder half of the group—nine of the total of twenty—engaged in what I call

“serious” work. That is, they regularly sought out paid quiltmaking work, though not a professional, full-time business as did the women discussed in the next chapter. For example, Ha Berg always liked to have a quilt top “ready for winter, to put in the fiame.”

^ Marilyn Tokheim; Alberta Matheny; Alice Farnsworth; Colleen Hewitt; Phyllis Pavlovicz individual intaview], 15 August 1997, Moreland.

181 After she stopped making quilt tops for her own family in the 1930s, she quilted tops made by other people. Her only other option was to buy tops, and the farm income was often too low for that kind of luxury. Eight of the nine serious quiltmakers were bom in the 1930s or earlier, and five had learned their skills when they were ghis. This subgroup includes the oldest two women in the survey, who were bom before 1910. Many of the women who actively sought quiltmaking work had done so only after their children had left home or they had retired from a paid occupation. For example, Alice Farnsworth quilted for a company located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for ten years after her children were grown.'®

For the remaining eleven women who did quiltmaking for pay, such work was a casual or incidental activity. It was something they did in response to other people’s requests, often with some degree of reluctance. For instance, when I asked Betty

Moomaw whether she had quilted for pay, she said she had only quilted a few tops for friends to whom she could not say “no.” She explained: “I don’t like to do anything that

Fm pressured. If you would ask me, ‘would you quilt a quilt for me?’ and you were a special friend and I said, ‘yes I would.’ But I would not do it if you said, ‘I want it by the first of Jtme.’ I wouldn’t take anything with a deadline set on it” She finished this line of questioning by saying, “when it gets to be a chore, it isn’t a hobby anymore.”' '

Women who had accepted pay for quiltmaking but did not seek out the work were slightly younger than the more serious workers, with birth dates ranging from the 1910s

'® Ha Berg, 8 May 1997, Walnut Creek; Alice Farnsworth.

" Betty Moomaw. 182 through the 1950s, and were as likely to have learned q^tm aking as adults as when they

were girls.

All of the individual quiltmakers who sold their services strongly articulated that

this “work” was to them a leisure activity that happened to earn income. For instance,

Nhs. Farnsworth stopped quiltingfor pay when she accepted a volunteer position at a

nearby hospital. One of her jobs in that position was to quilt cheater-cloth for baby quilts to sell in the gift shop. The quilting, rather than the income, was the important factor for

her. Some women, including Mrs. Farnsworth, donated money they made working on quilts to their church group. Occasionally, money earned by quiltmaking was used to buy additional quiltmaking fabrics and supplies or perhaps kept aside for “fon money” or

Christmas gifts. Most often, however, the money these women earned was added to the household budget.'^ Contrary to RoseMarie Baab’s speculation that women hom her mother’s generation “would have probably jealously guarded anything that they made

from quilting,” because they had no control over or access to family finances beyond their “household budget,” none of the women in this study felt the need to make specific claimsto the cash they earned from quiltmaking. Even the oldest women in this study— those who would have been the same age as Ms. Baab’s mother—folt they could spend family income on their quiltmakmg projects. Because of this, few felt they needed to keep the money they earned separate for their own use. While quiltmakmg could add

Alice Farnsworth; Marian Bennett; Martha Connors [pseud.], 1 August 1997, Orrville; Arlene Hartzler; Sophy Paricer; Ella Rohra, 29 May 1997, Orrville; Thelma SoUenberger, 23 June 1997, Wooster.

183 money to the budget, it was, unlike selling eggs or working as a seamstress, something that most women chose as a leisure rather than an economic optioiL^^

While women in this second group learned to make quilts at an older age than the previous generation, they, like the first group, learned fiom female relatives. Mothers, or more fioquently in this group, mothers-m-law, aunts, and sometimes Mends all served as teachers, mentors, and sources of inspiration. Also, like the older women, these women’s quilts were most often the conventional pieced geometric and floral applique patterns mentioned in Webster and Finley. Unlike the older women, however, the second generation’s quilts were somewhat more likely to have been made firom specially purchased 6bric. During this time period, members of both the first and second generation began to sell their skills—primarily quilting—to other quiltmakers in exchange for cash. Quiltmakers in the second group often became involved with quiltmaking in church sewing groups and remained active in those groups. While these groups were begun by and definitely attended by women fiom the first group, their greater importance in the memory of the second group of women foreshadows the more impersonal and institutional nature of second revival quiltmaking.

Church Sewing Groups

Several new sewing groups that were included in this study were started in Wayne

County in the 1940s through the 1960s. Two of these Sewing Circles were at the newly founded Wooster Meimonite Church (m 1947) and Smithville Mennonite Church (in

1959). Others were new Sewing Chcles in established Mennonite congregations that had

RoseMarie Baab, 7 May 1997, Wooster. 184 more conservative traditions. These included the groups at Crown Hill, Chestnut Ridge,

and Salem (Wooster) Mennonite Churches, all established some time during the 1950s.

Finally, the Senior Citizens’ Day Center at Augsburg Lutheran was established in 1952.

These groups adopted the same work patterns as the older groups. That is, members organized material aid and fund-raising projects to support missions and service work.

During these years, church sewing groups began to sell quilting services, often finding this activity to be the most efficient way to raise money for their projects. Some church women’s groups that were not specifically sewing groups also began to use quiltmaking as a fund-raiser. For instance, Marie Gresser remembered that the Ladies Aid at what is now Smithville United Church of Christ began quilting in the late 1960s.‘^ As the 1960s drew to a close, sewing groups did more quilting and initiated fewer non-quilt-related fund-raising activities. While members continued to make simple comforters for distribution to missionary programs, they made less clothing and other items.

The Mennonite Context

During the middle decades of the twentieth century, liberal Mennonite men with strong academic connections began to articulate the new way their coreligionists were faeginnmg to interact with modem life. This “Anabaptist Vision” sought to

Members of the Wooster Mennonite WMSC, 3 June 1997, Wooster; Members of the Smithville Mennonite WMSC, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Members o f the Crown Hill Mennonite WMSC, 24 June 1997, Rittman; Members of the Chesmut Ridge Mennonite WMSC, 2 September 1997, Orrville; Members of the Salem (Wooster) Mennonite WMSC, 10 June 1997, Wooster; Members o f the Augsburg Lutheran Day Center, 21 May 1997, Orrville.

Marie Gresser.

185 cecoaceptualîze Mennonite theolo^, maintain a sense o f community among the growing

Mennonite population, and justify Mennonites’ new mvolvement in seemingly worldly endeavors. The Anabaptist Vision described Mennonites as culturally distinct fiom other

Americans. They were separate fiom the world, but not isolated fiom it. Modem

Mennonites were pacifist and nonresistant, but they were also outreaching, activist, and evangelical. As “trae Christians,” they would always remain on the edges of mainstream society. However, they had an obligation as Christians to do mission work, including proselytizing and service projects such as resettling refugees, developing appropriate agricultural technology, and teaching new work skills.*®

The Mennonite organizational superstructure of conferences, councils, and boards was an important part of the experience and dissemination of the Anabaptist Vision. The church conferences, both liberal and conservative, provided a way to organize and unify the congregations in a way that had not been possible before. For instance, on a personal level, Mennonites reinitiated a debate about norms of behavior and dress that could be expected of all members in good standing. The distinctive clothing that most contemporary Americans associate with Mennonites—the white prayer cap and solid- colored cape dress for women, the lapel-less coat for men, and the general sense of conservatism and plainness that is not quite as severe as that practiced among the

Amish—were defined and strongly recommended during the postwar years. Leaders maintained that the distinctive dress would remind Mennonites that they had chosen to be

*® Paul Toews, Memonites in American Society, 1930-1970: Modernity and the Persistence ofReligiotts Community, The Mennonite Bcperience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996), 35,84-106. 186 noa-worldly Christians and were hence different 6om the neighbors and sometimes coworkers with whom they had increasing contact It would also serve as a witness to those neighbors and co workers that the Mennonites were not as worldly as they might appear, in spite of their missions, societies, colleges, and publications. Many congregations adopted these guidelines for their members, though gradually the visual distinctions began to seem less important to most Mennonites.^^

The coherence of the Anabaptist Vision was also derived &om organizations like the women’s sewing groups and the Meimonite Central Committee. In 1947, the

Women’s Sewing Circle of the Mennonite Board of Missions and Charities was renamed the Women’s Missionary and Sewing Circle to reemphasize the connection between the women’s sewing work and their interest in missions. In 1950, the generally liberal

General Conference Mennonite organization recognized the Women’s Missionary

Association as an ofSciai Auxiliary. In 1954, the (Old) Mennonite Church—the largest of the church conferences and the one generally identified as mamstream—placed all women’s groups under an umbrella organization called the Women’s Mission and

Service Auxiliary (WMSA).'* hi some churches, this change was reflected in the

Beulah Stauffer Hostetler, American Mennonites and Protestant Movements: A Community Paradigm, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History, ed. Leonard Gross (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, I9S7), 255-258; Donald B. Kraybill, “Mennonite Women’s Veüing: The Rise and Fall o f a Sacred Symbol»” Mennonite Quarterly Review 61 no. 3 (1987): 298-320; Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970, 225-226.

'* James C. Juhnke, Vision, Doctrine, War: Mennonite Identity and Organization in America, 1890-1930, The Mennonite Bcperience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 157-158; Elaine Sommers Rich, Mennonite Women: A Story o fGod's Faithfulrms, 1683-1983 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1983), 207-208. The General Conference Mennonite Church women’s organization was eventually 187 creation, of local women’s coordinating bodies. For instance, the Women’s Council at

BCidron Mermonite in Wayne Coun^ was established in 1969 to oversee the leadership and projects of the Senior WMSA and Dorcas Sisters (sewing groups for mature and younger married women), the Mother’s Fellowship and Christian Homemakers

(followship groups for mature and younger married women), the Willing Workers (for single young women in high school and college), and the Busy Bees (for younger girls).'^

While women in many congregations created a number of fellowship and service organizations in addition to their Sewing Circles, it was the mature women’s sewing groups that were, as at Kidron Mennonite, associated with the WMSA name.

Sewing groups continued to produce goods for the MCC as well as for the Board of Missions and Charities. Well into the late 1930s, most MCC work was for other

Mennonites, mostly Russian refugees. Between 1939 and 1941, the focus shifted to new victims o f the war in Europe. After World War H, the MCC began to expand its operations in the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa. By 1947, the MCC had projects in eighteen countries, focusing on rebuilding infrastructure and alleviating poverty. As they had done after World War I, male and female volunteers worked both with offîdal U.S. government agencies and also non-govemmental relief agencies like the Red Cross to determine what aid was needed where and how best to supply it. Because of these extra­

renamed Women m Mission (WIM). Among the churches involved in this study, only Salem (Kidron) belonged to this conforence.

James O. Lehman, Somenberg: A Haven and a Heritage ^ d r o n , OH: Kidron Community Council, 1969), 306-307.

188 denominational connections, MCC workers gave more aid to non-Mennonites than they

had ever done before.^®

On the home front, the MCC worked with other Mennonite organizations and with traditionally pacifist groups like the Quakers to negotiate an alternative service agreement for men who did not wish to betray their religious principals by serving in the military. The Civilian Public Service (CPS) program allowed conscientious objectors of many faiths to work in hospital service or non-profit welfare work. Some Mennonite women volunteered for work in the camps, working as nurses or dietitians. Many women followed their husbands to the CPS camps. Congregations back home helped to supply the workers with bedding and other household items.^^ This same model was also used during the Korean and Vietnam conflicts to provide an alternative to the draft or prison for Mennonite youth. A later outgrowth of this effort was the creation, in 1968, of the

MCC Peace Office. This office, which had branches in both the U.S. and Canada, was developed out of the need to develop more effective relationships with governing bodies that could help the MCC reach its goals. In contrast to regular MCC projects that taught direct skills. Peace Office workers sought ways to "increase access to the fish pond” so

Keith Graber Miller, Wise As Serpents, Innocent As Doves: American Mennonites Engage Washington (Knoxville: University o f Tennessee Press, 1996), 31- 32; Toevfs^ Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970, 121-123,185,199-206; John H. Unruh, In the Name o f Christ: A History o fthe Mennonite Central Committee and Its Service, I900-I95I (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1952), 67,103-105.

Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970,158-62; Unruh, In the Name o fChrist, 230-273.

189 that aew and old skills could be put to use.^ The CPS program and the MCC Peace

Office reflected a fundamental break with conservative Mennonite political beliefs, which had led Mennonites to avoid contact with the federal (as well as local and state) government except on an a d hoc, reactive basis—as in the case of conscientious objectors during World War I. While some Mennonites rejected these new initiatives because of their non-ecumenical approach, most Mennonites accepted and supported this new mission along with the older, now more traditional, outreaches.

Wayne County Mennonite Sewing Groups

Members of Mennonite women’s groups in Wayne County remember their purposes during the middle years of the century primarily as “an outreach of helping the poor.” They were “to do for others [and] to study the history of Mennonite missionaries.” They were also to “fellowship with each other [and] promote a mission spirit.”^ During devotional programs, they shared books written by missionaries and worked through yearly devotional guides provided by the Mennonite conferences.

Mennonite women’s sewing groups continued to produce clothing for women and children and sometimes for men, though the volume was much lower than it had been.

They also began,much more feequently, to refurbish used clothing donated to the Sewing

Circles by church and community members. Because they spent less time in clothing production during these years, the Circles had more time to produce an increasing

^ Miller, Wise As Serpents, Innocent As Doves, 35.

^ Members of the Sonnenberg Mennonite WMSC, 9 July 1997, Kidron; Members of the Salem (Kidron) Mennonite WIM, 4 June 1997, Kidron; Smithville Mennonite WMSC.

190 number of quilts and com&rters. As before, all of this “material aid” was used to further the goals of the MCC and other Mennonite service missions in the United States or in foreign nations. Switching to an emphasis on gently used and refurbished clothing allowed the groups to continue supplying clothing to Mermonite institutions while freeing time at Sewing Circle meetings for other projects, including fine quiltwork. The fine quiltwork helped the women to raise money for the MCC, the CPS camps, and the missions. In doing so, the women established themselves as critical contributors to the

Anabaptist vision.

A member of the Oak Grove WMSA remembered that they “sewed clothing for orphanages or a mission in Canton [Ohio] Homeless people or whoever came for assistance.”^'^ A member of the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle remembered providing clothing and bedding for the Mennonite children’s home in West Liberty, saying: “[It] seems to me there was a need there sometimes.”^ The 12-13 October 1954 meeting of the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle was extraordinarily productive. The women sewed receiving blankets, skirts and blouses, pajamas and nightgowns, dresses, sheets and slips.

They finished four comforters and eight baby quilts that they had begun at previous meetings. They also received donations of five new quilt tops, thirty feed sacks, and a large, uncounted assortment of new and used clothing and household linens.^^ While this group worked on many of the same items produced by the Oak Grove Sewing Cfrcle in

Members of the Oak Grove Mennonite WMSC, 2 July 1997, Smithville.

^ Sonnenberg Mennonite WMSC.

^ “Mmutes,” 12-13 October 1954, Sonnenberg WMSC Records. 191 the 1910s and 1920s and quoted in the previous chapter, quilts and comforters played a

much larger and more visible role.

Members of several groups remember making quilts during these years,

sometimes for local families in crisis, sometimes for new or visiting clergy. One member of the Sonnenberg WMSC remembered that “often, we’d make a quilt, like when we

would have special meetings. And the ministers that would come to have meetings, we would quilt for them.” Helen Marvin clarified that “the ministers at that time weren’t paid like they are now, and it was a kind gesture to give them a quilt While making quilts was becoming more popular, most quilts were not fancy: “It may have been a crazy quilt or Just squares like a nine-patch or something like that put together.”^* The women of Kidron Mennonite appear to have had at least one or two quilts in the fiâmes each month, as well as one or two comforters. For instance, on 4 February 1953, the secretary of the Kidron Sewing Circle recorded: “A quilt for West Liberty Children’s Home was nearly completed. A crazy quilt and another were finished for relief.”^

All the sewing groups “stockpiled” quilts and comforters for later giving. For example, in a meeting in November 1937 whose pattern would be more common later, the Kidron Sewing Circle completed five comforters. They noted in their minutes that:

“two [were] for the Lima rescue mission, one was made over for Clyde Budd, and the

Sonnenberg Mennonite WMSC. Also Members of the BCidron Metmonhe WMSC, 2 July 1997, Kidron.

Oak Grove Mennonite WMSC.

^ “Minutes,” 4 February 1953, WMSC Records, Kicfion Mennonite Records.

192 two were not yet decided as yet where they would be senL”^“ hi Deconber 1959, the

Orrville Sewing Circle created two separate work committees as a response to the increased quiltwork being done. The sewing committee bought fabric and patterns or precut fabric shapes for sewing clothing, while the quilt committee located quilt tops and set up the firames for quilting at each meeting.^ ^ Other Sewing Circles also established quilt committees or increased the size of them sewing committee to meet this growing need for quilt tops.

Often, the textile-based material aid that the Mennonite Sewing Circles sent to the

MCC could be distributed directly to needy families and individuals in Europe and elsewhere. More often, however, material aid sent to the MCC by groups and individuals first had to be traded for other items or converted to cash that was used to purchase staples, provide low-interest loan capital, fimiish transportation, or pay relief workers.^^

During this time period, the MCC began to specify more clearly what kinds of material aid donations could be used directly by volunteer workers. Both the MCC and local fimd-raisers also began to favor projects that raised cash rather than material aid.^^ hi

1962, the MCC sent a message to the Sewing Circles saying that it had shifted its focus to new areas o f need, away firom '*cold winter countries, primarily in Europe, to countries

“Minutes,” 10 November 1937, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Mmutes,” 3 December 1959, Orrville WMSC Records.

Unruh, In the Name o fChrist, 103-105.

John Hostetler, Director ofh/bterial Aid at MCC, telephone conversation with author, 7 April 2000

193 with warmer climates and away 6om western civilization.” Workers urgently requested bedding, sheets, and fabric yardage to teach sewing skâls.^ A directive 6om the MCC to the women’s Sewing Circles explained some of the MCC’s material aid needs for 1968;

35.000 lightweight blankets and quilts are requested for Bolivia, Burundi, Congo, Honduras, India, Tanzania and Vietnam. While these countries have hot and humid weather, they have cool nights part of the year. 20.000 heavyweight (3 1/2 pounds and up) blankets and comforters are needed m Hong Kong, Jordan (East Bank) and Korea. The comforters may be wool or Dacron filled. Wool blankets also are acceptable as fillers. All sizes of bedding can be useful and in most cases dark colors are more practical.^^

In 1968, John Hostetler, Director of Material Aid at the Mennonite Central

Committee offices in Akron, Pennsylvania, wrote a memo to the Sewing Circles to acknowledge that many volimteer workers were requesting cash rather than material-aid donations. He noted that many of the MCC’s clients did not want or need Western clothing and bedding, but did need money to help rebuild their lives. Hostetler told

Sewing Circle members that people m some areas—specifically, Jordan, Tanzania, and

Korea—welcomed the quilts, other bedding, and westem-style clothing that sewing groups were used to providing, and requested group members to continue sending these items.^^ He also urged them, however, to donate cash or participate in fund-raising

^ "'Mennonite Central Committee Material Aid Program,” Qrped and reproduced information sheet, 1962, Salem WIM Records; “WMSA Handbook,” 1965, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Summary of MCC’s Material Aid Needs,” typed and reproduced information sheet, I May 1968, Orrville WMSC Records.

In the 1970s, Sewing Circles began to divert some of them used clothing to second hand shops established as a way to raise money for the MCC. A Thrift and Gift shop was established m Orrville to receive donations fiom Wayne County Meimorntes. It 194 projects for the new programs that were being developed.^^ It was at least partially the need to raise cash for the MCC’s expanded missions that turned Mennonite women’s sewing groups into quilting groups.

Raming Money through OuHtmakine

Through the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, quiltmaking gradually came to supercede most other activities in the church sewing groups included in the study. This can be attributed to both financial and personal factors. Earlier in the twentieth century, hospitals and children’s homes that were run by churches and denominations had been able to accept donations of clothing, bedding, and other goods on a rather a d hoc basis.

Sizes, styles, and colors did not need to be uniform, and legal requirements about sanitation either did not exist or were not applied to small denominational entities. As the century progressed, regulations, bureaucratization, new government programs, and changing clients transformed these institutions. As a result, cash donations rather than direct material aid became more desirable.^^ Time spent sewing clothing and making comforters thus needed to be focused more directly on fimd-raising.

was staffed primarily by unpaid volunteers, many of them recruited through the Sewing Circles. “Minutes,” 7 April 1971, Salem WIM Records; “Minutes,” 6 December 1978, Sonnenberg WMSC Records; “Minutes,” 3 December 1980, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Are Material Aid Supplies Needed?,” typed and reproduced information sheet, 1968, Orrville WMSC Records. For a comparison of earlier and later MCC projects, see Unruh, In the Name o fChrist, and Miller, Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves.

See, for mstance, Kenneth Cmiel, A Home o f Another Kiitd: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle o f Child Welfare. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 122-195; GuenterB. Vdsse, Mending Bodies, SavingSoulsrA History o f Hospitals (New Yorit: Qjrfbrd University Press, 1999), 514.

195 Groups &und that quiltmg raised more money than other projects with less efibrt and stress for group leaders. In addition, it was an activi^ that could attract loyal and active members. For example, the Sterling Ladies Aid had tried and abandoned a number o f fimd-raising projects, including holding a bazaar, peddling magazine subscriptions, and marketing cleaning products. They maintained a tradition of selling meals to communia members on Election Day and other occasions through the 1950s. At these meals, quilters continued to work on their projects while other group members prepared and served the food. The majority of non-quilt-related projects at Sterling United

Brethren had eventually jnoven unpopular because they required women to work individually outside of regular meeting times at tasks they did not necessarily rind enjoyable. In contrast, aside rirom the time spent by the chair of the sewing group or a specially-appointed quilt committee to place a new quilt top in the frame, quilting required no time outside of regularly scheduled meetings unless marking and binding were involved. Because of this, even group members who were not dedicated quilters were more inclined to accept another top to be quilted than they were to consider other sorts o f projects.^®

More distinctly personal factors also influenced the increase in quilting at church sewing groups. Records mdicate that at least two groups—those at Sterling United

Brethren and at Salem Mennonite at Kidron—were led during much of the twentieth

“Mmutes,” 16 October 1902,4 November 1924,7 January 1932,6 September 1934,6 June 1935,7 September 1939, and 4 November 1941, Sterling Ladies Æd; Letter fix)m The Formeras W^e, Webb Publishmg Company, St. Paul MN, to Mrs. H. D. Knox, Sterling, undated, found among loose ps^ers in the record book 24 May 1900 to 18 October 1906, Sterling Ladies Aid. 196 century by women for whom quiltmaking was a passion. Mrs. Emma Good was president of the Sterling Ladies* Aid horn its founding before 1900 until she died in

1925; her daughter Mrs. Emily Slemmons took over leadership until February 1930 and was succeeded by Mrs. Daisy Knox. All three women were mentioned fiequently as having paid the group to quilt tops, with N6s. Knox’s name continuir^ to appear in this regard until the 1940s. Together, they seem to have established the strong tradition of quiltmaking at Sterling that lasted until the group folded in 1962."*° Both Estella

Nussbaum and her daughter Colleen Hewitt were leaders of the Salem (Kidron) Sewing

Circle from mid-century to the present. Group records and oral histories both testify to the ability of these two active quiltmakers to inspire others to attend meetings in order to quilt and help on other projects.*^

Quilts generally received one of four designations in the minutes of the sewing groups: they were made for one of the missions or service institutions, for the group itself to use as needed, for “earnings,” or for a named individual. Sometimes, it is difhcult to teU whether the quilts for individuals were gifts, were sold to or “custom quilted” for a customer or group member, or were, in fact, given as relief. For example, in November

1939, the women at Kidron Mennonite, who were among the earliest to begin quilting for pay, finished three quilts that they had worked on at several meetings and put three more

“Minutes,” 7 March 1901,8 November 1927,6 September 1928, February 1930,7 August 1930, and 2 May 1940, Sterling Ladies Aid; “Mmutes,” including obituary pasted into record boo^ 7 January 1926, Sterling Ladies Aid.

Salem (Kidron) Mennonite WIM; “Minutes,” 7 May 1969,5 May 1971,6 September 1972,5 February 1975,5 November 1975,7 July 1993, and 6 July 1994, Salem WIM Records.

197 m the firames. One of the completed quilts was “for earnings,’* one was “for the Circle,” and one was for “Mrs. Keller.” “Quilt earnings” for that meeting were recorded as

$3.30.'*^ Did Nfes. Keller pay that amount, o r did she receive her quilt as relief? Was the quilt made “for earnings” sold for $3.30 to a buyer not named in the minutes?

Presumably, the one made for the Circle was kept until there was a need for it or until a sufBciently large bundle of clothing and bedding had been gathered to be shipped to a mission or the MCC.

Quiltmg tops that were designed and sewn by other women was the most common paid quiltwork engaged in by church groups and individuals from mid-century until the end of the time period covered in this study. Some individuals made quilt tops, marked them for quiltmg, or bound the edges of finished quilts. Occasionally, a church group would agree to coordinate the production of an entire quilt. Many individual top-makers, markers, quilters, and binders attended the church sewing groups and received some of their work from the groups to which they belonged. Until retail quilt shops were established in the 1990s, individuals tended to base their own rates on the fees charged by church groups.

The prevailing method for assessing foes for quilting services among both individuals and church groups was to charge a certain amount o f money for each yard of thread used. Marie Webster noted this practice in her advice to would-be makers of quilt

“Minutes,” 1 November 1939, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

198 tops in her hook.^^ AH of the church groups in the area charged the same rate, often noting in their minutes that they were raising their prices because other groups had already done so. Individual quilters tended to charge slightly more than groups, though their rates varied from person to person. The women at Kidron Mennonite agreed to charge 540 per yard of thread in 1938, though they would do the work "free of charge for those who can’t afford to pay us.”^ By 1943, the price at Kidron Mennonite was standardized at 140 per yard to members o f their own church and 10 to nonmembers.'^^

The Ladies Aid at Sterling United Brethren did not record their rates until October 1948, when they voted to raise their fee from 10 to 20 per yard of thread. Presumably, they were using they same rate structure, though charging less than a penny per yard, when they received $2 “for quiltmg” in March 1922.'** Prices continued to rise graduaUy over the years throughout Wayne County. Church groups charged 20 per yard of thread in the

1950s and early 1960s; they raised their prices to 50 by the end of that decade. During the 1960s, individuals changed between 30 and 50 per yard.'^^ In 1995 doUars, fees

Marie Webster, Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1915; reprint Santa Barbara: Practical Patchwork, 1990), 107-109.

44, "Minutes,” 2 February 1938, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Minutes,” 3 November 1943, Dorcas Sisters Records, Kidron Mennonite Archives. The minutes record that this was a joint decision o f the junior and senior women’s sewing groups.

^ “Minutes,” 2 March 1922 and 7 October 1948, Sterling Ladies Aid.

Rates fr>r quilting and other work here and below were taken from record books fr)r the Kidron WMSC and Dorcas Sisters, Kidron Mennonite Records; OrrvHIe WMSC Records; Salem WIM Records; Sonnenberg WMSC Records; Sterling Ladies Aid

199 charged by church, groups for quiltmg were 5 A ^ in 1938, ranged from. 4.40 to 12.60 in the 1940s, dropped from 12.60 in 1950 to 10.30 by 1960, and rose dramatically to 20.80 by 1969. Individuals charged the equivalent of 12.50 to 20.80 in 1969. Thus the real rate charged for quiltmg services increased 385 percent fiom the late 1930s through the end of the 1960s.

Unlike quÜting, which was done both by individuals working at home and during church group meetings by any members who wished to participate, top-making, marking and binding were more specialized tasks done by individual women on their own time.

Though both marking and binding could, like quiltmg, be tedious and time-consuming, neither could easily be done by a group, and making a top was almost always an individual effort. In the 1930s and 1940s, charges for marking and binding were in the range o f500 to $1 for simple designs or a plain binding; the price rose to $2 by the early

1960s. The cost to mark an elaborate quiltmg design or to bind a quilt with scalloped or hexagonal edges generally cost one and one-half to two times more than the plainer work.'*^ Women who made tops apparently also changed a flat fee, though the records rarely itemized that fee until the 1970s. Sometimes, church groups and women who did binding or marking shared the money they earned. For instance, in the 1940s and 1950s, the Sterling Ladies Aid voted to pay member Clara Bachman half of whatever money

Records; and 6om interviews with Ra Berg; Martha Connors; Alice Farnsworth; Lola Farrer, 29 May 1997, Orrville; Arlene Hartzler; Ella Rohrer; fane Wilson [pseud.], 17 June 1997, Wooster.

4S Estella Nussbaum, 10 June 1997, Apple Creek; Esther Yoder.

200 they received for the qmlts that Mrs. Bachman marked.^^ Estella Nussbaum donated her work as a quilt marker to local Mennonite women’s groups in the early I960s.^°

For the most part, when womœ hired someone else to do their quilting, they provided their own quilt tops, backs, and batting. If a sewing group or individual quilter provided the back and batting, the costs for these items were passed on to the customer without additional charges for transportation or the service of shopping. Women who had tops made for them generally gave the top-maker fabric to work with. For instance,

Jean Steffen remembered of her aunt, Susan Welty, that “people would bring their scraps to her and then she would put these together” into a quilt top.*^

Available financial records do not reveal how much church sewing circles actually earned firom custom quilting or firom occasional quHt sales or raffles. Minutes and treasurers’ notebooks fiom the groups for the 1940s through the 1960s record payments ranging fix)m $1.25 to $20.00 “for quiltmg,” but it is not possible to determine what percentage of total group income came firom quiltwork. Record keepers often registered payments and donations from various individuals without noting what, if any, services were received. In addition, records for many groups were incomplete, with

“Minutes,” 2 January 1947, February 1949, June 1955, Sterling Ladies Aid Records.

Estella Nussbaum.

Jean Steffen.

201 financial records being the pieces of mfonnation most likely not available.^ The minutes strongly suggest, however, that quilting was a viable fund-raiser because it compared favorably to other fund-raising projects in terms of member enthusiasm. In addition, group members were able to meet their social and spiritual goals while quilting. Even with the lower rates often charged by groups, quilting was an efficient way to raise money.

Paid quiltmaking was a pleasurable leisure activity that allowed women to earn small amounts of money. For most individuals, the money went unremarked into the familybudget, or enabled them to buy gifts or purchase more fabrics for themselves. For groups, the money was sent to missionaries, hospitals and children’s homes, and among the Mennonites, to the Mennonite Central Committee. For Mennonite women, this activi^ had a special resonance. Quiltmg enabled them to send money directly to the

MCC and also allowed them to purchase materials for comJforters and clothing that were sent to the MCC for distribution. In this way, Mennonite women helped to fund the institutions behind the new Anabaptist vision. The gradually increasing status that the women’s sewing groups received within the denominational structure suggests that male

Mennonite leaders recognized this importance. It is significant that the quiltmg and sewing groups, rather than the other women’s organizations, were associated with the

WMSA name and the institutional status (albeit with still limited authority) that went with the name. Women supported sewing groups in all the congregations in Wayne

^ See, for instance, “Mmutes,” 3 March 1943, WMSC Records and “Minutes,” 1 March 1950, Dorcas Sisters Records, Kidron Mennonite Records; “h&iutes,” 2 September 1965, Orrville WMSC Records. 202 County, regardless of what other options were available. As Wayne County Mennonites built bigger buildings to accommodate an increasing number of community functions, they always included spaces for quiltmg and sewing work, and for the storage of quiltmaking equipment and supplies.

Conclusion

This chapter has surveyed quiltmaking in Wayne County from the 1940s through the 1960s, years in which quiltmaking declined in visibility in the U.S. though not in popularity in Wayne County. Quiltmakers in this area made more nice quilts during these years, often as gifts for grandchildren. They were more likely to use specially purchased fabrics for these projects; when they used sewing scraps or recycled clothing, it was sometimes with fabric donated by a non-quiltmaker or done in a deliberate effort to create a memorial. As individuals and as members of church sewing groups, quilters and sometimes practitioners of other quiltmaking processes began to sell their skills to each other. For church groups, the cash raised through quilting supplemented the utility quilts and comforters they continued to make and ship to institutions and missions.

Quiltmaking became a somewhat commodifred leisure activity during the inter­ revival years. More quiltmakers bought materials specifically for quiltmaking, and the buying and selling of quiltmaking services became more common, but such services were generally underpaid according to the women providers* understanding of their charitable nature. The claim that quütmakmg was an extension of domestic work became increasingly less credible. The commodification regarding quiltmakers* purchase of supplies was extended to their labor processes and mtoisified in the second quiltmaking revival that began in the 1970s. 203 CHAPTER 6

REVIVAL?: COMMODITIZATION AND TRANSFORMATION, 1970s THROUGH 1990s

Introduction

Beginning in the 1970s, quiltmaking again became visible and popular to a widespread audience, but its new incarnation also embodied a transformation. While the earlier revival, tirom the 1910s through the 1930s, had its commercial aspects, this second

“revival” was much more commodified. The proliferation of books, kits, magazines, and specialty shops devoted to quiltmaking, the commercialized transfer of quiltmaking skills, and the buying and selling of completed quilts and quiltmaking services made the latter “revival” in effect a transformation emblematic of late twentieth century U.S. capitalism. Even as quiltmaking became more commodified, however, the mythology associating it with home, family, and gendor-appropriate leisure behavior remained and perhaps even strengthened. In effect, the m ytholo^ possibly was heightened by the need to represent as noncommercial something that was becommg highly commodified by comparison with its previous history. The paradox developed that to succeed commercially, quiltmaking had to represent itself as the embodiment o f non­ commoditized values. This commodification was reflected m the experiences of Wayne

Coun^ women who learned to make quilts in this era, in the commercialization of the 204 teaching of quiltmaking, in the changed practices of quiltmakers in church-based sewing groups, and in the motivations of women who opened formal quilt-related businesses.

The chapter begins with a description of quiltmakers who learned their craft in this time period. I then discuss changes in quiltmaking as a fund-raiser for church sewing groups. Because the experiences and meanings of quiltmaking among Mennonite women’s groups diSered considerably from that of the other groups during this period, 1 will discuss them separately, explaining as I do the significance of the historical context provided in previous chapters. In the next chapter, 1 provide a series of brief case studies of women-owned quilt businesses in Wayne County. These stories demonstrate that even in a formal commercial setting, quiltmaking remained primarily a leisure activity. r eaming and Doing: A New Reality but an Old Mvth

Twenty of the quiltmakers included in this study learned to make quilts after

1970, nearly equal to the number who learned during the first revival. Even more than the group who learned during the lull between the revivals, this group teamed to make quilts as mature adults. Only one member of this group was in her late teens when she teamed, becoming the third generation in a family of quiltmakers. Five women teamed to make quilts while in their twenties; fourteen teamed when they were thirty years old or older. Unlike the earlier groups, who had all been bom within a relatively brief span of years—1904 through 1928 for the first group and 1918 through 1941 for the second— these quiltmakers were bom over a spread of fifty-one years, between 1913 and 1964.

Nine of these quiltmakers were bom during the first quilt revival while the remaining twelve were bom during the lull between revivals. All but the youngest, who was bom in the mid-1960s, would have been old enough to team basic piecing and sewing, if not 205 necessarily quiltmaking, before 1970. However, for most of the women in this group, sewing skills were significantly less important than they had been to the other women.

The women who did sew, generally did so as a leisure activity itself rather than as part of their domestic work. Several authors have discussed a decline in the importance of sewing skills after the 1970s. This trend had begun during the “return to domesticity” of the 1950s and 1960s and did not change after the 1970s. ^ Thus, while quiltmaking for earlier generations was often an extension of sewing and domestic tasks, quiltmaking for women in this group was often an activity that required the acquisition of unfamiliar skills.

Women who learned to make quilts during this revival tended to do so in non­ domestic and non-familial environments, often paying others to teach them skills that had previously been shared informally. Most were married and had children before learning to make quilts; some had even seen the last of their children leave home. Over half of the twenty quiltmakers who started to make quilts after 1970 learned fiom classes, books and magazines, or kits. While most women in this group could remember at least one quiltmaker in her family while she was growing up, only a few said that th ^ had been taught to make quilts by their mothers or other female relatives, and those who did team fiom family members generally came finm or married into families with a strong

^ Allen Cohen, Marketing Textiles: From Fiber to Retail (New York: Fafichild Publications, 1989), 245; Claudia Kidwell and Margaret Christman, Suiting Everyone: The Democratization ofClothing in America (Washington, DC: Smithsonian hostitution, 1974), 91. See also Mhrilyn Davis, “The Contemporary American Quilter: A Portrait,” in Uncovering^ 198T ed. Salty Garoutte (Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982), 45-51.

206 quütmakmg tradition.' Several said that they gained most of their knowledge through

church groups or firom fiiends, as had the women in the second learning group.

Even women in this group who had gniltmakfng connections among their famfly and fiiends found inspiration and confidence in classes. For instance, Juanita Ross came firom a 6m üy of qmltmakers. Both of her grandmothers pieced and quilted and her mother quilted, but Mrs. Ross had never learned quütmaking skills because she didn’t

“have any interest in it” She attended the sewing group at her church after her youngest chüd was bom but only helped to knot comforters. She often felt she had not contributed anything but “had several ladies that were Just real encouragement to me. They said,

‘Oh, just come. Just to be here. Even if you don’t get anything done, we Just want you to be here.’ ” In 1990, a group of women firom the church decided to take a piecing class offered by a local fabric store. Mrs. Ross, thirty-seven years old at the time, had to be convinced to Join them. The affirmation she received firom class members for her creativity in selecting colors and combining patterns encouraged her to develop her designing and piecing skills and she eventually started quüting as well. Kevin Horst and

Jeri Fickes told shmlar stories about receiving encouragement and finding confidence after taking piecing classes.^

^ For instance, Sandra Stoltzfus, IS September 1997, Apple Creek; Betty Troyer, with Members o f the Salem (Wooster) Mennonite WMSC, 10 June 1997, Wooster. Colleen Hewitt, 11 June 1997, Dalton, mentioned that her daughter had started to make qtnlts. Ruth. Steiner, 3 June 1997, Dalton, learned to make quilts fiom her mother-in-law.

^ Juanita Ross, 31 July 1997, Apple Creek; Kevin Horst, 16 June 1997, Wooster; Jeri Fickes, 1 July 1997, Wooster.

207 The women in this genaation were motivated to leam quiltmaking most often by

the pleasure and challenge they expected to gam 6om the activity. Mary Lou Berkey had

always liked “arty” projects and knew that quilts were becoming more popular when she

signed up for an appliqué class offered at the Wooster Art Center in 1978, when she was

fifty-eight years old. As a girl, her father had urged her and her sisters to quilt with their

mother and maternal grandmother, because he said “it was the thing for ladies to get together and quilt and they have a good time.” The sisters, however, had refused to take

part in a social activity they viewed as old-fashioned and dull. Because of the class she

took, Mrs. Berkey found that she enjoyed the challenge of designing and stitching her

own appliqué patterns. Bev Karaiskos also refiised to make quilts with her mother. She took a class at a quilt shop in 1993, and learned that she loved both using her hands and

seeing the results of her skill. Alberta Matheny had learned beginning quiltmaking skills when she was eleven years old in 1940 firom a neighbor who invited her in for tea and sewing. After the neighbor moved, she stopped piecing and quilting until she retired fiom her work as a seamstress in 1984. At that time, she saw quilts for sale that she liked but couldn’t a& rd to buy. She decided that anyone who could follow instructions could leam to piece, so she used her sewing skills and common sense to begin making tops.^

For some women, quütmakmg was a new addition to the other kinds of needlework they had done for years. Myma Norton said that she “can’t just sit and watch

TV,” so hand-quüting smaU lap-qmlts, wall-hangings, and table-covers was a welcome

* Mary Lou Bedcey, 23 June 1997, Smithville; Bev Karaiskos, 17 June 1997, Wooster; Alberta Matheny, 23 June 1997, Smithville.

208 addition to her needlework repertoire. She learned to quüt in 1977 fiom her sister-in- law^s mother and an Amish 6iend from childhood. Sue Davis took a class on strip piecing, a technique fr>r quickly piecing a quilt top on a sewing machine, in 1985.

Quiltmaking then joined embroidery, cross-stitch, rug hooking, and basket weaving as a craft she enjoyed. Elizabeth Partridge first became aware of quilts “twenty years ago” in the mid-1970s, when she visited a friend’s grandmother who was making a Postage

Stamp quilt. Though she had sewn most of her life, Mrs. Partridge thought that it was silly to cut fabric apart just to sew it back together again in what seemed to her an ugly pattern. She was later inspired by quilts she saw in stores and on television to take a class at a quilt shop in 1985 and has since made many pieced bed-quilts and wall-hangings.^

Many of the classes that quiltmakers in this group relied on to leam their skills were offered by new businesses that specialized in quiltmaking fabrics and other supplies. These businesses and chain fabric and discount stores were the main sources of quiltmaking fabrics for this group. None of the members of this group drew their quiltmaking fabrics primarily from scraps left over from making clothing. The few, like

Kevin Horst and Sandra Stoltzfiis, who did sew clothing at home had some scraps on hand, although the fabric was often not suitable for quiltmaking.^ Most of the women had acquired large “stashes” of fabrics purchased specifically for quiltmaking or other textile craft projects. For some, like Mrs. Davis, fabric ptnchases were for specific quilts.

^ Myma Norton, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Sue Davis |^ u d .], 26 July 1997, Wooster; Elizabeth Partridge [pseud.], 23 October, 1997, Wooster.

^ Kevin Horst; San6a Stoltzfiis. Also, Jeri Fickes.

209 but leftovers were saved for other projects. The rest built their stashes more or less deliberately, purchasing fabrics they liked or that would round out a color family whenever they had au opportunity. Mrs. Partridge bought fabric whenever she traveled rather than buying more Qfpical souvenirs.

One of the first things I do when I check into a motel is look under “Quilts” or “Fabric,” and see if there are quilt shops. And if there’s time and it’s within commuting distance or whatever. I’ll often go to a fabric shop in the area where I’m staying. [... ] And they make nice souvenirs, and I tend to remember what I purchased where, and so that makes it fim when I put it into a quilt^

Juanita Ross told a similar story that emphasizes the way late twentieth century revival quiltmakers experienced the creation of a stash of fabrics as part of the pleasure of quiltmaking.

We went on vacation in Georgia, [and] my sister-in-law asked, “What do you want to do?” And I said, “Any quilt shops around?” She said, “I don’t know. I’ll find out” Well, we had to take about an hour drive and we went and she came back and she told her husband, “It was worth every bit of it Just to watch Juanita.” She said, “I didn’t know l I didn’t know it was such an experience!” (laughter) I didn’t think about what I was doing.

[her sister-in-law said about Juanita], “She would talk to the ladies in the shop, and then she would pick up the fabrics, and she’d just pet it and she’d go, ‘Mmmmm.’ ” (laughter) She said there was more moaning and groaning and “ah-oooing” and.... (laughter) I said, “I didn’t do that!” She said, “Yes, you did!”

Anyway I didn’t realize I did all that It gives you an idea it was neat It was a neat shop, and I found some pieces there that I hadn’t seen

^ Elizabeth Partridge.

210 anywhere else. (laughter) That gives you an idea what its It’s a . .. therapeutic. Very therapeutic. For me, it is.*

Thus, for some quiltmakers at least, accumulation for the sake of accumulation had become a positive value, the equivalent of “shop ‘til you drop,” a reflection of the consumerism dominating late twentieth century U.S. socie^.

Another example of the different relationship women in this group had towards fabric, and hence how quiltmaking was more commodified for them than for the older women, is the scrap quilt. For the oldest generation of quiltmakers, those who began working before 1940, scrap quilts were, in fact, quilts made firom scraps of fabric left over firom sewing projects. Because the amount of any particular fabric was limited, the resulting quilt was made up of many different prints and colors. If the febrics were compatible, the pattern well chosen, and the sewing skillful, such a quilt could be among the nicer ones a woman owned. Scrap quilts were just as likely to be utili^ quilts, used fireely in the house and perhaps later in the yard and bam, rather than saved for best or given as gifts.’

By the late twentieth century, however, scrap quilts had evolved into a distinct s^le or pattern. To say one was planning to make a scrap quilt was analogous to saying one was planning a Dresden Plate or a Double-Irish Chain quilt. It involved acquiring, through purchase and trade, a great many different pieces of fabric and choosing a pattern

* Juanita Ross. Emphasis m original. See also Lorre Marie Weidlich, “Quilting Transfijtmed: An Anthropological Approach To The Quilt Revival” (PhT). diss.. University of Tecas at Austm, 1986), 66.

’ Estella Nussbaum, 10 June 1997, Apple Creek.

211 and construction techniques that were suitable fer the desired effect Often, that effect was evocative of folk art the often disproportionate, “naïve,” “primitive,” or apparently unskilled work associated with “our colonial or feontier ancestors” or sometimes with

Afiican-American quiltmaking. Some women in Wayne CounQr disliked scrap quilts.

Diana Huff said;

I’m not particularly cra^ about scrap quilts for making, because they take as much time as a planned quüt because you’re cutting up so many different things, and the cutting process is one that I don’t enjoy. And I like things that are orderly, so scrap quüts to me are less than orderly.

Other women looked forward to making them. Elizabeth Partridge said that she was reaUy trying to have “some movement some action, some visual interest in the backgrounds” of her qmlts; increasing the number of different fabrics of each color that she used in a top helped her reach that goal. She also said, “I think they’re just more interesting when they have more stuffva. them.” Jeri Fickes said, “Some day I’m going to have a really good scrap quüt” but did not feel she had a large enough fabric coUection to start one."

Just as women in the earlier groups had received quilts as wedding gifts, many women in this group were given qmlts as gifts firom mothers, grandmothers, and mothers- in-law. And just as the earlier quütmakers had continued this tradition by making quüts for their own chüdren and grandchüdren, so the women in this group also made qmlts fi)r

Roberta Horton, Scrap Quilts: The Art o fMaking Do (Lafayette, CA: C&T PubHshing, Ltd., 1998), 7,94.

“ Diana Huff [individual interview], 25 June 1997, Wooster; Elizabeth Partridge; Jeri Fflces.

212 their descendents. The younger women were often insphed to make then: first quilts when they began to have children in the 1970s. Ruth Steiner, for example, told me of an applîquéd quilt she had made that she used on the beds of three sons. By the mid-1990s, these women had begun the task of making quilts as gifts Ar their grown chilchen. Mrs.

Steiner had made a warm comforter A r each of ha: sons' chilly dorm rooms and planned to make another for the daughter still in high school. When I mterviewed her, she was working on an elaborately stitched all-white wholecloth quilt A r her oldest son’s wedding.'^

Women in this group were, like then: predecessors, likely to join quilting groups.

For some, these were the same church-based groups started and nourished by the first two groups o f women. This vms especially true among the Mennonite women I mterviewed, whose sewing circles had continued strongly while others faltered as their founders aged and died. Ruth Steiner and Juanita Ross were both active in the sewing meetings at Aeir

Mennonite churches, and younger women like Sandra Stoltzfiis attended when they could. Other women fiom this generation joined women fiom the second generation in

Aunding new groups at their churches. In addition to Ae church groups, several members of this generation—six of Ae twenty—had helped to found or had joined a quilting guild in Ae community of Wooster. Unlike Ae older sewing circles, Ae new sewing groups, boA church-based and secular, were focused solely on makmg quilts.

While Ae new church groups continued to contribute money and resources A mission and charity projects, Ae quilt guild Ad not have an integral service missioiL Members

RuA Sterner. 213 regularly agcced to produce quilts on their own for donation to several local service organizations, but the guild’s purpose, as several Uncoverings articles outline, was to provide “advice, ideas, and encouragement” to members about their own projects.*^

Guild members in Wayne County rarely did any kind o f needlework at their monthly meetings. Instead, they listened to speakers, watched demonstrations, and showed each other their latest creations.

Most of the women who learned to make quilts after the 1970s spent a number of years when they primarily defined themselves as housewives or fkrmwives. On the whole, however, these women were much more likely than the others to have worked at full-time paid jobs on a long-term basis. This includes not only the younger women, whose work patterns closely resemble those of other women their age in the United

States, but also the older women who had defied convention, if not tradition, by working outside the home during the 1950s and 1960s. In addition, the occupational range o f this group was much broader than the other groups, though still generally confined to

“fomale” jobs. Jeri Fickes, Bev Karaiskos, and Sandra Stoltzfiis had done or were doing clerical work; Mrs. Karaiskos had also owned a successful crafts business. Mary Lou

Berkey, Juanita Ross, and Ruth Steiner had been or were still nurses. Elizabeth Partridge

Davis, “The Contemporary American Quilter,” 45-51; Catherine Ann Cemy, “A Quilt Guild; Its Role m the Elaboration of Female Identity,” in Uncoverings 1991, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco; American ()uilt Study Group, 1992), 32-49; Kristin M. Lacgellier, “Contemporary Quütmakîng in Maine; Re-Fashioning Femininity,” in Uncoverings 1990, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco; American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 29-55.

RoseMarie Baab, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Jeri Fickes; Kevin Horst; Diana Huff [individual interview]; Bev Karaiskos; Elizabeth Partridge.

214 had earned teaching credentials and then a PhJD. Sue Davis owned a laundry service when I talked with her, though she had also worked as a technical writer and reporter/^

Five women in this study identified themselves in some way as professional or full-time quiltmakers.^^ Significantly, three of these women had learned to make quilts during the late twentieth century quilt revival. While women in the first two generations had occasionally quilted or made quilt tops for pay throughout their adult lives, this had generally been an incidental activity, and the acceptance of cash was done almost more as a favor to neighbors or acquaintances than as a money-making proposition.^^ The idea of making a career, understood as something that gives one a professional identity as well as an income, did not become a goal for any of the women in this study until the 1980s, when the idea of work outside the home as a career for women was no longer considered inappropriate.

In all cases, however, while the women in this group were much more likely than the other women to have their own income, few earned enough to live comfortably without a husband*s income or retirement benefits. Of the eight people in the second and third groups who had paid jobs and who estimated their recent income, only two were the

Jeri Fickes; Bev Karaiskos; Sandra Stoltzfiis; Mary Lou Berkey; Juanita Ross; Ruth Steiner; Elizabeth Partridge; Sue Davis.

Ann Brown, 16 June 1997; Ruth Hershberger, owner o f Cozy Comer Quilts, I August 1997, Kidron; Diana Hu£^ owner of the Quilting Elf, 25 June 1997, Wooster; Phyllis Pavlovicz, ownwofLog Cabin Quilts, 15 August 1997, Moreland; Susan Shie, 18 July 1997, Wooster.

11a Berg, 8 May 1997, Walnut Creek; Estella Nussbaum; Thelma Sollenberger, 23 June 1997, Wooster; Marilyn Tokheim, 31 July 1997, Smithville.

215 main breadwinners for their families: the one male quiltmaker, and a woman whose husband had just begun a new business. For the other women, personal income ranged from 11 percent to 40 percent of what their husbands earned, or 10 percent to 28 percent of their total family income. One woman earned $40,000 per year managingrental properties, but most made less than $25,000 per year.** Like women in the older two groups, the third generation of quiltmakers continued to rely on family income earned primarily by their husbands for cash to buy quiltmaking supplies, especially if they still had young children at home.

The quiltmakers who learned their skills after 1970 most strongly demonstrate quiltmaking as a leisure activity. While quiltmaking was something they could do within the boundaries of their roles as wives, mothers, and employees, they learned and took up the craft as adults who were seeking a creative and pleasurable activity. They joined groups where they could enjoy the company of other people with the same interests and often without the obligations of service and religious community that women of the older groups had honored. While their quilts were often of the traditional pieced and appliquéd varieties, their fabrics were likely to have been purchased only fr>r quiltmaking and their designs were also more likely to be mnovative and unusual, reflecting the new styles and techniques characteristic of the late twentieth century quilt revival.

** RoseMarie Baab; Jeri Fickes; Colleen Hewitt; Mary Hodges [individual mterviewj, 13 September 1997, Wooster; Kevin Horst; Diana Huff [individual interview]; Joyce frvia, 4 June 1997, Smithville; Juanita Ross.

216 Church Sewing Groups

Some church sewing groups folded in the post-1970 era, though the interest in group quilting did not diminish. For instance, the four remaining members of Ladies’

Aid at Smithville United Church o f Christ agreed in the early 1990s to dissolve them group; three of the women then began to quHt with the Augsburg Lutheran Day Center in

Orrville. New groups were also established, BetQr Moomaw founded a quilting group in

1973 at her Methodist church in Grove City, Ohio, where she and her husband lived for several years. The initial goal had been to help an older member of the congregation

Gnish and quilt an appliqué top she had begun as a young woman. The quilters that Mrs,

Moomaw gathered for that project enjoyed working together so much that they agreed to continue to meet and quilt for other people, sending the money they raised to United

Methodist Women to support mission projects. When Mrs, Moomaw moved back to

Wayne County, she founded a similar group at Wooster United Methodist church in

1990, Similar motivations inspired Myma Norton and Velma Eicholtz to join other women in founding a group at Trinity United Church of Christ in the early 1980s and

Kevin Horst to start one at Oak Chapel Methodist Church in the 1990s,

Church quilting groups founded after the 1970s exhibited even more strongly than the older groups the new importance of quiltmaking as a commodified leisure activity.

Unlike the older groups, which had sewn clothing and bedding for the needy and

Betty Moomaw, 7 May 1997, Wooster; Members o f the Wooster United Methodist Quflting Group, 3 June 1997, Wooster; Nforie Gresser, 1 July 1997, Smithville; Members of the Augsburg Lutheran Day Center, 21 May 1997, OrrvOle; Myma Norton; Velma Eicholtz, 16 May 1997, Wooster; Kevm Horst.

217 sometimes organized a variety of diffoent fund-raising projects» these new church groups only did quilting. A few groups, like the one at Trinity United Church of Christ in

Wooster, made quilted banners and other hangingsto decorate their chmrches.^*^ All o f the groups, however, used quilts as fund-raisers. They made quilts to be rafded or auctioned or they did custom quilting for top-makers in their congregations or the wider community. The institutional izatinnof charitable and service organizations and the decreasing costs of manufactured blankets, clothing, and other household items meant that, for the most part, groups who wished to support these organizations needed to donate money rather than material goods. Making and selling quilts was, for some women, the preferred way to raise money. In addition, quilts had become too valuable as heirlooms and creative expressions to be merely given away.

The Mennonite Context

Historians and sociologists of Mennonite culture have documented that during the

1970s, differences between the majority of Mennonites and the rest of the white U.S. population began to decline. Some of these changes were physical. For example, dress codes were relaxed, including the general abandonment of the prayer cap among most middle-aged and younger women. Other changes can be seen in the increase in the number of Mennonites receiving not just high school but also college educations, takmg professional or other non-farm jobs, and moving to cities and other non-rural areas. For example, as of 1982, younger Mennonite families had the same number of children as other U.S. families; in “earlier decades” the Mennonite birthrate had been 40 to 50

20 Betty Moomaw; Velma Eicholtz; Myma Norton. 218 percent higher than the rest of the nation. The numbo: of Mennonite women in the paid

workforce rose from 26 percent in 1972 to 48 percent in 1989. This compares to the

national figures of 45 percent of U.S. women in the workforce in 1972 and 57 percent in

1989. A late 1980s survey found that a significant majority of Mennonites were willing

to have women fill some administrative, educational, and spiritual leadership positions in

the church, although only a large minority were willing to see women in roles that

required overall church leadership, preaching, or performing rituals that required

ordination.^^

These demographic changes, along with the experience among young Mennonite men and women of service overseas for the MCC or the Missions Board or in the U.S. and Canada in the Civilian Public Service camps or the new Volunteer Service Units (a sort of domestic, short-term Peace Corps) were among the strongest factors pushing mainstream Mennonite society into full acculturation.^ This pervasive world-wide service experience—almost all of the Mennonites I spoke to in Wayne County had either

Donald B. Kraybill, “Mennonite Women’s Veiling: The Rise and Fall of a Sacred Symbol,” Memonite Quarterly Review 61 no. 3 (1987): 313-314,317-319; J. Howard Kauffmanand Leo Driedger, Mermonite Mosaic: Identity and Modernization, with a forward by Donald B. Kraybill (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991), 38-39,113-115,263-264; J. Howard Kaufhnan, “Power and Authority in Mennonite Families,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 68, no. 4 (1994): 500-523.

^ Kauffinan and Driedger, Mennonite Mosaic; Donald B. Kraybill, “From Enclave to En^em ent: MCC and the Tran^ormation of Mennonite Identity,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 70, no. 1 (1996): 23-58; Wilbert R. Shenk, “Nfission and Service and the Globalization ofNorth American Mennonites,” Mennonite Quarterly R eview 70, no. 1 (1996): 7-22. Also Paul Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930- 1970: Modernity and the Persistence o fReligious Conrnnmity, The Mennonite Experience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996).

219 been overseas on behalf of the church, or were closely related to someone who had— formed the core of the new ethic of the Anabaptist vision that is central to late twaitieth century Mennonite identity. The Sewing Circles provided not only significant material support for these ventures, but also one o f the means through which this ideal passed into local Mennonite churches, reinforcing connections between those who stayed at home and those who le ft

Thus, although most aspects of Mennonite life began to resemble that of socially conservative non-Mennonites, the activities of the women’s sewing groups took on a new significance. In 1971, the (Old) Mennonite Church reorganized its denominational structure, becoming the Mennonite General Assembly. As part of this change, new boards were created to oversee missions, education, congregational ministries, publications, and mutual aid (insurance). The WMSA became at that time the Women’s

Missionary and Service Commission (WMSC), reflecting women’s higher, more autonomous status within the church structure. Women did not, however, receive full voting rights or status equal to other boards.^

^ Elaine Sommers Rich, Mermonite Women: A Story o f God's FaitfrfulnesSr 1683- 1983 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1983), 207-208; Cornelius J. Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History: A Popular History o fthe Anabaptists and the Mennonites, 3"* ed. (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1993), 220-221. These changes were withm the “mainstream’^ (Old) Mennonite Church. The sort of detailed examination of women’s institutional place that was available for the MWMS and Sewing Circle organizations through the 1940s does not exist fer the WMSA and WMSC or fer the Women in Mission (WIM) in the generally more liberal General Conference Mennonite Church. The Mermonite Church and the General Conference Mennonite Church are currently conductmg negotiations to merge. The women’s umbrella organizations have, in fact, already merged under the name of Mermonite Women (MW). Carol Permer, in “Mermonite Women’s ffistory: A Sm veyf Journal o fMennonite Studies 9 (I99I): 122- 135, notes that most works about Mermonite women are primarily brief and apologetic 220 WiQme Cormty Sew ing C ircles

By the early 1970s, even the older Wayne County sewing circles had become primarily quilting groups. Although the Mennonite women engaged in a variety of other projects each month ranging 6om collecting used clothing to coordinating the creation of a variety of “kits” to provide sundries to school children, prisoners, or new mothers, these activities were clearly secondary to the production of quilts and com&rters in the amount of time they took. Indeed, the non-quilt activities often took on the aspect of congregational projects that were coordinated by the sewing groups rather than specific

Sewing Circle endeavors.^'^

The gradually increasing focus on quiltmaking over other sewing group activities, combined with new, more institutionalized understandings of public and community service, strongly influenced even the material aid projects that were undertaken by both old and new groups. Rather than producing a small wardrobe of clothing and bedding for

biographies and descriptions about women and their organizations. See for instance, Elaine Rich, Mennonite Women, and Katie Funk Wiebe, “Mermonite Brethren Women: Images and Realities of the Early Years,” Mennonite Life 36, no. 3 (1981): 22-28. Some more recent works have examined Mermonite women’s lives fix)m 6minist perspectives. See Diane Driedger, “Unfoldmg the Silence: A Woman’s Descent,” Resourcesfo r Feminist Research 21, no. 3-4 (Fall-Winter 1992): 19-20; Gloria Neufbld Redekop, The Work o f Their Hands: Mennonite Women's Societies in Canada (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfiid Lamier University Press, 1996); A1 Reimer, “Where Was/Is the Woman’s Voice? The Re-Membering of the Mermonite Woman,” Mennonite Life (March 1992): 20-26; Kimberly Dawn Schmidt, “Transforming Tradition: Women’s Work and the Effects of Religion and Economics in Two Rural Mermonite Communities, 1930-1990,” (PhD. diss.. State University of New York at Binghamton, 1995); Ruth Vogt, “Taking a Critical Look at Ourselves: The Mermonite Communia,” Canadian Woman Studies 12, no. 1 (Fan1991): 110.

Members of the Smithvüle Mermonite WMSC, 16 May 1997, Wooster. See, for instance, “June Projects,” WMSC Voice, June 1997, back cover.

221 families and institutions, most groups focused on making fine quilts to be auctioned or raffled to raise cash, or on makingcomfi)rters or perhaps plain quilts (that is, quilts with printed or simple pieced tops and easy quilting designs that could be made almost as quickly as a comforter) for donation to local social service organizations to distribute to their clients. These service providers ranged from Everywoman’s House, a domestic violence shelter, to People-to-People, an interfaith organization for the homeless, to

Boys' Village, a large residential facility for at-risk youth. In addition, many quiltmakers and groups made quilts that were donated to area hospitals to be used with and given to seriously ill infants.^

Some women, like Elizabeth Partridge, objected to many of these projects. Mrs.

Partridge believed that because of their bulk and the difflculty of keeping them clean, quilts and even comforters were not the most needed and useful items for these troubled people. She said, ‘There are other more functional ways to keep warm that you can keep clean, that you could fold up and carry if you’re going to walk around with your things in a bag, rather than a handmade quüt”^® Quilte were, however, items that many sewing groups liked to make and donate. In addition, and significantly, leaders of the service

^ Members of all the church groups donated quilts to at least one of these groups. See Joan Firmin, Director of Volunteers, Ihtemal Communication and Special Events, Boys’ Village, hic., letter to author, 8 January 1998; Mindy Brain, Volunteer Coordinator, People-to-PeopIe, telephone conversation witii author, 14 January 1998. In addition, members of the Tree City Quilters’ Guild in Wooster had made quilts for Everywoman’s House. See especially interview with RoseMarie Baab. Ruby Sykes, 30 May 1997, Creston, was among the individuals who donated baby quilts to the ABC Quilts project for hospitalized infonts.

^ Elizabeth Partridge.

222 organizations commented that receiving com&rters provided at least as much

psychological as physical comfort for their clients because of the connotations such near­

quilts have of home, comfort, and safety. Joan Firmin, Director of Volunteers, Internal

Communication, and Special Events at Boys’ Village, remarked that her predecessor

began contacting church groups in 1981 to make comforters to be given to each new

resident because the comforters “represented warmth, security, and love to children that

were troubled and needed to know someone cared about them.” Mindy Brain, Volunteer

Coordinator for People-to-People, explained that single homeless people received “lap quilts” that were smaller than a bed-sized quilt Families who came to her organization

for emergency assistance would be given several blankets but only one bed-sized quilt or comforter. This policy helped to ensure that there were enough of the brighter, more cheerful quilts to distribute to other clients.^’

Making quilts and comforters to sell or doing custom quilting continued to be a common fund-raising project for all the groups through the late 1970s. The money continued to be used for church upkeep and for mission projects aroimd the world.^^

Among the Mennonite groups, however, custom quilting gradually became less popular.

In 1971, the women at Salem (Kidron) held a discussion about whether to continue this

Firmin, letter to author; Brain, telephone conversation.

“ See, for instance, “Minutes,” August 1971, Orrville WMSC Records; “Minutes,” 5 March 1980, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records; Members of the Augsburg Lutheran Day Center; Wooster United Methodist (^uilt Group; Members of the Paradise Church o f the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 4 June 1997, Smithville; Members o f the East Chippewa Church o f the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 11 June 1997, Orrville; Members of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Women’s Alliance, 17 June 1997, Orrville.

223 practice and a majoii^ agreed to &> In December 1977, the president of the Kidron

Sewing Circle asked members if they would piece and quilt two quilts for “a lady” who had contacted the group. The women decided not to accept the project but recommended that individual women could volunteer to do the work on their own. A similar discussion was held and the same decision reached at Orrville Mennonite in 1981^°

The reluctance of Mennonite women to accept custom-quilting projects is directly related to the groups’ preference for producing quilts for sale at the growing numbers of auctions and bazaars that Mennonites had begun to organize to raise cash for the MCC and other institutions. Even in their early years, beginning in the 1960s, these events drew large audiences of non-Mennonite and Mennonite quilt lovers willing to pay premium prices for "traditional” Amish and Mennonite quilts. A quilt made for sale at an auction produced a much larger donation for the MCC than one sold directly by a Sewing

Circle, with its limited circle of clients.

The establishment of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale in Kidron in 1966, which will be discussed in detail in chapter 8, and the subsequent development of other sales and auctions in Wayne County and elsewhere, had a significant effect on Sewing Circles’ activities. The Relief Sale, patterned after similar sales organized in Pennsylvam'a,

Kansas, and Illinois, featured an auction and counts sales of donated handmade and purchased crafts, food, toys, and other items. Net proceeds of the Mennonite Relief Sales

^ “NCnutes,” 5 May 1971, Salem WIM Records.

"Minutes,” 14 December 1977, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records; “Minutes,” 2 April 1981, Orrville WMSC Minutes.

224 were donated to the Mennonite Central Committee and sometimes to other special projects. Profits firom the first Ohio sale totaled approximately $5,000; the proceeds rose to $20,000 in 1970. In 1995, Ohio Relief Sale organizers sent $190,000 to the MCC.

Adjusted for inflation, the earlier two amounts are equivalent to approximately $23,500 and $78,500, respectively, in 1995 dollars. The annual quilt auction regularly offered two to three hundred full-size and baby quilts, wall hangings, and comforters donated by church groups and individual women from throughout Ohio and western Pennsylvania.

In addition to the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale, the quilt auctions most often supplied by

Wayne County groups were those benefiting the Sunshine Children’s Home in Maumee

(near Toledo, Ohio), and the Adriel School in West Liberty (north of Dayton, Ohio).^*

Both of these institutions had previously been children’s homes that had received clothing, comforters, and quilts directly firom the groups as material aid.

While some Sewing Circles responded to the call for donations to the Relief Sale the first year, no special effort was made at that point to distinguish Relief Sale quilts fiom others. At their meeting on 1 June 1966, the Salem (Kidron) Sewing Circle voted to donate a quilt they had already completed to the “relief auction” to be held later that

Relief Sale financialfigures taken fiom the records of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Board, 1966 through 1995, primarily annual financial reports and minutes. Records in possession of group leaders, hereinafter cited as “OMRSB Records.” Ohio’s sale was the fourth to be organized on an annual basis, fit 1995, there were thfity-eight relief sales in the U.S. and Canada. “The Mamonite Relief Sales,” More Treasured Mermonite Recipes: Food Fun, and Fellowship from the Mennonite R eliefSales (Lancaster, PA: Fox Chapel Publishmg, in cooperation with the Mennonite Central Committee, 1996), ii.

225 month-^^ The BCidron. Sewing Circle did not contribute to the first sale, but members were making plans in December 1966 to contribute to the second sale/^ The women at

Orrville Mennonite, a group generally more inclined toward mission study than sewing during their meetings, contributed a quilt, apparently for the first time, to the thud sale in

September 1968.^ The Sonnenberg Sewing Circle contributed for the first time in 1969, though they supported that sale enthusiastically, contributing four quilts and two comforters/^

During the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, quilts became an increasingly significant factor in the financialsuccess of the Ohio Meimonite Relief Sale. In the 1970s, income fiom the quilt auction accounted for an average of 24 percent o f the gross income of each sale; in the 1980s, it accounted for 31 percent Between 1990 and 1995, proceeds fiom the quilt auction provided nearly 36 percent of Relief Sale income. Accordingly, women intensified their labor to support this continued success; sewing groups began to focus their efforts more specifically on making quilts for the Relief Sale and other auctions.

Quilt committees sought ways to increase the production of salable quilts by sponsoring the creation or purchase of fancy quilt-tops. They established tighter schedules for completing quilts and expressed concern about the need to develop fine quilting skills in younger women and girls. For most Circles, the major emphasis, in terms of time spent

“Minutes,” 1 June 1966, Salem WIM Records.

“Minutes,” 7 December 1966, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

^ “Mmutes,” 1 September 1968, Orrville WMSC Records.

“Minutes,” 12 February 1969, Sonnenberg WMSC Records.

226 at meetings, became quilts. Not all quilts were intended for sale at the various auctions, but the activi^ of quiltmaking subsumed nearly ail other activities.

Oak Grove Sewing Circle members noted that “as things developed, then, of course, the Relief Sale became an onportant part of the woric that we did.”^® Salem

(Kidron) Sewing Circle members said that, in the “last several years,” before 1997 they had completed “between 275 and 300 small [and] large comforters and quilts in a year s time.” This compares to fewer than 100 items in the years before 1975. They listed over a dozen charitable and service organizations, both Mermonite and non-Mermonite, that had received quilts from them. This group, by far the most prolific I talked to, acknowledged that they made more quilts in the 1990s than fifteen years before because

“there weren’t as many sales for this and that, you know, for the benefits [auctions] of all these difierent homes.” When asked whether they would have made as many quilts for dfrect material aid had the sales not been seeking donations, they replied that they “would have done other things, probably, in the community” though “there was always quilts.”^^

Sonnenberg WMSC members said that:

The quilts we used to make were more practical, while now they’re more fancy. [...] They go for sale and we get a big price for them and then the money goes for the purposes o f relief.

They made a distinction between plam and fancy quilts:

Members of the Oak Grove WMSC, 2 July 1997, Smithville.

Members of the Salem (Kidron) WIM, 4 June 1997, Kidron; WIM Handbook for 1967, Annual Report for 1972, Annual Report [draft] for 1975, Handbook for 1993, Salem WIM Records.

227 We are providing materials for relief. Even though we do the fancy quilts, we also do knotting of comforts, which are sent to MCC and are reli^ itself, so we are doing the dual (purpose of providing both cash and material aid] at this point

But members also agreed that “it was probably about that time, that we started supplying the quilts for the Relief Sale, that the change [toward making fancier quilts] started.”^*

Almost as soon as Mennonite women’s groups began sending quilts to sales, they began to note in their minutes how much the various quilts sold for, so that demand was now conditioning supply not only in quantity but in quality. All the groups shared a desire to donate quilts that would attract a high price at auction. This appears not to have been out of competition with other groups. Rather, it reflected a desire by each group to feel it had contributed as much as possible to the MCC. While any quilt or comforter could provide a warm blanket or opaque shelter wall in a refugee camp, the finer quilts were more effective when used as commodities. In October 1968, “Esther A.” reported on the second Relief Sale to the Kidron Sewing Circle, stating that “the interest was good and quilts sold firom $15 to $100/^* The Kidron Mennonite Women’s Coimcil noted that the quilts donated by their Sewing Circle to the 1974 Relief Sale sold for a combined price of $720. In 1980, Kidron’s donation of six large quilts, one large wool comforter, and three crib quilts brought a combined total of $2,350.”^° Sonnenberg WMSC’s donations to the 1976 sale received a total of $800; the next year, their two quilts (a blue

Members of the Soimenberg WMSC, 9 July 1997, Kidron.

“Mmutes,” 2 October 1968, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

“Minutes,” 24 September 1974, Women’s Cotmcil Records, and “Minutes,” 6 August 1980, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

228 wholecloth and a Lone Star) brought in only $345. hi 1979, they donated two crib quilts and two full-size quilts, bringing in a total of $520.'^^ hi September 1972, the Salem

(Kidron) Sewing Circle recorded that the quilt they had donated to the Relief Sale was originally sold for $40, then “it was put back and sold with the bed on which it was displayed for $120.” In their 1994 Annual Handbook, Salem (Kidron) reported that in the previous year, they had donated three quilts and one comforter to the Relief Sale for a total of $1,475; one quilt to the Adriel School auction, which sold for $200; and one quilt to the Blufhon College Auxiliary Sale, which sold for $400.^*^

Members evaluated past sales when making decisions about future projects. For example, the Salem (Kidron) Sewing Circle discussed a letter hom the Ohio Mennonite

Relief Sale Committee in the summer o f 1969 describing high-selling items and styles and voted to send a striking red-and-white quilt to the next sale."*^ The Orrville group held a similar discussion after a member attended an evaluation of the 1982 Relief Sale.

She reported that pieced baby quilts were among the items that sold well. Context suggests that this particular comment was probably about items sold in the needlework tent, a separate selling area with less expensive items sold for a marked price rather than at auction.^ The executive committee of the combined Kidron Mennonite women^s

“Minutes,” 8 September 1976,14 September 1977, and 11 July 1979, Sonnenberg WMSC Records.

“Mmutes,” 6 September 1972, and “Annual Handbook,” 1994, Salem WIM Records.

“Minutes,” 2 July 1969, Salem WIM Records.

^ “Mmutes,” 7 October 1982, Orrville WMSC Records.

229 groups discussed salable hems at its meeting in January 1971. Members noted that both twin- and king-sized quilts seemed to sell well.'*^

The demand for quilts that could command high prices required Sewing Circle quilt committees to locate and sometimes purchase distinctive quilt tops. In June 1989, the quilt committee of the Orrville Sewing Circle “reported that they will need to buy a nice quilt top for the relief quilt They asked if anyone knew of one they could buy.”^^

Available financial records suggest that this group regularly paid skilled top-makers, apparently members, between $45 and $125 for tops to be quilted for the Relief Sale.**^

While paying members who were top-makers was a long-standing practice, doing so for a quilt project initiated by the group rather than by a paying customer was a new development, in autumn 1987, the Sonnenberg Sewing Circle began work on a “small antique quilt top [that] was found in the sewing cupboard.” They agreed to sell this quilt at the next Relief Sale. Antique quilts, especially if their provenance was known, as was the case with this quilt, generally sold for high prices.'** By the mid-1990s, several groups had appointed skilled top-makers to their quilt committees. These women.

‘*^ “Minutes,” 29 January 1971, Women’s Council Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

'*® “Minutes,” 5 June 1989, Orrville WMSC Records.

See, for instance, “Financial Report,” 3 September 1981 to 6 August 1982, and Arlene Steiner to Orrville WMSC, handwritten bill for sewing and embroidery work, marked paid on 11 November 1979, Orrville WMSC Records.

'** “NCnutes,” 14 October 1987, Sonnoiberg WMSC Records. For the reception of antique quilts, see “Ohio Relief Sale Nets $42,000,” unidentified news clippmg in Relief Sale 1972 folder, OMRSB Records, and “K i6on Relief Sale Raises $200,000.00,” Wooster Daily Record, 3 August 1987, sec. DI.

230 including Juanita Ross, were responsible 6 r making or securing tops that "‘coiorwise, will be saleable, will be useable for somebody.”^

Popular quilt tops for auction quilts were plain cloth with elaborate quütmg designs, embroidered blocks, and appliqué patterns. In early spring 1970, the Salem

(Kidron) women decided that ‘^ e ‘old* quilt top and one with plain back and fiont will be prepared for the sale by our ladies.”^® While further descriptions of these quilts are not available, wholecloth quilts often brought high prices at auction because of the skilled stitching implied in their construction. Several times in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Kidron, Orrville, and Salem (Kidron) Circles produced quilts made of embroidered blocks. This required a special effort, since volunteers were needed to embroider the blocks as well as to piece together and quilt the finished top.^' Pieced tops tended toward the more elaborate patterns like Giant Dahlia or used nostalgic fabrics like feed-sack cloth.^

Large, fine-stitched quilts of the kmd that would have been donated to a sale generally took at least two or three daylong meetings to complete, more if the quilting design was particularly ornate. While as many as twelve women could begin work on a

Juanita Ross.

“Minutes,’* 1 April 1970, Salem WIM Records.

“Minutes,** 7 June 1972, Salem WIM Records; “Minutes,’* 5 September 1974, Orrville WMSC Records; “Minutes,** 5 February 1976, WMSC Records, and “Minutes,” 22 January 1980, Women*s Council Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

^ Brief descriptions of quilts can be found in the sale catalogs produced by the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Board beginning in 1982, OMRSB Records.

231 large quilt in a standard stick quilting Game, only four to six women could continue working on that quilt after the edges had been rolled to give access to the rest of the quilt

The remaining women were then free to work on other quilts or comforters. The demand for quilts sometimes forced a change in the usual once-a-month meeting schedule. The

Salem (Kidron) Sewing Circle held quiltings seven o f the eight weeks of January and

February 1975 to complete several quilts, at least one of which was given to a missionary family, and to begin at least one for the Relief Sale. The minutes-taker expressed the quilt committee’s anxiety when she recorded that “the quilt now in the foame is to be finished by the end of the month.”^ This sense of urgency persisted the entire winter that year.

Similar pressure was felt at most groups. Early in 1982, the Orrville Sewing

Circle completed a quilt for the Relief Sale in less than one month. In November 1981, the quilt committee chairwoman volunteered to set the Relief Sale quilt up in her home

“to speed up the work.” Arrangements were finalized in December; in January, the quilt was set up. The completed quilt, a Dresden Plate pattern, was ready for display at the meeting held the first week of February.^*^ The women at Sonnenberg Mennonite also made a special effort “to get our quilts finished for the relief sale” at a meeting in May

1980.^^ hi the mid-1970s, Kidron Mennonite Sewing Circle members stmggled to find

® “Minutes,” 8 January 1975,5 February 1975, and 5 March 1975, Salem WIM Records.

^ “Minutes,” 5 November 1981, January and February 1982, Orrville WMSC Records.

“Minutes,” 7 May 1980, Sonnenberg WMSC Records.

232 time to complete nice quilts for both the Relief Sale and the Sunshine CMchen’s Home

auction. Some years they declined to send a nice quilt to the smaller Sunshine Home

auction; other years they scheduled special meetings to enable them to finish more fine

quilts.“

At the November 1974 meeting, Salem (Kidron) Sewing Circle members

discussed the apparent decline of fine quilting skills. They noted that ‘‘with the fine

quilters decreasing in number and so few o f the younger women learning to quilt, it is

taking longer to complete the work assignments.”^^ The Kidron Women’s Council had

had a similar discussion in 1973, hoping “to get more younger ladies involved by offering

a variety of projects.”^*

Available rosters and oral histories suggest that, in spite of the perception among

some leaders that the number of active quilters was declining, involvement in senior

Meimonite Sewing Circles remained fairly consistent throughout the twentieth century, even through all the changes in activiQr fiom general sewing to quilting. The difierence

was in the age of the members. Young women who had children and paid-work obligations started attending church sewing groups later in their lives than had earlier generations of women The younger women did, however, eventually learn to quilt and begin to seek out opportunities provided by the Sewing Circles.

“Minutes,” 23 July 1974 and 7 July 1976, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

^ “Minutes,” 6 November 1974, Salem WIM Records.

“Mmutes,” 25 September 1973, Women’s Council Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

233 Knotted comforteis and long-stîtch. quilts, where the running quilting stitch was not expected to be as small or as even as in a fine quilt, had long been a major element in the Sewing Circles* material aid donations to the MCC and other agmcies. Although all the women worked on them when needed, comforters and long-stitch quilts had generally been the province of older women no longer able to do fine needlework or of girls and younger women who had not learned how to quilt or who were still developing their skills. Beginning in the early 1970s, Salem (Kidron) minutes record that long-stitch quilts and knotted comforters as well as fine-stitch quilts were made during the annual summer meeting at which the Junior Missionary Sisters (junior high and high school girls) met with the adult women/’ The production of long-stitch quilts at the joint meeting suggests that the women recognized these events as an opportunity to interest younger women and girls in quilting and to begin training them in fine stitching skills.

Similarly, in 1975, Kidron WMSC decided that certain quilts should be set aside for **new learners making the long stitch.”^ As suggested earlier, this recruiting technique might have been effective for women who learned to quilt as young wives in the middle years of the century, but was irrelevant to the younger women still too busy with other commitments to attend meetings.

On the whole, Mennonite women saw the work of their Sewing Circles as having a broader impact in the late 1990s than it had in the past Their articulations of the

59, ‘Minutes,” 2 August 1972, Salem WIM Records.

“Mmutes,” 4-5 November 1975 and 3 December 1975, WMSC Records, Kidron Mennonite Records.

234 Anabaptist vision include; “the work [now] is maybe more inclusive. We have more areas of service”®^ and “it’s more global... It goes overseas now, where at the very beginning I think it was just the Canton [Ohio] mission and the Chicago mission.”^

While the goals to support missions and Mennonite service remained 6om earlier years, the scope of those goals was much larger. Situated within what some would call the limited confmes of the roles of mother, wife, church worker and pink-collar employee, these women claimed for themselves time and space to do an activity they enjoyed, spent time with each other—the women all agreed that “we enjoy the social part ... the fellowship is great”—and also built an acknowledged place for themselves within the

Anabaptist vision of the last half of the twentieth century.®^

The larger, more visible role o f quilt sales in funding Mennonite projects, and the consequent institutional status given to the WMSC groups in local congregations and denominational structures, distinguished Mennonite women’s quilting groups firom those of similar groups at other churches. In spite of quiltmaking’s profitability and the intensification of labor patterns sometimes practiced by the Mennonite group leaders, quilting remained a pleasurable leisure activity in the mmds of participants. It was something they enjoyed doing for its own sake. The higher prices paid for some of the quilts at auction came closer than for those quilted by individual women to bringing in an

Members of the Kidron WMSC, 2 July 1997, Kidron.

^ Oak Grove WMSC.

® Quotes are fix)m, respectively, Sonnenberg WMSC interview (two quotes); Monbers of Orrville WMSC, 3 July 1997, Orrville; Oak Grove WMSC; Salem (Kidron) WIM.

235 equitable amount of money relative to the labor in their construction. Mennonite women, however, were primarily engaged in a much-prized spiritual and communi^-building leisure activity that happened to produce a popular commodity. They were not directly seeking a financially profitable venture and would object to descriptions suggesting that profit—even for a good cause—was their motive.

Leisure studies theorists include membership in church organizations as a leisure activity. They point out that, while people may feel community or family pressure to join these organizations, they are, in fact, voluntary associations. Especially in reference to women’s church organizations in the past or in religiously or socially conservative communities, joining such a group could be a socially sanctioned way to meet with fiiends, engage in community projects, and assert leadership in church structures. As such, the sewing groups were an acceptable way to enlarge women’s leisure options without violating the accepted botmdaries of family and gender roles.^ That quilting, in particular, became the central activity of the groups included in this study emphasizes both the leisure nature of quiltmaking and of the church sewmg groups. Group members, through them attendance and their acceptance of quilt-related projects and rejection or de-emphasis of other activities, chose to meet them financial and spiritual goals m a way that they feund enjoyable. By taking advantage o f the internal and little noticed economy of grnltmalrfng, church group

^ Karla Henderson and others. Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives on Women's Leisure (State College, PA: Venture Publishing Co., 1996), 45-48,107-111, 192-193: Bartolomeo Palisi, “Voluntary Associations,” in Leisure: Emergence and E xpansion ed. Hilmi M. Ibrahim and Jay S. Shivers (Los Alamitos, CA: Hwong Publishmg Company, 1979), 291-292; Jay S. Shivers, Leisure and Recreation Concepts: A Critical Analysis (Boston: AEyn and Bacon, hic., 1987), 123-127.

236 members were able to raise money to support missions and institutions while also meeting with fiiends and discussmg communia, congregational and religious issues.

The fact that non-quilt-related women’s groups also existed in most of the churches testifies to the leisure nature of quilt groups. Women who did not like to quilt joined the Christian Homemakers or the Women’s Missionary Association or organized non-quilt activities like sorting stamps to sell to philatelic distributors or cutting fabric to be woven into rag rugs for sale.^ That these other groups^ or the other activities within basically quilting groups, tended to be shorter-lived testifies again to the importance that quilters assigned to being able to reserve time for their hobby. Because quilters were looking for a way to claim time to quilt, these groups lasted much longer than groups that focused only on organizational goals. Attendance at quilting groups was a leisure activity not only because the groups were voluntary associations but also because they provided a space and time for a desired, productive, but nonessential, activity.

Kamfng Monev through Quiltmaking

By the late 1970s, the fees charged by church groups for custom quilting rose to as high as 150 per yard of thread used; individuals during that decade charged between

150 and 250. By the mid-1990s, church groups still doing custom quilting commonly charged 350 or 400 per yard of thread, while individuals changed between 250 and 500.^

Betty Moomaw; Records for the Women’s Council at Kidron Mennonite Church; Sterling Ladies Aid records; Christian and Missionary Alliance Women’s Alliance.

^ Rates fi)r quilting and other work here and below were taken finm record books for the Kidron WMSC and Dorcas Sisters, Kidron Mennonite Records; Orrville WMSC Records; Salem WIM Records; Sonnenberg WMSC Records; and finm interviews with 237 How much thread was needed to quilt a top, and hence how much money could be earned by quilting, varied considerably. Factors affecting the cost of custom quilting included the size of the top, the complexity of the design to be quilted, the fineness of the stitching, and how much thread the quilter “wasted’^ each time she began and ended a length of thread. Estimates ranged firom three hundred to six hundred yards of thread for a large quilt, with the average amount being closer to four hundred yards.^^ Figure 6.1 shows estimates of the amount of money Wayne County quilt groups and individual quilters could expect to earn for a quilt that required four hundred yards of thread.

Church Groups Individuals Average Whole Quilt 1995 Dollar Average Whole Quilt 1995 Dollar Rate Total Equivalent Rate Total Equivalent 1930s $0,005 $2.00 $21.35 1940s $0,015 $6.00 $43.06 1950s $0,020 $8.00 $44.66 1960s $0,027 $10.83 $5034 $0,040 $16.00 $7434 1970s $0,071 $28.50 $89.69 $0,175 $70.00 $22030 1980s $0,135 $54.00 $8132 $0317 $86.67 $130.51 1990s $0,375 $150.00 $160.76 $0,388 $155.00 $166.12

Figure 6.1: Rates for Quilting Services, 1930s - 1990s

Ha Berg; Martha Connors [pseud.}, 1 August 1997, OrrvOIe; Alice Farnsworth [pseud.], 10 June 1997, Kidron; Lola Farrer, 29 May 1997, Orrville; Arlene Hartzler, 23 June 1997, Smhhville; Ruth Hershberger, Cozy Comer Quilts; Lena Lehman, owner, and Cheryl Gerbar, manager, Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, 15 August 1997, Kidron; Ella Rohrer, 29 May 1997, Orrville; Jane ^ s o n [pseud.], 17 June 1997, Wooster.

Colleen Hewitt; Ruth Hershberger, Coty Comer Quilts; Celia Lehman, “Mennonite Relief Sale Quilts Establish New Price Records,” Wooster Daily Record, 9 August 1993, sec. Al-2.

238 The real cost in 1995 dollars for400 yards of thread was between $1 and $1.50 in the

1930s through the 1960s, and increased to S3 to $5 after the 1970s. Even when accounting for the high inflation rates of the 1970s, the price of quilting increased considerably with the beginning of the late twentieth century quilt revival, as did the amount of profit available since only the cost of thread needed to be deducted fir)m the amount paid by the customer. In 1995 figures, the average 1990s rate of 40.9^ for both groups and individuals was 227 percent higher than the average 1969 rate of 18^. The

1990s rate was 106 percent higher than the 1970s average of 38.70 and 154 percent higher than the 1980s rate of 26.50. The price jump in the 1990s was probably due to the influence of retail quilt shops both in and outside o f the area. Rates set by these businesses increased the overall rate in Wayne County, while also setting a cap on the variability of rates between individuals and groups.^^

Two factors account for the different rates charged by individuals and groups.

First, a quilt done by a group would exhibit several levels of quilting skill in its stitching.

Many buyers were willing to pay more for a quilt “done by one hand,” making a quilt stitched by an individual more valuable.^^ Second, leaders of several church groups said they deliberately kept their rates low in order to ensure they had plenty of requests for quilting. Having a steady supply of tops ensured that the group could come together on a

^ Alice Farnsworth; Rachel Simmons [pseud.], 6 September 1997, Dundee; Lena Lehman and Cheryl Gerber, Hearthside Quilt Shoppe.

® Ruth Sterner.

239 regular basis to quilt and share fellowship with each other, which was more important to them than earning the highest rate they could.^*^

The range of rates between individual quilters can be accounted for partially because of market forces and partially because of the women's own ideas about how much they should charge. Amish women reportedly received the highest rates because they were perceived by many top-makers and quilt-buyers to be more skilled than other quilters.^* Wayne Coimty quilt businesses in the 1990s took advantage of this perception.

While owners hired quilters based on the abili^ to make small, even stitches and paid the high going rates of 40^ to 50it per yard in order to retain these workers, they emphasized to customers that their stock was sewn by local Amish and Mennonite women. Cheryl

Gerber, manager of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe in Kidron, commented about customers attitudes: “I guess by being Amish-made, to [our customers] that means good quality.”^

Women who did not quilt for shops often said that they did not charge as much as they knew they could because they did not consider those prices to be “fair.” 11a Berg began to seek quilting work actively in the late 1970s, when she could no longer do domestic work because of her age. She said:

1 never charged what other people did. [... ] I made my own price. [ ...] 1 charged 25 and then I went to 30 and when I quit, the ladies around me

Shirley Fetter, 30 May 1997, SmithvOle; Members of the Augsburg Lutheran Day Center; Members of the Paradise Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship, 4 June 1997, Smhhville; Betty Moomaw.

Sue Davis; RoseMarie Baab.

^ Cheryl Gerber, Hearthside Quilt Shoppe; Ruth Hershberger, C ozy Comer Quilts.

240 were all getting [ ... ] 500 a yard. And I thought that was an awful price. I couldn’t afford to pay that and I wasn’t going to charge people that.

Arlene Hartzler also thought that the 450 or 500 she’d heard the Amish were charging would make a quilt “awfully expensive.” Her church. Paradise Church of the Brethren, charged 400 per yard. She herself had only charged 250 or 300 when she had quilted for pay in the 1980s.^

Like the cost for quilting, the real cost for making tops, marking, and binding also increased after 1970. The price for marking or binding a quilt rose from $2 in the 1960s

(equivalent to approximately $9.50 in 1995 dollars) to $10 to $20 by the 1980s and

1990s. Mrs. Gerber at Hearthside Quilt Shoppe commented that in the mid-1990s, an especially elaborate marking Job might cost as much as $25/* When the Sonnenberg

Sewing Circle agreed to make three quilts for Mrs. Frank Dixon in 1961, the treasurer recorded a payment of $20 to Susan Welly for making the tops.^^ This was equivalent to

$102, or $34 per top, in 1995 dollars. In November 1979, Arlene Steiner received $47.50 from the Tina Royer Circle at Orrville Mennonite for a Log Cabin quilt top. This is equivalent to $99 in 1995 dollars. In both of these cases, the top-maker had also designed the pattern and chosen the fabric. A woman who made tops for Cozy Comer Quilts in

73 Ha Berg; Arlene Hartzler.

Estella Nussbaum; Esther Yoder, 18 July 1997, Apple Creek; Cheryl Gerber, Hearthside C^uilt Shoppe.

‘Treasurer’s Report,” November 1961, Sonnenberg WMSC Records.

241 FCîdroa m the mid-1990s asked for—and received—$100 for cutting and sewing together tops that had been designed by the shop owner/^

Neither church group leaders nor individual women who did custom quilt work shared details of how much income they earned. Regardless of vdiat they charged, most of the women felt that quUtmaking was not a good way to make anything other than

*^cket money'’ because of the time it took to complete a quilt. As Thelma Sollenberger

Joked, had her husband retired so they could live on what she earned fix>m quilting, ‘*we would have been in the poorhousel” Jeri Fickes decided she would never quilt for pay after she multiplied the time spent quilting one quilt by her hourly wage of $ 11 per hour.

The total came to $2,800, which was considerably more than she earned a month. She concluded that she would never find anyone willing to pay enough for her to substitute quilting for her clerical job. Similarly, Juanita Ross said: “if I need income, I won’t do it piecing quilts. I can work several hours a week as a nurse, and then have spending money to go get [fabric] I might want to piece” ’’

At best, paid quiltmaking was a way to supplement an existing income. For instance, Alice Farnsworth taught her widowed sister how to quilt. Her sister then began quilting one quilt per month for a retail shop in Pennsylvania. With her husband’s Social

Security benefits, she received enough money that she could remain at home with her

Bill fiom Arlene Steiner to Orrville WMSC, marked paid on 1 November 1979, in Orrville WMSC records for 6 September 1979 to 7 August 1980; Ruth Hershberger, C o ^ Comer Quilts.

Thelma Sollenberger; Jeri Fickes; Juanita Ross.

242 chndren.^^ For most women, however, paid qmkwodt did not brmg m money that was essential to the household budget Betty Moomaw, Colleen Hewitt, and Ella Rohrer expressed a common sentiment when they pointed out that unless she devoted well over forty hours per week to the work, quilting for pay was not a Job that a woman could use to support herself or her family. The women noted that quilting for pay was worthwhile only if you liked to quilt and would do so even without the money

The increased commoditization of quiltmaking during the late twentieth century revival resulted in higher rates being charged for paid quütwork. Even after adjusting for inflation, church group members and individual women could earn more as quilters than they could have done before the 1970s. Even at the highest rates, however, quilting for pay was not adequate as anything other than a secondary—or even tertiary—source of income. Quilt businesses selling hand-made quilts remained viable and top-makers seeking quilters to finish their own projects were able to pay the going rate because most paid quiltmakers viewed their “work” as a leisure activity. Quiltmakers’ assessment of quilts as priceless because of their emotional and personal value led them not to demand equally valuable remuneration but to charge less than the market could bear for quilting and other services.

Conclusion

This chapter concludes my survey of quiltmaking in Wayne Coun^, focusing on the years of the second quilt revival from the 1970s through 1995. These years were

Alice Farnsworth.

Betty Moomaw; Ella Rohrer; Colleen Hewitt

243 marked not only by a strong resurgence of interest in quiltmaking, but more importantly, by the dominance of quiltmaking as a commodified activity. Quiltmakers in Wayne

County purchased fabrics, books, and tools especially for quiltmaking and attended classes to develop new skills. While the number of church groups offering custom quilting services declined, selling quiltmaking services became an even more viable economic activity. In addition, Mennonite sewing groups began to produce large numbers of quilts for auction. This would suggest that, for many women, quiltmaking moved from being a leisure activity to being a form of labor. In fact, even the women who earned money for themselves or for charitable causes through quiltmaking chose the activity primarily because they enjoyed it. Individual quiltmakers and church sewing groups minimized the economic aspects of their activity in order to emphasize the gendered creativity and homosocial companionship they derived from it. Regardless of the real economic impact of quiltwork, quiltmakers in Wayne County valued more highly the emotional satisfaction it engendered.

244 CHAPTER?

BUSINESS AS LEISURE?: FIVE CASE STUDIES OF QUILT BUSINESSES

Introduction

When I began my research in Wayne County in the spring of 1997, there were

four quüt-related businesses in Wayne County. In addition, a 6Ah business had recently

closed due to the owner’s retirement. These businesses were Fabrics Unlimited, which

was open 6om 1974 to 1996; Coty Comer Quilts, which evolved into a quilt shop around

1980; Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, which opened in 1990; Log Cabin Quilts, which

relocated to Wayne County from the Cleveland area in 1995; and The Quilting Elf, which

began as a formal business in 1995. They exemplified the commercialized context of

quiltmaking in the late twentieth century quilt revival. In addition to offering fabrics,

patterns, equipment, and instmction specifically to quiltmakers, they also supplanted

much of the informal trade in quiltmg and top-making discussed in earlier chapters by

instituting more formal work relationships. Even with this formally organized atmosphere, however, these businesses still demonstrated the leisure nature of quiltmaking. This is seen not only in the attitudes of customers but also in the motivations of shop owners. Quilt-related businesses were not particularly profitable endeavors. They could produce enough revenue to give a good supplementary income to 245 the owner and perh^s to a 6 w employees. For the most part, however, the businesses were started or remained in operation only because the owners enjoyed quiltmaking or associating with people who made and bought quilts. Thus, even while working full-time at a "*modem” career, the business owners remained within the âamewodc of expected feminine roles and hence with the (by now) long tradition o f quiltmaking as a pleasant aspect of domesticity that sometimes produced an income.

Fabrics Unlimited

Fabrics Unlimited opened in 1974 under the name of Knits Unlimited. It sold knit fabrics and offered sewing classes that taught how to make clothing with those fabrics.

The owner, Mary Hodges, changed the name and expanded the product line to include both quiltmaking and fine dressmaking 6brics in the late 1970s. While there were other fabric stores in the area—both chains and independents, some focusing on dressmaking fabrics and some on quiltmaking—Fabrics Unlimited was the only one to carry both kinds of fabrics and also to organize sewing classes. Fabrics Unlimited opened when the local department stores, Freedlanders and Annats, still sold fabric and notions. By the time it closed in 1996, only chain stores such as Jo-Ann Fabrics and Wal-Mart were open in Wooster. Smaller, special^ quilt stores located in Kidron and Moreland did not open until 1990 and 1995, respectively.'

Mary Hodges opened the store after working briefly in a fabric store in Nashville while her husband was on academic leave. Her motivation to take that job and then later

' Unless otherwise noted, all information and quotations in this section were taken fiom Mary Hodges, former owner of Fabrics Unlimited, 13 September 1997, Wooster; and Mary Hodges [individual interview], 13 September 1997, Wooster. 246 to open the store was more pleasure and diversion than career ambition or economic need:

I had three children and a tiny apartment and, to get me out, they [the shop owners] were kind enough to let me [ ... ] go to work for them, and I thought it was fim. And I took Stretch-and Sew [classes] at the same time. And that all of a sudden woke up something in me and said, ‘My God, sewing was hinr And at that point I just kept on going.

Later in the interview, she clarified this attitude by saying, “It was satisfying and gratifying, and I liked it. And I wanted some kind of identify outside of being a mom

(laughing), I guess. 1 don’t know. I needed space for myself. This was an acceptable way of getting it.”

In the late 1970s, Hodges was urged by fabric sales representatives to diversify beyond specialty knit products. She initially resisted, but eventually saw that the fad for home-sewn knit clothing was declining and that, if she wanted to keep the business open, she needed to offer products that women were interested in buying. While developing a new collection of fine dressmaking fabrics, she also branched out into woven cottons specifically for quiltmaking. The name of the business changed at that pomt to Fabrics

Unlimited. O f the two product lines, the quiltmaking fabrics took up more space within the store itself and also provided the more reliable income. While the designs of quiltmaking fabrics evolved over the years—small calicos giving way to “dusfy-lookmg” country prints, which in turn gave way to larger and brighter floral and abstract prints— the demand for this fabric fluctuated less by season than did Ashion fabrics and so a

247 larger and more varied stock could be kept,^ Li addition, while ready-to-wear clothing and paid work reduced the number of women who sewed their own clothing, it did not affect the number of women who made quilts as a leisure activity.

The key features to the viability of Fabrics Unlimited were the availability of higher quality dressmaking and quiltmaking fabrics than could be found at local chain stores (Jo-Ann Fabrics and Wal-Mart) and of store clerks and classes to teach customers how to use those fabrics. Hodges herself taught some of the quiltmaking classes, specializing in ones that emphasized strip piecing and other ‘foiodem,” streamlined techniques. Other employees and independent instructors taught classes in more elaborate quiltmaking techniques, though generally emphasizing machine- rather than hand-sewing processes. Courses were also offered in dressmaking, tailoring, and smocking (a form of embroidery often used on heirloom children’s clothing). Hodges’ promotion of streamlined and simplified top-making techniques may have reduced the need for quiltmakers who preferred quilting to purchase tops, to rely on preprinted or wholecloth tops, or to sell their skills to top-makers. Patterns that would have required careful piecing and a high level of sewing skills when done using traditional techniques could be done more easily with new timesaving methods.

For Hodges’ customers. Fabrics Unlimited was a center for leisure activities.

Leisure studies theorist Karla Henderson and her colleagues note that both shopping and

^ The word “calico” refers both to all kinds of plain-woven printed cotton fabric and also to a particular group of fobric desipis, namely small prints o f one or two colors on a colored ground. Flowers, leaves, and dots are the most common designs. Calico- style prints are most often associated with nineteenth and early twentieth century washable cotton fabrics and hence with quilts made in those years. 248 craft classes are often favorite out-of-home leisure activities for women. They also note that these activities often mimic women’s domestic and family work and serve to reify conventional definitions of feminine behavior? Hodges believed that for many of her customers. Fabrics Unlimited provided a fiiendly retreat fix>m their domestic lives. Store clerks were encouraged to talk to customers about their projects. They provided help and advice even when the customer did not intend to make a purchase that day. In turn,

Hodges believed that customers sometimes tuned their visits to her store to coincide with when a “favorite” clerk would be working. In addition, Hodges noted that the classes and informal advice provided both a creative outlet and much-needed positive afBrmation for many wives and mothers:

And they felt good about it You know, a lot of people don’t feel successfiil in this life, and I think once they found that they could do something and people enjoyed it [... ] And this is where the gender thing comes in. I think that they just needed satisfaction. Because a lot of the lives they’ve lived were pretty much centered on their families, and maybe spouses who don’t appreciate what they’re doing, or expect what they’re doing is normal. We did a lot of personal therapy (laughing).

Hodges confirmed that quiltmaking was a leisure activity in her answer to a question about who or what acted as the greatest competition to Fabrics Unlimited as a business.

She said:

We figured we were woddng with entertainment dollars, and in times when money was tight, it was the entertainment dollars that were I’m sure that as the quilters got more experience and then they started traveling farther. I’m sure we lost m-house sales to the community around us. But I think it was just a competition for money more than anything else. When

^ Karla Henderson and others. Both Gains and Gaps: Feminist Perspectives on Women's Leisure (State College, PA: Venture Publishing Co., 1996), 105-108.

249 they got kids that got into active things that cost money for supplies and things, the money dried up for us. We never folt we were a crucial part of their life We were expendable^ extra money.

According to Hodges, Fabrics Unlimited drew its customer base foom throughout

Wayne County and from other nearby communities. About half of the business’s mailing list (which ranged over the years fiom two thousand to five thousand addresses) lived in

Wooster itself, while the rest lived in the surrounding rural areas and small towns.

Hodges described the customers who lived in Wooster as “working people” for the most part, though there were some she described as the wives of wealthy men: “We had numerous customers that were Rubbermaid wives.” Hodges felt that customers who lived in rural areas were generally part of farm families; she also believed that these families had a longer tradition of quiltmaking than the working people in Wooster.

Hodges’ notion of “working people” designated a variety of economic situations:

“[Our customers] really cut across the board. We really did, and that was the exciting part of it.” She did note, however, that women fiom upper economic levels tended to relate differently to the fabric and classes in the store than did women who were less well off. The wealthier customers were described as looking for creative outlets: “They would come in to do quilting or embellishment classes, w haeas they weren’t really into sewing things for themselves.” On the other hand, Hodges and her employees were careful to cultivate the more numerous customers who had less money to spend:

And a lot of them, you know, granted, did not buy fabric sometimes. They were bemg more selective. They would ponder a purchase and that’s fine. We never tried to stick somebody when they were insecure with the cost. We really backed off and tried to either simplify it, or make it more reasonable, or show them more economical ways.

250 Hodges’ perception of lier customers’ ages was in some ways congruent with the discussions in this dissertation of when women learned to make quilts. Hodges believed that most of her customers were either older women who were past retirement age or younger married women in their twenties or early thirties. According to Hodges, young, stay-at-home wives who had taken her 1970s era classes on sewing with knit fabrics got jobs in the 1980s. When they had enough time.

Then they would come back to sewing. A lot of them started with us when we were doing knits, and then they went to work, and then they didn’t sew. [But] they came back to sewing and frequently did quilting after they had more money and more time to themselves. Their chilchen had gone away. It was that 40-year-old [who had a job and kids at home] that was not exactly our customer.

On the other hand, Hodges believed that younger women who took quilting classes at

Fabrics Unlimited were often carrying on a family tradition by learning to quilt. This description is similar to the stories told by the women like Juanita Ross, Sandra Stoltzfus, and Jeri Fickes, whose female relatives made quilts but who learned to quilt in classes offered by fabric stores.

For Hodges and her employees. Fabrics Unlimited was both a place of business and a place of leisure, in the sense of leisure being a freely chosen, unnecessary activity that provided a sense o f self-identity and creativity. Hodges paid her employees relatively small hourly wages for both cledting in the store and teaching classes. The only benefit she was able to offer was a discount on &bric. She said that "we all joked about how when it came paycheck time, did they owe [ ... ] me or did I owe them! But then that meant they didn’t have to pay for their ‘habit’.” For herself, Hodges said that “I paid myself in kind. 1 paid myself with anything I wanted out o f the store. And I took,

251 you know, I did seminars and. . . I did QuQt Market twice a year, and I did 6bric shows four times a year. And so, I used that as my pay.”^

At several places in the interview, Hodges emphasized that the only way a small, independent business like hers could produce a living wage for its owner was if it had no employees. Her payroll was her single largest business expense, yet she deliberately chose to keep her employees. This was not only because she had developed a conunitment to them as colleagues but also because it gave her the fireedom she desired to run a business that she enjoyed while also travelling with her husband and family and to conventions and seminars. “I could afford [the time] to do something that was pleasing to me. And in any other job I would have gotten, I would not have been able to go with my family on summer vacations.” She emphasized that “[Fabrics Unlimited] wasn’t a profitable business necessarily but it was my choice. It was my choice. It washy choice that I did it that way.”^

Neither Hodges nor her employees were dependent on any income they received fiom Fabrics Unlimited. Hodges* husband was a professor at the College o f Wooster; she herself had been a stay-at-home mother before opening Fabrics Unlimited with money received as an inheritance. Likewise, Hodges was able to reconcile to herself not being able to provide medical or other benefits to her employees because she knew they all had husbands who could support their fiunilies through their own wages and benefits.

* Quilt Market was a tradeshow held in Houston, Texas.

^ Emphasis in mterview.

252 Unlike Fabrics Unlimited, which initially began selling quiltmaking 6brics as a secondary line, the remaining quüt-related businesses in Wayne CounQr opened speciricaUy because of the demand created by the second quüt revival, which was in full swing by the time they opened in the 1990s. These four businesses: Hearthside Quüt

Shoppe and Cozy Comer Qmlts in Kidron, Log Cabin Quüts in Moreland, and The

Quüting Elf in Wooster highlight the different markets for quüts, quütmaking products, and quiltmaking services in Wayne County. They also ülustrate, like Fabrics Unlimited, that, for the owners, quüt businesses were at best a secondary source of income and often required workers—be they owners or employees—to be as dedicated to the enjoyment of quütmaking as to the earning of income.

The Quüting Elf

The Quüting Elf was established to provide an agreeable occupation with adequate income for its owner and also to serve the needs of local quütmakers. Diana

Huff, who caUed herself a “a high-strung little person like elves are,” formally founded

The Quüting Elfin October 1995, although the business had been unofSdaUy estabUshed several years before that. Unlike Fabrics Unlimited, which provided quüt and fashion fabrics and classes, Quüting Elf was primarüy a quüt-service operation. H uffs main source of income was custom machine-quüting on a commercial quüting machine. She also provided one-on-one tutoring to quütmakers wanting help on various aspects of their projects and occasionaUy made complete quüts to order. Qmltmg Elf began as an

253 extension of HiifPs personal quiltniakmg activities; it was a hobby that became a career/

Similarly, H uffs clients were women who made quilts, or more accurately, made quilt tops, as their primary leisure activity. Thus, Quilting Elf competed with quilters who sold their quiltmg skills to top-makers.^

Huff exemplifies many of the basic characteristics of the younger quiltmakers in this study. Although she had sewn most of her life and was a skilled seamstress, she had not had much contact with quiltmaking while growing up. She learned to make quilts in

1985, when she was twenty-seven years old. Her teacher was the mother of the man she had just begun dating and who eventually became her domestic partner. Huff’s “mother- in-law” had herself learned quiltmaking only a few years before that, as she recovered fiom hip surgery. Huff found machine-piecing and hand-quilting to be pleasurable ways to relax fiom her stressful job as a restaurant manager. Huff made quilted bedcoverings and holiday items for herself and as gifts for family and fiiends. She bought large quantities of fabric, often without concrete plans about how it would be used. She shifted her sense of color, texture, and pattern away fiom fashion sewing and toward quiltmaking. She developed skills in choosing unusual fabrics and colors for traditional patterns and in simplifymg methods for cutting fabric pieces and sewing them together.

® John Kelly, Leisure Identities and Interactions (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), 105-108.

^ Unless otherwise noted, all information and quotations in this section w oe taken fiom Diana Huff, owner of The Quilting E% 25 June 1997, Wooster; Diana Huff [individual interview], 25 June 1997, Wooster; and Diana HufL “Machine Quiltmg: The Standup Way,” Q uilt Ohio, Fall 1999,12-13.

254 In 1989» Hu£T» her partner’s mother, and a Mend agreed to split the costs o f a commercial qnüting machine. The machine would be set up in the basmnent of Diana’s home for ail three women to use for their quilts. Eventually, Huff bought out the other two women so that she owned the entire machine herself. Before she formalized her business, this first machine was replaced with a lighter-weight, more flexible model.

Huffs commercial quilting machine was a sizable sewing-machine-and-table unit approximately twelve feet long and four to five feet wide. The quilt top, batting, and lining were attached to rods similar to those in a roller flame used for hand-quilting.

When stretched on this flame, the quilt layers formed the horizontal “top” of the table.

The sewing machine was set on track with a pivot so that it could move up and down the length of the quilt, back and forth across the width, and in diagonal and curving patterns.

To use the machine, the operator first placed the quilt, batting, and back on the rods. The quilting pattern was either marked on the quilt top or drawn on a paper pattern that lay on a tray attached to the table and was traced with a stylus on the sewing unit. The operator stood in flront of the sewing machine and held of a pair of handles on either side, turned the machine on, and moved it around on its track so the needle or stylus followed the lines of the quiltmg pattern. After each section was quilted, the fabric was rolled forward to bring the next section of the quilt under the sewing unit. Quilting machines similar to

Huffs are advertised in most quiltmaking magazines and cost several thousand dollars for the most basic models.^ For Huff, buying a commercial quilting machine required a

^ See, for instance, price list and other materials fi%)m the Gammili Quiltmg Machine Company, West Plains, MO, which offers a home quiltmg machine at $2495; the lowest priced commercial model is priced at $6,500. This advertising material 255 large Investment of time and space. It also took skill and patience to leam to guide the sewing unit smoothly. However, it did have the advantage over machine quilting on a standard sewing machine in that the quilter did not have to wrestle with the bulk of an entire quilt m her arms while she was sewing.

Huff remarked that it took several months of practice after the machine was installed in her basement before she was able to produce consistently high quality work.

As fiiends and neighbors saw the eveimess of the hand-guided machine-stitches and the creative quilting patterns she developed, they asked if she would quilt their tops for them.

In addition, they began to ask for her help in adapting quilt patterns to their liking, choosing colors, or repairing sewing mistakes. Eventually, Hufi* was spending as much as thirty hours per week on her own and other people’s quilt work, in addition to her full­ time job. In 1995, with the support of and advice fiom her partner (who was self- employed), she decided to quit her full-time Job and become a professional quiltmaker.

As she described the process;

Well, 1 started it [quilting on the large machine] because 1 wanted to finish m y stuff. And then 1 started doing it for other people because they liked what 1 was doing with m y stuff. And then 1 started it full-time because 1 felt there was enough of a demand for it.

Since quitting her full-time job and formally organizing The Quilting Elf business. Huff had not needed to advertise.

Oh, yeah, 1 had quite a following, actually. And that was kind of the motivation for jumping mto it full-time. 1 was having to say, “1 don’t have

mcluded prices effective April 2000; 1 was unable to locate a price list for the early 1990s.

256 tim e to do your work, because I have to work” [Le., at her full-time job]. I was working about thirty hours a week at home, and we have quite a bit of acreage to take care of, and a house, and all that. And I said, “I can’t do everything!” And I got kinda tired of woddng for someone else, and thought, “It’s scary, but I’m gonna jump off this pier and see what happens!” And I haven’t had to look for work.’

H uffs gross income the first year of business was approximately $10,000; she estimated that, including guild meetings and classes, she worked approximately fifiy hours a week. She acknowledged that in order to make enough money to live on her own, without the support of her partner and his older, more established, and more conventional heating, air-conditioning, and commercial refiigeration business, she would have to work both more intensely and also longer hours. Like Mary Hodges, Huff s attitude toward her business, while always professional, still had strong overtones of leisure. While her household income was definitely strengthened by the income from

Quiltmg Elf, Huff had made a deliberate decision to limit the number of jobs she was willing to accept “because I don’t like to take on so much [work] that it feels like drudgery. [ ... ] I’m not one of these people that has a lot of wants and desires. I’m enjoying what I do. I’m not motivated by a paycheck, or I’d be working fr)r somebody else.”

Like Hodges’ customers. Huffs clients made quilts for the satisfaction and creativity of doing so. At the most basic leveL Huffs clients were primarily top-makers.

As Huff described them.

They’re not quilters, because most of the gals that I work for, they don’t even know haw to quilt. They couldn’t stitch a quilt together by hand if

Emphasis in mterview.

257 they were on a sinking ship and it said, “Stitchi and you’ll be savedl” They can’t, and they don’t want to. So they’re really piecers.

While interviews with some of Huff’s clients reveal her comments to be a fiiendly exaggeration, her assessment was not far off the mark. Quiltmakers included in this study who hired Huff to quilt their tops described their dislike o f quiltmg or their preference for other processes.*®

Huffs clients also appear to have had both the resources and the necessity to balance the expenditure of time with the expenditure of money. Huff believed that many of her clients worked outside the home, often while raising small children. While this gave them money to spend, it limited how much time they had available. When asked to describe why she thought women hired her to quilt their tops. Huff said:

I think part of it is because they put a lot of resources into the top—their time, their money, whatever. And women are laden with guilt, I believe— most of us are. They couldn’t possibly justify the project if it wasn’t completed. And until it’s quilted, it’s just fabric, still. So then, there they are with this whole closet full of fabric that they spent time and money on, that they can’t use. So they then justify the purchase of the service to finish the project. And that means it’s som ething now. It’s a live instead of just a piece of fabric that’s been cut up. So then they don’t feel so bad for having had their expensive hobby o f piecing.

Because Huffs clients enjoyed piecing, they made time for that activity. However, because quilting was not somethmg they enjoyed, they spent money rather than time to complete their projects, turning them into finished items that could be used or given as gifts. Huffs clients, of course, were not the whole body of employed mothers who were

*® Mary Hodges [individual mterview}; Elizabeth Partridge [pseud.], 23 October 1997, Wooster.

258 also quiltmakers in Wayne County. As Huff commented: “I d o n 't get work from quilters, because they like that process.” “

Hearthside Quilt Shoppe

Women who preferred to quilt rather than make tops were among the customers of another business in Wayne Coimty. This business, however, primarily served the tourist market. Planning began for Hearthside Quilt Shoppe in January 1990. While it had a small local clientele, the store was designed 6om the beginning to appeal to women travelling through the “Ohio Amish country” o f Wayne, Holmes, Stark, and Tuscarawas counties. Owned by Lena and Cliff Lehman and managed by their daughter Cheryl

Gerber, Hearthside Quilt Shoppe was located in Kidron. It sold completed quilts and some quilted clothing, quilt tops, a small but varied selection of quiltmaking fabrics and a somewhat larger selection of pattern books and templates, richly patterned woven afghans, imported German laces, and small quilt- and textile-related gift items.^^ While local quilters and churches looking Ar well-made and well-designed quilt tops shopped at

Hearthside, the business's primary customers were from outside o f Wayne County.’^

In 1989, Mr. and Mrs. Lehman were approached by Jay Lehman, the owner of

Lehman Hardware Store in Kidron, about opening a quilt shop.*'^ Lehman Hardware had

Emphasis in mterview.

Unless otherwise noted, all infrmnation and quotations in this section were taken from Lena Lehman, owner of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, and Cheryl Gerber, manager of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, 15 August 1997, Kidron.

Members of the Oak Grove WMSC, 2 July 1997, Smithville.

Jay Lehman was not related to Lena, and Cliff Lehman.

259 originally sold non-electrical farm and household equipment primarily to local Amish and conservative Mennonite customers. Over the years, the main store in Kidron and several smaller stores in other towns had become popular stopping places for tourists.

Jay Lehman had c^italized on this by supplementing his stock with books about conservative Anabaptist culture, gifts, and electric appliances that looked “old- fashioned.” He also produced advertising materials that were distributed through tourist channels. In the late 1980s, Lehman began to build a small shopping center on the vacant land behind the hardware store in Kidron. The shopping center was intended to draw more tourist business to the Kidron area by offering other products associated with

Amish and Mennonite people. Lena Lehman and Cheryl Gerber described Jay Lehman’s motivation as follows:

Mrs. Lehman: Well, I think he had been into other communities, and he wanted to expand, he wanted to bring some new businesses into the area. Perhaps he was in Lancaster, perhaps he was in Holmes Coun^, and saw some of the things that were going on. And so he wanted to be a part of that

Mrs. Gerber: He has a lot of tourists that already were coming for his shop, and I think it was also another way to draw some o f his customers back again.

Other shops in the center sold locally-made wood furniture, gifts, and crafts produced by participants in Mennonite Central Committee profit-sharing projects in underdeveloped countries.*®

*® See David Luthy, “The Origin and Growth o f Amish Tourism,” m The A m ish Struggle With Modernity, ed. Donald B. Kraybill and Marc A. Olshan (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), 113-129.

260 At the tune Jay Lehman approached them, Clî£f and Lena Lehman, who already owned a woodcraft and furniture shop, had been caring for an elderly couple in the communi^. That labor was drawing to an end and they were open to a new opportunity.

At the same time, their daughter was finishing a business course and was ready to begin looking for work. Lena Lehman explained that the decision to open the shop was a joint one between her and her husband and daughter:

We talked about it, and it soimded like something she [Gerber] would like to do. Then Cliff and I went to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to see how some of the quilt shops operate, what the options are. And I guess horn there we decided, “yah, this is a venture we wanted to get into.” And then Cheryl and I went back to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and we did some more browsing around.

Lehman also recalled “[The proposal] kind of came out of the blue sky. However, I had always been interested in quilts. I grew up with quilts, not necessarily thinking we would ever do this. It was kind of like a new window opening up. My family was grown and gone, and I needed something.”

Unlike the previous business owners discussed in this chapter, neither Gaber nor

Lehman were prolific quiltmakers. Lehman grew up in a fomily of quiltmakers and enjoyed quiltmg with the Sonnenberg Meimonite Sewing Circle, but did not reserve ertra time for quiltmaking. Gerber said she had started her first quüt at home several years ago, but had not yet finished even putting the top together. Her responsibili^ for choosing designs and fabric for many of the quüts sold in the shop futfiUed her creative impulses and she did not have the deshe to make time for more quütmaking at home.

While Hearthside Quüt Shoppe was more overtly a business venture than Fabrics

Unlimited or The Quütmg Elf—it was begun to ecpand and fiU a market niche,

261 developed by people familiar with» but not passionate about» the product Ime—it still met some of the definitions of a leisure activi^» or at least a “leisure career,” one that was motivated more by meeting personal goals and choices than by meeting purely economic criteria. Gerber and Lehman generally had one or two full-time employees who supported the time they themselves worked in the store. These workers were sometimes supplemented by part-time workers. They were able to pay then employees just slightly more than minimum wage» with no benefits. As Gerber commented: “In the [woodjcraft shop» and small shops like this, it’s hard to come up with the funds to pay benefits. And both of them [the employees] have husbands that have benefits. They knew when they came into the business that we wouldn’t be able to offer that.” Yet both Gerber and

Lehman believed, and felt that their employees believed, that there were non-financial advantages that compensated for the low pay. Lehman commented that:

You can’t always measure everything by dollars and cents. 1 mean, it’s the enjoyment you get out of being of service to people, or serving people. And I think Cheryl gets enjoyment out of that, too. Some things you just can’t weigh by dollars and cents.

Gerber added that the homosocial work atmosphere and congenial fellow workers were an important advantage: “1 mean, working with Ruth and Sally, and we know we’re working with somebody that was brought up by the same moral standards.”

In addition to then: employees, Gerber and Lehman contracted with thirty to fifty quiltmakers to make tops, do marking or quüting» and bind the edges of the completed quüts they sold in their store. These women were mainly Amish and Mennonite quütmakers living in nearby communities. Gerber commented that there was a perception by many quüt buyers that these women would be more highly sküled than

262 other quilters: “I guess by being Amish-made, to them that means good quality.” The business owners made a special effort to ensure that those womoi who did quiltwork for them indeed had the skills to support the reputation of “Amish quilts” as being finely made. While setting up the business, Gerber and Lehman ran an ad in The Budget, a newspaper produced in Sugarcreek, Ohio, that was mailed to Amish families throughout the United States. Responding to local replies to that ad and to word-of-mouth recommendations, Gerber drove around the area, talking to quiltmakers and asking to see samples of their work. They hired only those who could make small, even quilting stitches or make tops with precisely matched pieces and invisible appliqué stitches.

Gerber and Lehman paid their contracted quiltmakers the highest rate in the area.

When they opened their shop in 1990, the rate for quilting was 30^ per yard of thread used. By 1997, their price had risen to 50f. For comparative purposes, this was equivalent to a rise fi»m 35^ to 47^ in 1995 dollars. As Lehman noted, “Other places go up, and let me tell you, these quilters find out what others are paying. And we need to keep up in order to keep our good quilters.” This suggests the conscious commoditization of their labor by quilters.

In a similar fashion, the charges for marking quilts, binding edges, and making tops were determined at least in part by the contractors themselves, in conversation with other quiltmakers and often mediated through the formally organized business. For instance, Gerber commented that the price for markmg a quilt depended somewhat on the size of the quilt and how much of the quilt needed to be specially marked, rather than having the quilter simply outline the pieced or ^plîquéd pieces. However, the workers themselves contributed to the equation; 263 The one lady [Wio does marking for the shop], she sets her price. So we’ve kind of gone according to hers, and tried to pay the others fairly. And the binding is pretty much—we have set prices if it’s a double or queen or king, if it’s scooped they get a little bit more than that

The pattern of a set price for binding a quilt of various sizes, with more charged for an irregularly shaped edge, was, as discussed above, originally set by the individual women and church sewing groups who had done custom quilting before the shops opened.

Hearthside Quilt Shoppe was planned and developed to appeal to a particular segment of the tourist market Jay Lehman told Lena and Cliff Lehman when he suggested they open the business that he wanted to support the opening of a quilt shop that would be “something a little bit more for the women” who came to visit Kidron.

Lehman and Gerber had refined this goal to appeal to older, wealthier, and more sophisticated shoppers. The women used the following descriptions for their customer base:

Nfc. Gerben Really, a lot of our customers are tourists that come by. A lot of women that piece the quilts themselves will buy the fa b rics. As far as the q u ilt buyers, I would say the majority are probably fifty to seventy years old.

Nfc. Lehman: I would call it the safe majority of the quilt buyers, or at least 60 percent, are out-of-state.

Mrs. Gerber: You know, I think a lot of our customers are older people, and they don’t like the real country look. And so we want something that appeals to them.

Mrs. Lehman: And those are things that make us want to be even more elite. I don’t know if that’s quite the word I want, but... unusual.

Mrs. Gerber: It’s just that people that come in [to our store] are higher- class people. Now, [in the quilt shops in] Holmes County,

264 most of their quilts sell Their biggest selling quilts will be $650, around there. But I think they get the lower income. [ ... ] [Our customers will] pay $200 more to have a better quality.

\fcs. Gerber: We’re not patronized much at all by area [people]. 1 guess I can count on one hand how many women are faithful at coming in and buying fabrics and books and that^^

While the customers of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe were not attracted to either the

“real country-ish or folk art^-tartsy” look seen in some quilt shops, they were still motivated by persistent aspects of the quilt myth. When queried about why people who came to the shop were willing to spend large sums of money on hand-quilted items,

Lehman replied:

In a lot of cases, the people will say, “Oh, 1 remember my great­ grandmother or my grandmother doing this.” And they want to carry on a little bit of that tradition, but they have not learned to do the thing themself. And they want to give it as an heirloom or something to their children.^^

Similarly, Lehman and Gerber commented about younger customers who purchased fabric, pattern books, and templates:

Mrs. Lehman: And I’m really thrilled when 1 see young girls, young ladies, come m, and they’re getting into the quilting business. They come in, they buy books and patterns and fabrics, and they’re getting excited, and that really thrills me. I can see it as an ongoing project, and not totally dying out.

These quotes did not follow each other in the interview. They were, however, direct responses to questions about who Hearthside Quilt Shoppe customers were, where they came foom, and why they chose to shop at this store. Emphasis m original.

Emphasis in original.

265 Nfo. Gerber And even eight-, nine-, and ten-year-olds. Maybe they’ll come with their mother or their grandmother. And I think here they’re getting interested in it when the others are maybe, you know, playing video games, or into sports or something like this. You know, they’re taking a likmg to different things.

Mrs. Lehman: It’ll be a good memory for them.

For both sets of customers, owning or making quilts was desirable at least in part because it was linked to family relationships, to memories and heirlooms, to recreating a old- fashioned skill, and to a kind of femininity that preferred sewing over sports and computers. Those values were shared by the shop’s owners as well.

Cozv Comer Quilts

The final two quilt-related businesses included in this survey were also devoted mostly to serving the tourist trade. Like Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, Cozy Comer Quilts and Log Cabin Quilts expected most of their customers to come fiom outside of Wayne

Coun^. Unlike Hearthside, however, their target audiences were women with less money to spend. Both shop owners and customers, however, were still motivated by various leisure impulses or by mythic images of quiltmaking.

hi 1972, Ruth Hershberger and her husband bought the Gospel Bookstore in

Kidron. The purchase was something of a long-term investment, but it was also motivated by the fact that Mrs. Hershberger had loved to visit the store when she was a child. At the time, neither of the Hershbergers worked in the store. A long-term employee ran the bookstore while Mr. Hershberger worked as a carpenter and Mrs.

Hershberger ran their shc^-acre dairy farm. Over the course of the 1970s, Nhs.

Hershberger replaced the stock of books with collectibles and then gradually added

266 quilts. By 1980, she had changed the name of the business to C ozy Comer Quilts and was working in the store herself. In 1997, Cozy Comer Quilts still had in stock a small selection of antique glassware and other second hand items, but its main products were full-size quilts.^*

Like the newer Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, located just a tew hundred yards away,

C o^ Comer Quilts sold completed quilts designed by the owner and also offered customers the opportunity to choose their own designs. Also like Hearthside’s owners,

Hershberger believed most of her customers were urban people horn out-of-state or elsewhere in Ohio. However, C o^ Comer Quilts drew its customers from a different economic and cultural group. In response to questions about why her customers wanted to buy quilts, Hershberger said that she believed quilts to be “country things.” She believed that “city people” who came as tourists to the Ohio Amish area were looking for something they couldn't get in the city. Quilts were something different for them, something attractive and special to display in the bedroom. She noted that while the bigger quilt shops in the area drew more customers, she was generally able to produce high quality quilts for less money than other shops. Most likely this was because she owned her own freestanding building and did not invest heavily either in other stock lines or in a sophisticated, “decorated” look for her store.

Hershberger noted that, while local people would sometimes come in to buy collectibles, they had no need to buy quilts from her, since those who liked quilts made

Unless othawise noted, all mformation and quotations m this section were taken from Ruth Hershberger, owner of C o ^ Comer Quilts, 1 August 1997, Kidron. Mrs. Hershberger did not allow this interview to be taped. 267 their own. Hershberger found that most of her customers were people who had heard

about her store through word-of-mouth or who had come to Kidron to visit Lehman's

Hardware Store. Since Lehman's brought plenty of customers for her, she saw no need

to spend additional monqr on advertising.

Like Diana Huff, Hershberger limited her advertising to word-of-mouth because

she had enough work to satisfy her personal reasons for staying in business. Indeed,

Hershberger had replaced the older bookstore and collectible business with C ozy Comer

Quilts because she herself enjoyed working on quilts. The business gave her something

to do during her retirement horn farming as well as an outlet for her creativity. Since she

already owned the building, overhead costs were quite low. She noted that she was able

to cover her business expenses but, because of the labor-intensive nature of quiltmaking,

would never be able to make a fortune. Hershberger designed the quilts in her shop,

calling the process "putting the colors together,” bought the fobrics at local retail shops,

dealt with the customers, marked the quilts, and did some of the quilting and all the

binding. She also did her own bookkeeping. The tops themselves were sewn by a

woman who approached Hershberger about doing that work. Hershberger said that she paid her top-maker approximately $100 per top; she paid quilters the high going rate of

500 per yard of thread. Like Gerber at Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, Hershberger reviewed the work of her top-maker and quilters for consistency and quality before agreeing to supply them with work. She said she had generally been able to sell quilts for SI 00 to

$200 more than the cost of fabrics and outside labor, depending on the color, size, and pattern of the quilt top. After deducting overhead, Hershberger figured that she was able

268 to pay herself approximately $2 per hour. This low rate was acceptable to her because she enjoyed what she did and had never intended to make much money in the business.

Log Cabin Quilts

Log Cabin Quilts was originally founded in the Cleveland, Ohio, suburb of North

Royalton in 1988. hi 1995, owner Phyllis Pavlovicz moved the business to Wayne

Coun^, where she had grown up. Log Cabin Quilts was located in Moreland, Ohio, a few miles south of Wooster on the main road to Millersburg, the largest town in heavily

Amish Holmes County. Thus, the relocated operation was ideally positioned to attract tourists. In both Cleveland and Wayne County, the primary income source for the business was custom machine-quilting on a commercial quiltmg machine. In Wayne

County, Pavlovicz added a small line of fabrics, patterns, and batting. Thus, the main competitor for this business would appear to have been Diana Huff’s Quilting Elf. In fa ct, while both business owners admitted that they had anticipated competition from the other, they had ultimately defined and filled very different market niches. While Huff’s customers were avid top-makers from Wayne County and surrounding counties,

Pavlovicz’s customers were quilters and tourists.

Pavlovicz purchased her commercial quilting machine in 1985, after retiring fiom a twenty-five-year career as a nurse. While returning home from a vacation, Pavlovicz and her husband stopped at a flea market near Cincinnati where they saw a woman

Unless otherwise noted, all mfermation and quotations in this section were taken fiom the interview with Phyllis Pavlovicz, owner of Log Cabin Quilts, 15 August 1997, Moreland; and Phyllis Pavlovicz [individual mterview], 15 August 1997, Moreland.

269 selling machine-quilted quilts. Pavlovicz liked the look of the quilts and the relative speed with which they could be constructed. She decided that a rnachine-quilting business might be the “retirement job” she had been looking for. They purchased a machine and she spent several months researching the legal aspects of opening a business. While living in North Royalton, Pavlovicz was limited to an appointment-only system, since zoning restrictions in her neighborhood forbade her from putting up signs or establishing regular shop hours. When she and her husband decided to move to rural

Wayne County, they built a home that could accommodate a retail store and workshop on the ground level with living space above. With signs posted along State Route 83 and ads placed in local and national tourist publications, Pavlovicz’s business broadened.

Pavlovicz worked full-time in the business, from 8:30 in the morning until 5:30 at night, but she valued the business for its pleasurable rather than its profitable aspects.

She said that, compared to nursmg, her quilt business was more upbeat and fiiendly:

“Well, versus nursing, you’re dealing with happy, healthy people. They’re having fun. I enjoy the people contact, probably because of my nursing background, too. I enjoy people.” Pavlovicz liked doing appliqué work and designing quilts, but she also did other craft and hobby activities and was not exclusively a quiltmaker. While she took pleasure in producing her retail products, primarily machine-quilted quilts with tops made either of simple pieced patterns or preprinted cheater-cloth, it was “the beauty of the preprinted, machine-quilted quilts, and the fact that I could provide an mstant, inexpensive product” that she valued rather than the challenge or creativity that motivated most quiltmakers.

Like the other business owners, Pavlovicz was able to make only a small profit on her business. She had no employees, primarily, she said, because she had not been able 270 to fînd any who worked up to her standards. Her cheater-cloth machine-quilted wall hangings ranged in price 6om $75 to $125 depending on size, while most of the bed quilts were priced at approximately $130. Many of Pavlovicz’s products were available for purchase ready-made; she had made an effort to learn the requirements for legally producing and selling bedding in Ohio. She noted that she was generally able to sell around a hundred pre-made quilts each year, sewn during slow business days in the adjoining workshop. In addition to the pre-made quilts, she also allowed customers to choose their own cheater-cloth print, backing, and batting, which Pavlovicz would quilt and bind for them. In addition to sewing notions, batting, and a few pattern books for quiltmakers, she also carried a number of small items for tourists ‘^'ust looking for places to spend money,” and cheater-cloth for quilters who did not want to make their own tops.

Pavlovicz believed that most of her customers were people who essentially wanted something that ‘‘looked like a quilt,” but did not cost as much as a handmade quilt or require as much work to produce and maintain. She said of her customers for preprinted cheater cloth:

They [the quilt print fabrics] are popular, and they’re quite popular now with the grandma generation, because they can take a three-yard cut of a cheater and hand-quilt it on the Imes, and not have to go over any seams or bulky spots. The pieces are all there, the color is chosen for them, the beauty is there, and it’s like an instant quilt top. And we have a lot of people that come in and buy for Grandma a three-yard piece, and Grandma quilts it, and they have this beautiful quilt, and they’re just tickled to death with it?°

20 Emphasis m original.

271 Customers who purchased completed quilts, either off the shelf or after having chosoi their fabrics and colors, were described as wanting “to be able to throw it in the washer and the dryer” and as being afflicted with the “ don't want something I have to baby' syndrome.”

Pavlovicz noted that people who come to her shop expecting to find hand-worked quilts were disappointed.

Well, the tourists [who] are looking for an authentic Amish hand-quilted quilt, and those that do come in looking specifically fi>r an heirloom— that’s the term that most of them use—they’ll ask me, “Where’s the Amish girl?” They want to know where the Amish girl is. And I said, “Well, we’re not Amish.” And some of ‘em have turned around and left. They want an Amish store. So I give ^em a map and directions and tell *^em where to go.^^

Since her skills and business interests were for relatively quickly produced machine- made quilts, Pavlovicz did not feel the need to provide products that would lure people lookmg for “an heirloom that was quilted by Nettie Yoder and came from Amish country.”

In spite of Pavlovicz’s pragmatic approach to her business, both she and her customers shared certain assumptions about quilts; even though they were not made in a

“traditional” manner, they should stQI look “traditional,” with a pieced-looking pattern and simple quiltmg design. Log Cabin Quilts was able to draw customers because there were plenty of people who wanted the miages of home, safety, warmth, and tradition that quilts convey but did not make quilts themselves, or who enjoyed only quilting and did not want to make them own tops. The business was successful to Pavlovicz not only

272 because o f this small but reasonably steady stream of customers but also because it allowed her to manage her own retirement years while working with people who were healthy and engaged in leisure activities.

Conclusion

In all five of the situations described in this chapter, women began quilt-related businesses to serve the leisure needs of their customers. Customers included both quiltmakers looking for fabrics, patterns, classes, and quiltmg services, and buyers looking for completed quilts to decorate their homes or to give as gifts. The businesses were also, in a sense, leisure activities for their owners and employers. None of the women were dependent on the income they received, which made the low wages and nonexistent benefits acceptable. The true compensation was not the paycheck but the opportunity to work full-time at an activity they enjoyed and that several of them would have done even without the business. The ability of women of all ages, who learned quiltmaking throughout the century and at different times in their life cycles, to claim time and money for an expensive leisure activity made these late twentieth century businesses viable. However, that viability was dependent on the gendered nature of quiltmaking—its association with home, family, domesticity, and the frugal use of resources—and the acceptance of those general values, if in a commodified form, by quilt business owners. Had the quilt business owners in Wayne County been motivated by market forces and the desire or need to earn a fair and decent income, they would have chosen difforent options. Even as they carved public roles for themselves as quilt

Emphasis m original. 273 professionals, these women, like their nonpro&ssional sisters, relied on the “traditional’' family pattern of the male breadwinner and the female caretaker of home, &mily, and emotion.

274 CHAPTERS

COMMODITIZATION AND CHARITY: THE OHIO MENNONITE RELIEF SALE AND QUILT AUCTION, 1966 TO 1995

Introductioa

This chapter explores the importance of quilts and images of quiltmaking to the financial success of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale (OMRS) in BCidron, Ohio. While the topic of this chapter is quite specific, it nevertheless serves to bring together issues discussed in previous chapters. Specifically, this chapter demonstrates the heart of the paradox referred to in chapter I : the commodification of quilts and the use of elements of quilt myth imagery as a marketing device within a context that denies or minimizes its own commercial focus. The quilts sold at the Relief Sale in Wayne Coun^ were made primarily by Mennonite women’s sewing groups, both those discussed in this dissertation and similar groups in other areas throughout Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Quilts were also donated by individual women and by non-Meimonite quiltmaking groups. The intensified, commercialized quilt culture of the late twentieth century revival enabled the success of the OMRS quilt auction. Mennonite women were willing to donate their time and families were willing to donate their financial resources to make quilts that sold for significant amounts of money with no financial return to themselves because the women

275 viewed quiltmaking and involvement in. MCC projects as desirable leisure activities with their own intrinsic worth. While Mennonite women gained status in their communities and institutions because of this phenomenon, as suggested by women’s increased authority on the OMRS Board, the quiltmakers’ insistence that their work remain in a gender-sanctioned leisure context meant that women’s gains in this regard were limited.

This chapter begins with a financial summary of the OMRS firam 1966 to 1995, with a focus on the quilt auction. I continue with a brief description of the founding, growth, and development o f the Relief Sale, held each summer since 1966 on the grounds of the Central Christian High School in Kidron. I discuss both the leadership roles women have—and have not—played in this important Mennonite institution and the relationship of quilts and images of quiltmaking to the financial structure and success of the event.

Begun in 1920 to aid Russian Mennonites in the wake of World War I, the

Mennonite Central Committee had, by the mid-1960s, become an international relief and development agency with income firom donations and self-supporting projects and persoimel who were primarily volimteers compensated with living expenses and a small stipend. Its budget during the fiscal year ending 30 November 1997 was $36.8 million.^

In order to support the MCC’s evolving projects, Meimonite congregations began joining

^ Mennonite Central Committee, “Mennonite Central Committee Board Approves Budget of $40.6 Million U.S.,” press release, 6 March 1998, , 2 April 2000; John Hostetler, Director ofNWerial Aid for the MCC, telephone conversation with author, 7 April 2000. See also Ellen Stadt, “The Top U.S. Charities,” Money, December 1994,158,163. Records showing annual budgets for previous years are available in the Mennonite Church Archives at Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana. 276 together în the 1950s and 1960s to intxease the amount of money they could donate.

Public sales and auctions proved to be a successful option because they drew not only additional donations firom Meimonites but also donations firom non-Mennonhes who would likely not otherwise contribute to the MCC. While each Relief Sale was organized independently of both other sales and the MCC leadership and hence had its unique features, the strong Mennonite tradition of inter-congregational communication ensured that similarities existed. The OMRS, like most others, featured an auction of quilts donated by Meimonite women. An auction of other miscellaneous donated items, plus over-the-counter sales of food, plants, simple needlework, books, and craft items made by participants in MCC self-help projects were also included in the Ohio sale. In the 1980s, OMRS Board leaders began to supplement the quilt auction with a parallel auction of handmade wood items. The quilts, however, remained a dominant feature of the Ohio sale, both visually and ftnancially.

Financial Summarv

Beginning in 1969, OMRS organizers began to make note of how much income the different aspects of the sale—the general auction, quilts, other items, meals, and take- home food—produced. In addition to noting the prices of the highest selling and more spectacular quilts, they also began to calculate the average selling price of all quilts sold in the auction tents. From this data, compiled fix>m treasurer’s reports, minutes, and

277 newspaper stories, it is possible to chart the mcreasing financial importance o f the quilt auction to overall Relief Sale income/

Figure 8.1 shows the amount of money raised by the OMRS each year, broken down by the amount collected firom quilts sold at auction, other items also sold at auction, and items like food, books, plants, and other kinds of needlework that were sold for marked prices. The percentage of OMRS income firom quilt sales ranged firom a low of

20 percent in 1974 to a high of 41 percent in 1995. Overall Relief Sale income rose consistently through the 1970s, firom $20,724 in 1970 to $146,635 in 1979. For the most part, during this time, quUt income accounted for between 20 percent and 30 percent of the total. During the 1980s and 1990s, total income continued to rise, although not every year and not as steeply as in the past. In 1980 it was $145,338; in 1989 it was $196,177; in 1995 it was $219,825. In the 1980s, quilt income was consistently in the high 20 percent to low 30 percent range, though it occasionally rose higher. By the 1990s, quilts consistently produced well over 30 percent of the total income o f the OMRS.

~ Data in this section compiled firom records in the possession o f the Ohio Meimonite Relief Sale Board. Records included mmutes, financial reports, letters, brochures, newspaper clippings, and ephemera. Each yearis material was collected in a single folder. There were also sevaal ectra folders on particular topics. Hereinafier, citations that refor to this folder system are firom the OMRSB Records.

278 Quilt Auction * Other Auction Marked Price Items 1 Total Sale 1 % of % of % of Year Income Income | Total Income Total Income Total ...... r 1966 $5,868.73 I t $3425.00 60% $2343.73 40% 1967 S8,5I0J2 I t $6,48549 76% $2,024.73 24% 1968 $6,931.06 t $3,864.65 56% $3,066.41 44% 1969 $10465.91 $334640 ! 32% $3,47044 33% $3,748.47 35% 1970 $20,72432 $5,012.50 24% $6,64740 32% $9,06432 44% 1971 $36,89343 t t $16,81628 46% $20,07725 54% 1972 $43,13943 $10,97840 1 25% $10,785.74 25% $2137529 50% 1973 $64,76325 $13,761.00 i 21% $17,725.07 27% $33277.18 51% 1974 $8124843 $1633740 20% $16,10333 20% $48,807.70 60% 1975 $89,808.88 $2120740 1 24% $17,00645 19% $51494.83 57% 1976 $100289.40 $24385.00 I 24% $17,484.79 17% $58,419.61 58% 1977 $113,125.60 $25,000.00 22% $1923045 17% $68,894.65 61% 1978 $130,19641 $37,125.00 1 29% $17,820.63 14% $75250.88 58% 1979 $146,63538 $38,710.00 i 26% $17,65820 12% $90267.18 62% 1980 $145338.09 $45,040.00 131% $13,594.05 9% $86,704.04 60% 1981 $162,48946 $45,193.88 1 28% $1731538 11% $99,98030 62% 1982 $180,72745 $50,300.00 ' 28% $27,728.61 15% $102,69824 57% 1983 $171,488.16 $50,772.07 i 30% $23,54321 14% $97,172.88 57% 1984 $169,427.86 $54,539.11 : 32% $21,038.04 12% $93,850.71 55% 1985 $200,759.82 $57,08337 ; 28% $31,471.05 16% $112205.40 56% 1986 $210284.93 $62419.68 i 30% $28235.49 13% $119,129.76 57% 1987 $206,065.75 t $96,83935 47% $109226.40 53% 1988 $19624733 $76,18040 i 39% $22,41140 11% $97,65533 50% 1989 $196,17726 $71,830.81 37% $27,87335 14% $96,47320 49% 1990 $229,61345 $72,50240 > 32% $36,69729 16% $120,413.76 52% 1991 $252,867.04 $90,850.00 36% $41396.00 16% $120,621.04 48% 1992 $218,46127 $76,080.00 i 35% $3827240 18% $104,108.77 48% 1993 $251,849.00 $9632925 38% $33,98440 13% $12143525 48% 1994 $232,633.07 $77,71240 1 33% $32,44025 14% $122,48032 53% 1995 $219,825.64 $9029740 I 41% $35,745.00 16% $93,783.14 43% * May mctude other items like rugs, comforters, or a%bans, especially in earlier years, t Specific data about the quilt auction not available for these years. “Other Auction’* total thus includes both quilts and other items

Figure 8.1 : Relief Sale and Quilt Auction Income

279 Figure 82 shows total Relief Sale income and quilt auction income in 1995 dollars to account for inflation. It shows that the increase in sale income was actually quite sharp during the 1970s, with a slight overall decline in the decade and a half after that. Quilt auction income also rose most significantly through the 1970s but remained steady or increased slightly after 1980.

$350,000 $300,000 $250,000 $ 200,000 $150,000 $100,000 $50,000 $0 'Oooor't^vooeofN'^vooootS'^

Total Sale Income (1995 Dollars) •Quilt Auction (1995 Dollars)

Figure 82: Relief Sale and Quilt Auction Income, Adjusted for Inflation

The increasing percentage o f income fiom quilt sales derived both firom the greater number of quilts being donated and firom the higher prices paid for them. Figure

8.3 shows the number o f quilts donated each year, plus both the average and high price paid for quilts each year.

280 Average Price Highest Price Paid for a Number o f of Large Quilts * Large Quilt * Year Quilts Donated Raw Data 1995 Dollars Raw Data 1995 Dollars 1966 50 $35.00 $164.63 1967 $56.00 $255.52 1968 1969 $350.00 $1,453.41 1970 122 S42J9 $166.50 $160.00 $628.45 1971 $175.00 $658.52 1972 141 $94.30 $343.81 1973 161 $106.60 $365.90 $325.00 $1,115.54 1974 161 $119.88 $370.58 $310.00 $958.30 1975 184 $138.08 $391.14 1976 166 $162.78 $435.99 $525.00 $1,406.15 1977 124 $203.00 $510.51 $600.00 $1,508.91 1978 170 $235.00 $549.29 $600.00 $1,402.45 1979 159 $286.37 $601.14 1980 179 $285.76 $528.52 $875.00 $1,61833 1981 160 $341.00 $571.71 $1,100.00 $1,844.22 1982 179 $358.65 $566.41 $1350.00 $1,974.09 1983 157 $397.98 $608.96 $1,550.00 $2371.69 1984 151 $42139 $618.09 $1,300.00 $1,906.83 1985 149 $456.10 $646.00 $1350.00 $1,770.45 1986 152 $533.89 $74238 $2,100.00 $2,920.07 1987 $536.00 $719.07 $1,450.00 $1,94535 1988 186 $567.00 $730.44 $2,100.00 $2,705.33 1989 151 $595.00 $73137 1990 190 $589.73 $687.64 $2,000.00 $2332.06 1991 189 $762.82 $853.55 1992 202 $599.00 $650.66 $1,675.00 $1,819.46 1993 160 $861.92 $909.04 $5,100.00 [ $5378.82 1994 $1,600.00 i $1,645.34 1995 189 $725.00 $725.00 $3,100.00 ' $3,100.00 * Blank spaces represent years for which reliable data about the number of quilts donated and how much they sold for could not be foimcL The number o f quilts donated includes large and small quilts, plus comforters. Average and maximum sale prices are for large quilts only.

Figure 8 J : Relief Sale Quilt Auction Donations

281 The Early Years: 1965 to the early 1970s

The Beginning

On 5 May 1964, twenty-six men and women finm Wayne and Medina Counties

met at the Mennonite church in Otrville, Ohio. They were members and volunteers with

the Wayne-Medina Relief Committee, an organization that coordinated several projects

undertaken by Mamonites in the two counties to produce material aid for the overseas

relief projects of the Mennonite Central Committee. The meeting was to learn about and

discuss the possibility of organizing an auction to raise cash for the MCC. Leaders of the

Wayne-Medina Relief Committee had invited M. S. Sensening, a Mennonite man from

near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and president of the Tri-County Relief Sale Board, and

John Hostetler, Director of Material Aid for the MCC, to speak to them about how relief

sales had been organized elsewhere. The frrst well-publicized Meimonite Relief Sale had

been held in 1957 at a farm in the Lancaster area. It was organized by brothers Ralph and

Milfort Hertzler, and Floyd Berg, a native of Kidron, Ohio, who was then minister of the

Zion Mennonite Church in Morgantown, Pennsylvania. Berg, described as a supporter of

“innovative causes,” sought a way to raise money among Mennonites living in the

“Garden Spot” o f the United States and distribute it to needy people in other parts of the world. Though unspoken, the mtire project implied the general acceptance of the

Anabaptist vision by the organizers.^

^ Robert Kreider and Rachel Waltner Goosen, “Organizmg Festivals for MCC: Relief Sales,” in Hung^, Thirsty, a Stranger: The MCC Experience (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1988), 361,363-364. See also remembrances of Edgar Stoeæ and Elmer Steiner in Celia Lehman, ed.. History ofthe Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale (Kidron, OH: Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale, 1998), 10-13,20. For the Anabaptist vision, see Paul 282 When Wayne-Medina Relief Committee members met in 1964 to consider organizing a sale in their area, annual sales bad already been organized in Pennsylvania and Illinois.^ Hostetler explained the position of the Mennonite Central Committee towards the sales, saying that the money the MCC received firom the Mennonite church conferences and firom individual churches was madequate to meet all the goals the MCC had set for itself. The money received firom existing sources was generally committed to already-existing projects, leaving the MCC without cash to respond to new needs.

Though the MCC did not have the desire or the resources to supervise relief sales or other fimd-raisers, leaders encouraged local groups to organize such events and donate the proceeds to the MCC.

The Ohioans agreed to fi>rm a committee of five men, including representatives firom Wayne, Medina, and Holmes Counties, to explore whether congregations in their areas would support a relief sale. Questions were raised about whether there was a need for such a sale, whether an auction would be the best way to raise money, and whether

Meimonites would or should participate in such an intra-denominational and potentially inter-denominational event, either as donors or as purchasers. Overall response was

Toews, Mennonites in American Society, 1930-1970: Modernity and the Persistence o f Religious Community, The Mennonite Experience in America, ed. Theron Schlabach (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1996), 84-106.

* “The Mennonite Relief Sales,” More Treasured Mennonite Recipes: Food, Fun, and Fellowshipfrom the Mennonite RelirfSales (Lancaster, PA: Fox Chapel Publishing, in cooperation with the Mennonite Central Committee, 1996), ii-iv. Sales in Virginia and Michigan, and m Ontario and Manitoba Canada were first held m 1967. hi aU, thirteen relief sales were organized m North American during the 1960s. As of 1995, there were thn^-eight sales.

283 positive enough to justify organizing an initial sale, which was held 25 June 1966 at

Central Christian High School (CCHS) in Kidron.^

Flyers and ads for the Grst sale were placed prominently in the Sugarcreek Budget and the Kidron News, the weekly papers serving the mostly Mennonite and Amish areas of southern and eastern Wayne County, and Holmes, Medina, Tuscarawas, and Stark

Counties. Ads in the more widely circulated Wooster Daily Record and Akron Beacon

Journal were placed with other farm auction notices in the classified section.

Advertisements informed area residents when and where the sale would be held and invited donations of quilts, other handmade goods and food, and new and used farm and household equipment. While these ads mentioned that proceeds would benefit the MCC, they did not suggest this sale was a new or unusual event^ Farm and estate auctions were common in the area, as were benefit auctions in support of various religious and community causes. Indeed, some donors to the first sale appear not to have clearly

* “Minutes,” 5 May 1964, Wayne-Medina Relief Committee, folder for 1966 Relief Sale; “Area Relief Auction Planned for June 25 at Central Christian High School Campus,” Kidron News, 19 May 1966, p. 1; “Relief Auction at Central Christian High School Grounds, Saturday, June 25,” Kidron News, 23 June 1966, p. 1; Celia Lehman, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Nets $198,000,” W ooster D aily Record, 4 August 1986, sec. A12.

^ Receipts and clippings o f ads fi-om the Beacon Journal Publishing Co., 24 June 1966; the Sugarcreek Budget, undated; the Wooster Daily Record, 21 June 1966; the Daily Reporter, location unknown, 6 July 1966; the Canton Repository, 22 June 1966; ad layout firom the K idron News, undated; folder for 1966 Relief Sale.

284 distinguished this sale fiom. an annual auction that had been held fi>r several years previously to benefit the community of Kidron.^

The initial ads revealed several themes that would become constant as the Relief

Sale developed and grew over the next thirty years.^ First, donations would come primarily fiom Mennonites. Initially, the sale attracted donations fiom the original five counties; later, donations would come fiom Mennonite congregations throughout Ohio and western Pennsylvania. Second, a clear distinction would be made between handmade goods like quilts, other needlework, and food, that were made mostly by women, and items that were made or donated by men.^ Wood items produced and donated by

Mennonite men, the nearest single-item competitor to quilts, were not specifically sought until the early 1980s, though they were sold brfore then. Third, advertisements, board minutes, and even stationery emphasized the sale’s ultimate goal of raising money for the

Mennonite Central Committee’s relief projects. The need to balance the desire to raise the most money possible with the imperative to remam true to their pietistic beliefs embodied the paradox as it presented sale organizers with numerous problems. Fourth, organizers would work fiom the beginning to broaden their target audience beyond its

^ James O. Lehman, Sormenberg: A Haven and a Heritage (Kidron, OH: Kidron Community Council, 1969), 124,243-253. See also “NCnutes,” 1 June 1966, Salem WIM Records.

^ See, for example, “Area Relief Auction Planned for June 25 at Coitral Christian High School Campus,” Kidron News, 19 May 1966, p. I; “Area Relief Auction Saturday,” Wooster Daily Record, 23 June 1966, p. 33.

^ The quilts category included large and small quilts, comforters, and wall hangings.In the early years, knitted and crocheted afghanswere sometimes classified with quilts in foiancial reports.

285 Mennonite origins. This goal was partially related to the desire to raise money ficom people who would not otherwise donate to the MCC, but it was also related to a secondary desire to use the Relief Sale as an opportun!^ for ecumenism and Christian witness. Both desires highlight the connection between the MCC, the Relief Sales, and the Anabaptist vision.

Organizational Structure

Initially, the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale was organized by the Wayne-Medina

Relief Committee. This organization was responsible for other projects, including canning donated beef for shipment overseas, making soap firom fats collected firom the canning project and firom area families, collecting money to buy animals for clients of

MCC farm projects, and coordinating the collection of clothing and bedding (including quilts and comforters) firom Mennonite women’s sewing groups. Some of the equipment for these projects, as well as the finished products, were stored in a building owned and maintained by the Relief Committee. In the early 1960s, the Relief Committee received cash and material donations in the amount of $6 thousand to $7 thousand; they disbursed to the MCC enough money and goods each year to leave themselves with a balance of several hundred dollars as capital for upcoming projects.

For the first several relief sales, q ^ ts and needlework (embroidery, woven rugs, crocheted afghans, and handmade and refurbished used clothing) were arranged in the

CCHS auditorium while other items were grouped together on the grounds outside.

Auctioneers and bidders moved around the CCHS grounds to the different sale areas.

Some items were sold over the counter for set prices, but items judged to be more valuable were put under the hammerby licensed auctioneers, who donated their services. 286 By 1972, a large tent with chairs for buyers was setup on the grounds. Volunteers carried herns into the tent and then delivered them to purchasers. In the mid-1970s, quilts were moved to a second large tent on the grounds that provided more display room than the high school gym.

In September 1971, the Wayne-Medina Relief Committee met to discuss the sixth sale and make plans for the future. The first order of business was the decision to send a check to the MCC for $26,500. The significant increase in the amount of cash donated by the committee compared to what they had been able to donate even a few years earlier was due to Relief Sale income. After discussing several ways to get more church groups involved in staffing the various tents and food booths at future sales, the committee turned to two issues that marked the maturity of the Relief Sale. The two issues were, first, the need to create a separate, autonomous committee with representatives firom the

“whole North East Ohio area” to produce the Relief Sale and second, the question of whether to move the sale to a location more accessible to potential buyers than the village of Kidron. These issues reflected the committee’s perception that the Sale was both too large to be managed by its original organizational structure and that it was capable of further growth. The committee decided that contemplating two major changes in one year would be unmanageable, so they tabled the discussion about moving the sale.^°

“Mmutes,” 14 September 1971, OMRS Board, and “Relief Sale Financial Report,” 1971, folder for 1971 Relief Sale; “Mennonite Relief Sale Committee Restructured,” undated clipping, unknown newsp^ier, contact suggests January 1972, folder for 1972 Relief Sale.

287 la October 1971, the Relief Committee met to organize the new Relief Sale

Board, which would be an autonomous enti^ responsible only for organizing the sale.

The original Relief Committee remained in charge of all other projects. Nominations were taken for Relief Sale Board members at that meeting.^ ^ During the next year, a constitution was drawn up and incorporation papers were riled with the State of Ohio; the process was completed in August 1972.^ While the two bodies were independent of each other, they did not completely sever organizational and rinancial ties. For instance, in October 1972, the treasurer of the new Relief Sale Board sent a check for $37,000 with a letter to the MCC which said that the OMRS Board might be able to send an additional donation later in the year but was reserving some money to help the Wayne-Medina

Relief Committee purchase the land where the Committee^s storage building stood.

Similarcapital intensive building projects throughout the 1980s and 1990s would also require the combined rinancial resources of the Relief Sale Board, the Relief Committee, and the trustees of Central Christian High School.

" “Minutes,” 26 October 1971, OMRS Board, folder for 1971 Relief Sale.

“OMRSC incorporation Papers,” 8 August 1972. hi 1978, the committee changed their incorporation status to that of a charitable trust See Letter rirom the Charitable Foundations Section of the Ohio Ofrice of the A ttom ^ General, 11 September 1978. hi 1982, they received 501(c)3 status (i.e. a non-prorit tax-exempt organization)fix>m the Internal Revenue Service. See Letter finm the 1RS to Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale, Inc., 16 December 1982. All papers in folder labeled Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale IDs and Constitution and Incorp.

Letter fi»m Beimett Geiser to MCC, 3 October 1972, folder for 1972 Relief Sale. See also “Wayne-Medina Relief Committee Fmancial Report,” 8 November 1977, folder for 1977 Relief Sale, about a new storage building on CCHS grounds that would be used by CCHS, the Relief Committee, and the Relief Sale Board; and “Minutes,” 28 288 The original 1972 constitution of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Board codified the presence of women in the Relief Sale organization. The Relief Sale board and its committees would represent the Mennonite, Brethren, and Amish congregations in Ohio and Western Pennsylvania that supported the work o f the MCC. The Board would consist of members fiom three areas: Wayne and Medina Counties and western Ohio;

Holmes and southwest Stark Counties; and northeast Stark County and western

Pennsylvania. As members served their terms, they were to seek out a replacement from within their district. In addition, the original gender composition of the board—six men and three women—would be continued, with “ladies to fill ladies’ terms expiring, and men for men’s terms, chosen firom the same area they represent.” Board members were elected to three-year terms, with elections for officers conducted each year. The female

Board member from the Wayne and Medina area was Mrs. Ella Rohrer, a quilter and member of Smithville Mennonite Church. Mrs. Rohrer was elected to serve as the

Board’s first secretary and remained on the Board through 1972.^^

Increasing Attendance through Quilt Imagery

At the first Relief Sale in 1966, counter sales of baked goods began at 10:30 AM, and the auction itself began at 11:00. Tools and other items were sold first Newspaper

November 1995, folder for 1995 Relief Sale, for a project to improve electrical wiring at CCHS in a way that would simplify electrical hookups for the Relief Sale.

“OMRSC Constitution,” 1972, folder for Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale ID’s and Constitution and Incorp.

“Minutes,” 26 October 1971, OMRS Board, folder for 1971 ReUef Sale; Ella Rohrer, 29 May 1997, Orrville.

289 reports stated that, as the day progressed and the crowd grew, "%ien and women split into separate groups. While the men followed the auctioneers [outside], the women sought the cooler atmosphere of the auditorium to inspect the needlework.” After a break for lunch, auctioneers moved inside to sell the quilts and afghans. “From the stage of the auditorium the handiwork of dozens of sewing societies went under the hammer. Gay and intricate floral designs, geometric patterns worked over with careful stitching, brought a high figure of $34 per quilt” Organizers expressed some disappointment over the prices brought by the quilts at the first sale. They noted that quilt prices in the

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, area—long a center for tourists hoping to glimpse the Amish in their “quaint” rural lives—rose as high as $100 each.^* They justified the low prices in

Ohio by saying that June “was not quilt weather, to be sure.” They also promised to increase their advertising efforts to “more people in distant cities who are prospective purchasers of the items in the needlework category.”*’ Efforts to fulfill this promise can be seen most clearly in advertising items and newspapers stories produced and distributed by the OMRS Board.

Organizers did not initially place any special emphasis on quilts in their advertisements and announcements. For instance, in the first announcement about the initial sale in 1966, organizers advised readers o f the Kidron News that.

David Luthy, “The Origin and Growth of Amish Tourism,” in TJte Am ish Struggle With Modernity, ed. Donald B. Kraybill and Marc A. Olshan (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994), 114-116.

*’ Merl Lehman, “Auction Yields $6,000 for Relief” Wooster Daily Record, 29 June 1966, p. 10; “Relief Sale Nets $6,0(M for Distribution by MCC,” Kich-on News, 30 June 1966, p. 1-2.

290 When donating give priori^ to items such as home baked and prepared foods, rugs, quilts, embroidery, needlework and hand crafts, in this category. In merchandise, we appeal for furniture, tools, implements in good condition or new. Livestock and other items are acceptable.^^

Subsequent announcements generally mentioned baked goods, needlework, and other homemade items before household and farm items as among either the suggested items to donate or the items available for purchase, but may or may not have explicitly mentioned quilts. Some ads were targeted at Mennonites, urging them both to donate and to purchase items; others appear to have been targeted at non-Mennonites, urging them to attend and purchase items.

The first advertising brochures produced by the OMRS Board seem to have been directed at a local and Mennonite audience. The half-sheet flyers closely resembled the typeset newspaper ads and were distributed to local congregations and businesses by volunteers selected by each church to work with MCC-related projects. Beginning in

1969, photographs were included in advertising brochures,^® From 1969 through 1973, the brochures contrasted photos o f previous Relief Sale attendees, homemade baked goods, quilts, and Sewing Circles, with photos of emaciated children. The quilts included in these pictures were generally simple one-patch or log cabin designs and appear to have

“Area Relief Auction Planned for June 25 at Central Christian High School Campus,” Kidron News, 19 May 1966, p. 1.

See, for example, “Relief Sale is June 25,” Kidron News, 9 June 1966, p. I; “Area Relief Auction Saturday,” Wooster Daily Record, 23 June 1966, p. 33; “Relief Auction at Central Christian High School Grounds, Saturday, June 25,” Kidron News, 23 June 1966, p. I.

All descriptions of advertising brochures taken fiom OMRSB folder for Yearly Brochures.

291 been made firom sewing scraps rather than newly purchased fabrics. Such simple

“scrappy” quilts demonstrate that the quilts initially donated by Mennonite women’s

groups were similar to the utility quilts they made for material aid projects. The nicer,

more coordmated quilts done by the women’s groups at that time were for clients who paid for custom quilting. The photographic images in these advertising pieces re­

enforced text that described the sale as “a cooperative effort to share our prosperity with the unfortunate.”^^ The brochures explicitly contrasted North American abundance with the cruel effects of poverty elsewhere in the world, exactly the ideal initially expressed by

Floyd Berg and other original Relief Sale organizers and implicit in the MCC mission.

As early as 1970, the MCC began asking relief sale organizers not to use the pictures of gaunt children, suggesting instead that organizers emphasize MCC’s role in empowering people rather than aiding pitiful victims.^ In 1974, Ohio organizers dropped the pictures firom their brochures. Images of quilts and quiltmaking and other aspects of North

American abundance remained, however, and were highlighted by text that became more explicit about what the MCC did with the money it received. For instance, the 1977 brochure stated that in the previous year, the MCC had sent seven million pounds of material aid, 80 percent of it food, to southern Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Another mdication that the earliest brochures were intended only for a local audience (or at least one already familiarwith the area’s Mennonite and Amish

Brochure for 1969 Relief Sale.

“ See, for instance, John Hostetler, “Newsletter,” mhneographed sheet, 13 February 1970, folder for 1970 Relief Sale.

292 population) besides the minimal amount of general in&rmation about the MCC was the

lack of directions to the very small community of Kidron. Not until 1973 was a map of

the area included in the brochure. Significantly, even that map presumed a local

audience. It showed the location ofKidron relative to the larger nearby communities of

Wooster, Massillon, Orrville, and M t Eaton. While U.S. Route 30 and U.S. Route 250,

the highways on which these communities are located, were identified, no indication was

given of where in the state one should begin to look for Ohio’s Mennonite country.

In addition to featuring quilts in brochures, organizers emphasized quilts in post­

sale newspaper stories. In this way, they festered an image of quilts as popular with

buyers. An article in the Wooster Daily Record, reporting on the second relief sale in

1967, highlighted a photo of a quilt being auctioned. The article noted that there were six

hundred items donated and total receipts were $8,500. “Handmade articles produced by

churchwomen, quilts and needlework, sold extremely well. Top price for quilts was

$56.”^ The W ooster D aily R ecord article reporting on the 1969 sale included a photo of that year’s highest-selling quilt, its maker, and its buyers. The article enthused, “Quilts had always been conceded as highest in popularity among donations.” The article

reported that many quilts sold for more than $100 that year and one pair of matching twin-sized quilts sold for $400.^"*

^ “Relief Sale Nets $8,500 at Kidron,” W ooster D aily Record, 30 October 1967, p. 14.

“$10,000 is Raised at Mennonite Auction,” Wooster Daily Record, 11 August 1969, p. 9.

293 Even writers who did not have afBIiations with the OMRS contributed to the

enthusiasm about the quilt auction and emphasized the high prices for quilts. For

instance* in a 1972 article in the Akron Beacon Journal, staff writer Tom Ryan reported

that “the ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ are reserved for the display of 70 hand-stitched quilts as they

move one-by-one to the auction platform.” He went on to comment that the auctioneers

encouraged people to bid higher on quilts by emphasizing the time* effort* and skilled

stitches the women put into them. Ryan quoted an unidentified Pennsylvania man who

said he came to the sale every year expecting to spend $200 and also described “a young,

pregnant Akronhe and her husband [who] lovingly clutched a crib quilt which cost them

$40. ‘It’s for our first child and nothing will be too good*’ the expectant mother said.”

This statement is particularly mteresting because it explicitly justifies the cost of the

relatively small quilt by referring to motherhood and family.^

The Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale grew steadily fi»m its founding in 1966.

Organizers emphasized quilts in newspaper stories and advertising brochures as part of

their efforts to increase participation among local people, both Mennonite and non-

Mennonite. The growth of the sale inspired the creation of a separate board with specific

sole responsibility for organizing and further developing the sale in the future. Women

were given leadership roles on the committee* although the number of women who could

serve was explicitly limited. As the sale continued to grow* quilts and related imagery

^ Tom Ryan* “Kidron Sing-Song, Gavel - $32*000 Worth,” Akron Beacon Journal, 6 August 1972* sec. C6, m folder for 1972 Relief Sale.

294 continued to play a v ay significant role in advertising. Women’s access to leadership

roles also increased.

The Middle Years: Mid-1970s through the 1980s

Organizational Changes and Debates

Several issues marked the maturity of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale firom the

mid-1970s through the end of the 1980s. The first issue was the one tabled at the

organizational meeting in September 1971: whether to move the sale to a more accessible

location. The decision at that meeting to postpone this discussion proved to be precedent-setting, since the question of location recurred again and again, in 1974,1976,

1983, 1985, and 1989. In each instance, the Board investigated whether to move the sale to a nearby fairground. In most years, this was the Wayne County fairgrounds in

Wooster, though the Richland Coun^ grounds in Mansfield and the Stark County grounds in Canton were also considered.

Relief Sales in other states had been held at fairgrounds for years and organizers reported good attendance. Proponents o f moving the Ohio sale argued that the fairground would be easier for “outsiders” to find. This was especially true if the sale had moved to

Richland or Stark County, since those locations were much nearer to highways 1-71 and

1-77, respectively. Proponents also cited the availability of parking, permanent kitchen and restroom facilities, electrical service, and buildings large enough to elhninate the need to rent and set up several large tents each year. Critics argued that locating the

OMRS at a fairground could attract an audience who would not be respectful of the

Mennonite’s pacifist and tonperate belief. Critics also pointed out that Kidron was centrally located for the most active volunteers and was also the commercial center 295 patronized by members o f the conservative Mennonite and Amish communities. For both volunteers and conservatives, the SAeen-mile drive to Wooster might hinder people’s willingness to participate. Other concerns about moving to a 6irground were a lack of control over grounds layout and increased security risks 6 r sale items and displays set up the night before the event^^

This debate was significant because it revealed the continuing need organizers felt to attract a large but sympathetic non-Mennonite audience. The decision each time the question arose to keep the sale in Kidron and to contribute money toward joint building projects with Central Christian High School trustees reflects not only a desire to maintain control over the sale environment, but also to bring potential customers into “Mennonite country.” Keeping the sale in Kidron, where visitors arrived on narrow two-lane roads, parked in a recently-mown grain field, and rode in a tractor-pulled farm-wagon to the sale site, contributed to the old-fashioned, safe, and country feel that organizers chose to maintain. As former OMRS Board president Dick Sterner wrote in defense o f staying in

Kidron during the 1989 debate, “it will be harder to illustrate who Mennonites are and

For instance, Merl Lehman, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Makes Annual Reporf ’ Wooster Daily Record, 3 October 1974, p. 28, pasted to OMRS paper, folder for 1974 Relief Sale; “Summary,” report of discussion, 12 November 1976, and “Afinutes” 29 November 1976, Annual Relief Sale Meeting, folder for 1976 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 14 March 1983, OMRS Board, “Minutes,” 10 October 1983, Annual Relief Sale Meeting, “Fro-and-Con,” report o f discussion, 10 October 1983, folder for 1983 Relief Sale; “Minutes, 21 October 1985, Annual Relief Sale Meeting, folder for 1985 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 9 May 1989, OMRS Board, folder for 1989 Relief Sale; Ron Murray, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale; Where’s the Best Place?,” and Dick Steiner, “Driving a Tent State that’s Heard around the World...,” The Ohio Evangel, December 1989-January 1990, p. 8-9.

296 what values we hold if we move our relief sale to the center of centers, the Coliseum, or even to a smaller center, like an auditorium or fairgrounds."^^

A second issue during these years was the struggle to improve publicity for the

Sale. In particular, OMRS Board members and Publicity Committee members sought ways to gain radio and television publicity, especially in areas without a large Mennonite population. Board minutes suggest organizers made concerted efforts during several years to get broadcast coverage and achieved some success. Radio stations in nearby

Canton, Massillon, and Coshocton were supportive during the 1980s, providing advertising, live coverage, programming time, and advertising.^ Television coverage proved more elusive, at least partially because it was more expensive to purchase time and less easy to target a desirable audience. Because OMRS Board members Ardin

Ramsey and FlTa Rohrer had personal connections to Del Donahoo, host of a Cleveland television show called Del's Folkswagon, the committee was often able to gain publicity through that venue. Donahoo appears to have had a set piece on travel in Ohio that he gave to local groups when invited to speak. In that talk, he called the Relief Sale “the best one-day event in the state.”^ In many years, however, there was no mention in

27 Steiner, “Driving a Tent State,” p. 9.

^ “Mmutes,” 14 June 1982 and 30 August 1982, OMRS Board, folder for 1982 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 14 May 1984, OMRS Board, folder for 1984 Relief Sale.

® “DeTs Folkswagon Host is Smithville Ruritarian Speaker,” clippmg fiom unidentifted newspaper, hand dated 16 June 1983, folder for 1983 Relief Sale; “Orrville Woman wül Anchor Morning News,” Wooster Daify Record, 24 July 1986, no page number, folder for 1986 Relief Sale; EUa Rohrer.

297 OMRS Board records of any advertising efforts b^ond flyers, posters, and newspaper stories.

Efforts to distribute announcements to a non-local, non-Mennonite audience emphasized quilts and other handmade items. In 1973, Board member Bennett Geiser contacted Quentin Welty, of radio station WHLO in Akron and a regional account executive with Susquehanna Broadcasting in Ohio and Indiana. As a result of this contact, Welty sent a press release and cover letter to thirty-eight stations in northeastern and north central Ohio, including Akron and Cleveland. This press release evidently had some effect, since “two busloads of shoppers were present [at the 1973 sale] from a

Cleveland radio station.”^® The Geiser/Welty press release was very similar to the press releases written in the late 1980s by Publicly Committee member Celia Lehman. She began writing and submitting press releases to approximately one hundred newspapers and radio stations around the state of Ohio. Later, she increased the scale of her effort to more than three hundred outlets. Her stories emphasized the quilt auction with such phrases as “over 125 large Amish and Mennonite quilts [... ] are expected to be the main attraction,” while also mentioning the variety of other handmade food and wood items available. Lehman also stressed that the sale would take place “in the heart of the

Mennonite and Amish community.” The images thus played into public perceptions about the Mennonite and Amish as equally old-fashioned and quaint.^ ^

Quentin Welty, copy of cover letter and press release, with handwritten note to Bennett Geiser, 30 July 1973, and “Mmutes,” 7 June 1973, folder for 1973 Relief Sale.

See, for example, “Press Release,” 20 July 1989, folder for 1989 Relief Sale; “Press Release,” 13 July 1993, folder for 1993 Relief Sale.

298 Women became more visible as leaders in the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale organization during the 1980s, though their roles were still limited by gendered assumptions. On the OMRS Board itself leadership tended to follow traditional gender patterns. Except for three years—1985,1989, and 1990—women were elected to serve as Board secretary. Likewise, men were almost invariably elected to serve as president and treasurer. A woman served as treasurer in 1977 and 1978, and another woman served two terms as president, in 1985 and 1988.

Women’s roles on organizational subcommittees were likewise larger but still limited. Throughout the 1970s, quilt donations were handled by a subcommittee of the

Ladies Handiwork committee, which also had responsibility for general needlework, the

Kiddie Comer, and plant sales. David and Mary Geiser had sole responsibility for quilts until 1975, when a new subcommittee was added to organize a quilting demonstration. In the 1980s, the quilt subcommittee added new members several times, rising to four in

1981, five in 1987, and seven in 1988. The subcommittee in 1988 was comprised of three married couples and a widower who had joined with his wife in 1983.^^ In 1986, the subcommittee became a committee in its own right rather than remaining a subcategory under Ladies Handiwork. By the end of the 1980s, the Quilt Committee was the largest single group within the OMRS organization. While there were four men on

^ By 1997, when I met the committee members, the widower had remarried; his new wifo joined the committee with him, bringing the total membership to eight.

299 the committee, the most active members—those who wrote letters to the Sewing Cncles and whose names appeared on publicity pieces—were the three women and widower/^

The Quilt Committee was most active during the month or so before the sale, although members had some responsibilities throughout the year, hi addition to storing the quilt display racks, committee members often worked with the publicity committee to take quilts to public displays, as described below. As the Relief Sale date approached, quilt committee members received donated quilts and recorded descriptive and identifying information for each quilt After 1981, they used this information to produce a booklet listing and describing all auction items. The booklet was sold on sale day to bidders and observers as a conunemorative item. On the day of the sale, committee members were responsible for assembling racks and displaying the quilts, providing auctioneers and their assistants with adequate descriptions of the quilts, and working with the general auction committee and the treasurer’s and cashier’s offtces to ensure that quilt prices were recorded, money received, and quilts delivered to their new owners.^

The gender composition of the Quilt committee, its «cpanded responsibilities, and its movement ftom subcommittee to full working committee are indicative of the

See, for instance. Letter to quilt donors signed by Til Neuenschwander, Corrine Helmuth, Marilyn Neiswander, and Vesta Hochstetler, January 1989, folder for 1989 Relief Sale. Also, personal conversations with committee members during research in 1996 and 1997 were inevitably with one o f these four people. By the early 1990s, the publicity committee also consisted of sbc or seven members, but each individual or couple was responsible for a distinct type o f advertising and merely shared information rather than coordinated their wodc.

^ “OMRSC Job Descriptions,’’ 1984, unlabelled folder. See also “Mmutes,” 11 August 1973, folder for 1973 Relief Sale.

300 increasing importance of quilts to the Sale’s success and also o f women’s larger, but still limited, role as recognized leaders in Mennonite institutions. For instance, at a 1982 meeting in Walnut Creek, Ohio, attended by representatives fiom the MCC and several other Relief Sales in the U.S., relief sales in general were commended as being institutions “where women are listened to and heard in the church,”^^ a comment that suggests that women were gaining a public place but still struggled to be heard within the evolving church structure.

The Wood-Item Auction

In the mid-1970s, OMRS organizers began a special elEfort to increase donations of items that could be sold for high prices. Handmade wooden items, ranging fiom furniture to toys and kitchen tools were identified as a local commodity that could be added to the Ohio Relief Sale product line. The creation and eventual expansion of the wood-hem auction represented an attempt to secure stock for the Relief Sale beyond the core inventory of quilts made by Sewmg Circles and individual women. By this time, the

Mennonite Sewing Circles bad begun to shift much of their focus to quiltmaking, with a strong emphasis in most groups being placed on nice quilts to be sold at the Relief Sale and other auctions. OMRS Board members knew that these popular and profitable sale resources would continue to be available. Other general auction items were somewhat less consistently available and profitable. The first several sales had highlighted merchandise like cars, bicycles, and sewing machines donated by area businesses or purchased with cash donated to the Relief Sale organizers. Farm equipment and

“Mmutes,” 7 August 1982, OMRS Board, folder for 1982 Relief Sale. 301 household articles had also been auctioned at early sales. By the mid-1970s* manufactured items showed up less and less frequently on the lists of items for sale.

Organizers thus began to emphasize what seemed to be another reliable source of auction inventory. Local woodshops often employed conservative Mennonite and Amish men who needed non-farm work. They sold handmade furniture and gifts to tourists who had become common m the Ohio Amish area and to stores in other areas that advertised

“Amish” furniture. Wooden items were thus a logical choice for the second mainstay of

Relief Sale auction income.

Men were explicitly targeted to donate wooden items to the auction. For instance, in addition to the usual letters sent by the OMRS Board to church relief volunteers and pastors remindingpeople about the Relief Sale and asking for donations and workers, the needlework and quilt committees had long sent letters to Sewing Circle presidents urging them to have their members make and donate quilts and other needlework items.^^ In

1976, OMRS Board members mcluded a new sentence in their general letter to churches urging men to “take a look in your shop and decided what you can make for the relief sale.”^^ A letter in 1982 approached the men through the quütmg groups, with the admonition to “encourage the men folk of your Church to utilize their wood-working

See for instance. Letter fiom TwQa Nofiiger, Needlework and Arts Committee, to WMSC Presidents and Interested Friends, 25 June 1974, folder for 1974 Relief Sale.

Letter fiom Harley Himes, OMRS President, to Relief Representatives and Pastors, undated but “Sent m Feb 76” written in pencil, folder for 1976 Relief Sale.

302 skills to craft some items for the sale.”^* This effort was still being made m 1989, when

OMRS Board president Levi Miller wrote to churches urging increased donations because the many disasters worldwide had generated new projects for the MCC. He wrote:

We encourage your congregation as a whole to consider various projects, rather than assuming that the WMSC and their work with quilts is enough. The men might be involved in a wood project, the youth could volunteer to help with clean up, parents and children together can make a project, etc.""

Board members tried various different combinations of times and places to auction quilts and wooden items. Initially, they continued with the original pattern of a single auction. In 1975, they decided, after some debate, to “break from selling quilts for

2 half hour periods, at 12 o'clock and at 2 o'clock, in which time the woodcraft items would be sold.” In the early 1980s, a larger tent was rented for the auction. This tent contained the quilt and wooden item display, the main auction stage, a quilting demonstration, and chairs fr>r buyers. The needlework sale (non-auction) was placed in a separate tent. In 1985, o^anizers decided to use their two-tent setup to highlight and sell quilts and wooden items separately, although they also considered keeping the larger, potentially more expensive wooden items, like a handmade grandfather clock donated

Memo frnm OMRS Board to Pastors, Contact Persons, Presidents of WMSC, 25 March 1982, folder for 1982 Relief Sale.

Letter from Levi NGUer, OMRS President, no salutation but content suggests recipients were congregational contact people, February 1989, fr)lder for 1989 Relief Sale.

303 each year by a member of the Orrville Meonomte Church, with the quilts in the larger tent.'*®

Initially, woodcrafts were collected by the same committee >^o handled quilt donations. In 1988, Quilt Committee members asked that the woodcraft tent be made a separate project ftom their own work. A new committee was thus organized. While the quilt group had traditionally been made up mostly of married couples, all the people nominated for the Wood Committee were male. Committee members were encouraged to contact woodworkers to increase donations; they were also empowered to purchase items for resale if necessary, though they should also try to find specific donors to cover the cost of these purchases. The quilt committee did not have the authority to purchase items for resale; it evidently never asked for or needed this authority.'** Women, both within and outside the structure of the WMSC, were much more forthcoming in their quilt donations than were men with wood-item donations, but not because quilts were cheaper or easier to produce than wooden products.

Maps of Relief Sale grounds indicate that the tent for the quilts and the main auction was placed near the sale entrance used by the wagons bringing visitors fi:om the parking lots. Wood-hems were displayed inside the high school, where they had to be sought out by interested buyers. The decision to hold the quilt auction outside, where it was highly visible, while the wood auction was moved inside reversed the initial layout

'*® “Mmutes,” 21 April 1975, OMRS Board, folder for 1975 Relief Sale; “Successful Sale ‘Spells Relief for Needy,” Wooster Daify Record, 3 August 1981, p. 19; “Nfinutes,” 8 April 1985 and 21 October 1985, folder for 1985 Reli^Sale.

'** “Mmutes,” 11 April 1988, OMRS Board, folder for 1988 Relief Sale.

304 of the sale, which had placed the items o f‘‘feminine” interest indoors and the more general items ontdoors/^

A 1988 book about MCC volunteer projects noted that the Ohio sale was known for its wooden items and did not name the Ohio sale as one noted for quilts/^ Regardless o f this assessment, the male-associated woodcrafts and other donations were a strong, but still secondary, source of auction income. With the addition through the years of more food booths and other over-the-counter sale items, the overall importance of auction income from both quilts and wood items declined. While auction proceeds initially accounted for nearly three-fourths of the total, by the 1970s, they had dropped to approximately 40 percent. Auction proceeds rose again in the 1980s and 1990s, but still remained only half of the total. Figure 8.4 shows both the changing percentage of OMRS income from the auction as well as the percentage of auction income that came specifically fixim the quilt auction. While the percentage of income fix)m both auctions decreased overall (dotted line), the percentage of auction income jfrom quilts increased

(solid line), even with the growth of the wood auction.

Maps showing the layout of the sale grounds were available in the folders fr>r most years.

BCreider and Goo sen, ‘XDrganizing Festivals for MCC,” 362-263.

305 80%

70%

50%

40%

30% VO 00 o 00 VO VO 00 O v O v O v Os v ov

-■ “ Percent of OMRS Income from Auction Sales Percent of Auction Income from Quilt Sales

Figure 8.4: Comparison of Total Auction Income to Quilt Auction Income

Increasing Attendance through Quilt Imagery

Beginning in the mid-1970s. Relief Sale brochures were targeted toward a more general audience and began to reflect a more commodifled event. From 1977 through

1989, brochures featured pictures of quilts and Relief Sale activities. The quilts pictured in brochures were more and more likely to be nice quilts, conceived of and made to be sold. More often than in earlier years, they were appHquéd or embroidered quilts or featured complex piecewodc designs like Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Giant Dahlia, and various large and small star patterns. The quilts pictured were also more likely to have been made of coordinated frbrics purchased for those specific quilts. Only after

1989 did quilts share top billing as auction highlights with handmade wood items. By featuring quilts produced specifically fer sale at the quilt auction and by leaving out the

306 pictures of the actual work o f the Sewing Circles that had appeared on earlier brochures, the accompanying images o f Relief Sale activities made the event seem more like a commercial fair or festive family event than a church fund-raiser for overseas relief This impression is strengthened by other aspects of the brochure.

In 1976, the brochure included the OMRS Board’s new logo, which placed the words "Selling to Serve” under the MCC’s logo showing a cross and dove enclosed in a globe. Also in 1976, a pancake and sausage break&st that was begun for volunteer workers in 1973 was advertised to early visitors as well. The logo provided a small reminder that Christian service rather than commercialism was the motivation behind the sale; the breakfast allowed visitors to arrive early enough to examine the quilts and other items more closely before the auction. Another feature Grst included in the 1976 brochure, though instituted in 1975, was a “quflting bee.” A newspaper story that mentioned plans for this addition stated that “the ever-increasing popularity of the qudt auction also generated another idea. The staff wQl set up a quilting bee for the visitors to enjoy. Women will be able to leam the art or observe the skills while seated around the fiâmes.”^ Other demonstrations of “old-foshioned” and unfamiliar skills, like weaving wheat-straw, making apple butter, and blowing glass, were introduced in later years and emphasized the folksy, quaint imagery of the event while increasing the hands-on

44 *10 nth Annual Relief Sale Launched,” unidentified newspaper, undated clippmg, folder for 1975 Relief Sale.

307 interactive aspects in a way pioneered by “living museum” efforts. The quilting bee, however, was the only demonstration repeated every year*^

In 1977, the OMRS Board recognized that many people were arriving in Kidron the night before the sale. To accommodate these people, they organized and advertised in brochures a musical event featuring gospel choirs and hymn singing for Friday evening and provided space and minimal resources for campers and tents. While the Board had organized a booth with information about the MCC since at least 1973, the need to provide specifically Christian activities on Friday evening suggests that much of the energy on Saturday was devoted to commercial interests.'*^

In 1977, the brochures also began to emphasize quilts more strongly than other sale items. A large version of the Selling to Serve logo with the words “Quilts! Quilts!

Quilts!” printed in large type underneath dominated the inside of the brochure that year.'*^

“Hundreds o f Quilts, Quilts, Quilts!” also headlined the list of items to be auctioned.

Brochures throughout the rest of the 1970s featured a similar layout, with the Selling to

Serve logo becoming smaller each year. The prominence of the “Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!”

See, for instance, Celia Lehman, “23rd Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Scheduled in Kidron on August 5-6,” unidentified newspaper, 25 July 1988, folder for 1988 Relief Sale.

Merl Lehman, “Delegates fiom Six Relief Sales Attend Ohio Meeting,” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping, and letter finm Bennett Geiser, treasurer, to John Hostetler, MCC, 6 October 1973, folder for 1973 Relief Sale.

Quilt! QuiltsI Quilts! is the name of a popular book aimed at late twentieth century quilt revival quilters that was originally published in 1988. I know of no connection between the Relief Sale Board's use of the phrase and its later use as a book title. Diana McClun and Laura Nownes, Quilts! Quilts!! Quilts!!! (Gualala, CA: Quilt Digest Press, 1988).

308 phrase declined in the 1980s, but beginning in 1982, the back cover of the folded sale brochure featured the headline “Quilt Buyers Paradise,” along with sale infennation and pictures of quilts. This conjunction of visual and textual images, along with the quilting demonstration introduced in 1976, would have continued to appeal to most of the

Mennonites and non-Mennonites who had participated in the Sale feom the beginning.

The basic references to the Relief Sale’s ultimate goal and connection to the MCC remained, and younger Mennonite women and even some older ones were as likely as other women in Wayne County to participate in late twentieth century quilt revival activities. However, this new approach, which emphasized purchasing attractive quilts or approaching quiltmaking as a hobby over showing quilts as frugal bedcovers or as the products of busy Sewing Circles, would have appealed equally to a more secular audience.

Other evidence confrrms that OMRS organizers were more actively pursuing a non-Mennonite audience through the use of quilt imagery by the late 1970s. In 1980, the

Publicly Committee redesigned the brochure from a two-panel to a three-panel format that could easily be mailed. One panel of the new brochure included a brief history of the

MCC, an explanation of its mission and how the Relief Sale aided those goals, as well as the yearly statistics on workers, material aid, and budget that had traditionally been included. The new format helped ensure that non-Mennonite buyers would know the significance of the event they were attending. In 1981, the map in the brochure included interstates 1-71 and 1-77, thus suggesting how “easy” Kidron was to find from the urban areas o f Akron, Cleveland, and Columbus, hi 1983, the map finally named Kidron’s

309 location on County Road 52, a boon to the cMver unfamiliar with rural Wayne County

and its numerous nearly identical crossroads.

The shift in audience visible in the brochures themselves was reflected in their

distribution pattern and also the use of other printed media. Tourists rather than

Mennonites and their local supporters became a special focus for organizers after the

mid-1970s. Brochures were originally distributed only in local Mennonite communities

by OMRS Board and conunittee members and congregational relief sale representatives.

In the mid-1970s, they were also distributed to tourist-oriented audiences through county

Chambers of Commerce and tourism bureaus, and also through the Ohio Department of

Transportation and Tourism. For instance, the March 1978 minutes note that unspecified

“tourist areas are to have literature by July 4 and remaining literature will be held for the

kick-off banquet” Congregational representatives and many committee volunteers

would received their bundles of brochures at the banquet. In April 1981, Board members

discussed their timeline for producing and distributing brochures and other materials.

They noted that they needed to contact ‘Tourism” (the Ohio Department of

Transportation and Tourism) in March o f each year to make arrangements for placing

brochures in interstate rest stops and similar public venues. They also discussed printing

small, business-card-sized fiyers, to be “used primarily for [the] non-Mennonite

communier,” and considered redesigning the brochure so it could be used as a self-

mail^. At the wrap-up meeting in August 1985, organizers emphasized that posters

needed to be printed and distributed to area businesses and restaurants by mid-April the n«ct year because “that’s the time the tourists come to the area.” By the early 1990s,

310 15,000 flyers were being distributed each year through the Wayne County Chambero f

Commerce alone."**

OMRS Board members took advantage of other tourist-related advertismg opportunities, hi 1982 and 1983, Relief Sale organizers participated in “Ohio Tourism

Day,” an event promoted by Governor Jim Rhodes in which representatives o f tourist areas and events around the state spent one day—either in costume or with props— meeting and greeting people on the lawn of the Ohio Statehouse in downtown Columbus.

While Relief Sale volunteers did not appear in costume, they did generally take with them several completed quilts to display on racks. The OMRS Board evidently received an invitation to Ohio Tourian Day after placing an ad in Ohio Travel Magazine

A similarthough more locally oriented and longer-lasting advertising activity was a yearly display of quilts, wood items, and other articles at large supermarkets in Wayne,

Tuscarawas, and Medina Counties beginning in 1981. These displays, which began at the

Buehler’s Mültown Market in Wooster m 1981, often included a quilting demonstration

"** “Minutes,” 6 March 1978, OMRS Board, folder for 1978 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” I April 1981, OMRS Board, folder for 1981 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 12 August 1985, OMRS Board, folder for 1985 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 12 February 1991, OMRS Board, folder for 1991 Relief Sale. I was alerted to the significance of some of these comments in the minutes by personal conversation with current chans o f the OMRSB Quilt Committee, 2 4 February 1998, in Kidron.

“Minutes,” 8 March 1982, OMRS Board, “Mennonite Relief Sale Kick-Off Supper Set,” unidentified newspaper, possibly the Waym County Bargain Hunter, undated clipping, “Kick-Off Dhmer is June 28**",” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping, folder for 1982 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 9 May 1983, OMRS Board, foltkr for 1983 Relief Sale.

311 by volunteers recruited through local Sewing Circles/^ During early and mid-July of each year, Buehler’s Market in Wooster included the qudt display and demonstration as well as general in&rmation about the Relief Sale in its regular ads in local newspapers.

In addition, the papers themselves often printed pictures of the quilters in the stores. By providing the quilts and other items and by recruiting the volunteer quilters, the OMRS

Board received highly visible coverage in local newspapers at no cash cost. Buehler’s, in turn, was able to advertise something unusual to draw customers into their stores.^^

While the supermarket displays were located in areas with reasonably large

Mennonite populations, they appear to have used the mythic image of quilts as old- fashioned and folk-oriented to draw the attention of local people to the Relief Sale.

Buehler’s ads that ran in July 1981 said: “Stop at Buehler’s Milltown and Watch the

Making of an Old Fashioned Quilt. .. Which Will be Sold at the Auction on Aug.

A similar ad in 1986 informed customers that “of special interest are the handmade quilts

See, for instance, “Minutes,” 9 March 1981, OMRS Board, folder for 1981 Relief Sale; Letter ftom OMRS board to Pastors, WMSC Presidents, Relief Sale Representatives, 15 May 1986, folder for 1986 Relief Sale; Reminder to Relief Sale Volunteers, 9 July 1988, folder for 1988 Relief Sale; “Relief is on the Way: Annual Kidron Sale Scheduled August 6-7,” Wooster Daily Record, 21 July 1993, p.Bl.

Undated clipping with photo of quilts at Buehler’s Supermarket, caption, no headline, unidentifted newsp^er, folder for 1982 Relief Sale; Display ads for Buehler’s Supermarket, Wooster Daily Record, 15 July 1985, sec. A7-8, and 22 July 1985, sec. A5- 6; “Mennonite Relief Sale Begms Friday,” Fulton County Expositor, A August 1994, p. 6, folder for 1994 Relief Sale. Evidently, Buehler’s provided insurance for the displays while they were in the stores. See “Wnutes,” 9 May 1983, OMRS Board, folder for 1983 Relief Sale.

^ Clippings oftwo Buehler’s ads, unidentifted newspaper, hand dated 20 July 1981 and 25 July 1981, folder for I98I Relief Sale. Buehler’s MHItown was the larger and newer of the two Buehler’s Supermarkets in Wooster. Ellipses in origmal.

312 with some expert quilters actually working on these pieces of folk art during the week.”^

With their invitations to observe an unfamiliar and old-fashioned folk art, these ads recall the mid- and late nineteenth century reenactments of so-called colonial quilting bees discussed in chapter 2.^

Demonstration participants themselves helped to create an old-fashioned and unworldly image. In an article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1984 that was written based on interviews conducted at a Buehler’s quilt display, Martha Nussbaum of Kidron is quoted as saying that “like most Mennonite and Amish women,” she began quilting so early she didn’t remember how old she was. She emphasized that her mother quilted; her daughters quilted; even her youngest son could quilt; and that Mennonite families made quilts for themselves and then made them for charier. Nussbaum also commented about the Sewing Circle quilting work that “when you miss [a Sewing Circle meeting], you have a guilty feeling. You don’t get as much done at home, and nothing goes right, that day.”^^ Quiltmaking thus appeared to be a pervasive activity among Mennonites and one that had spiritual as well as material consequences.

^ Undated clipping of Buehler’s ad, unidentified newspaper, folder for 1986 Relief Sale. Ads with almost identical wording ran in 1987 (display ad, unidentified newspaper, undated clipping, folder for 1987 Relief Sale) and 1988 (display ad, Wooster D aily Record, 18 July 1988, no page number, folder for 1988 Relief Sale).

^ The general success of the Buehler’s demonstrations led the OMRS Board to consider placing quilts and volunteers in local craft shows and nearby malls. While this appears to have been done at least a few times, it did not become a widespread practice, probably because finding enough volunteers for more than the Buehler’s displays was too difficult “Minutes,” 10 January 1989, OMRS Board, folder for 1989 Relief Sale.

Richard Ellers “Quilters Socialize; Charity Profits,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 29 July 1984, p. 36-A, folder for 1984 Relief Sale.

313 As the years passed and quilt sale prices mcreased (see figure S.3 above), news reports continued to place an emphasis on quilts. These reports now testified to the real importance o f quilts to the overall income rather than fostering an image of their importance. For instance, a story on the 1974 sale said:

Items of handmade furniture and games were interspersed with the quilts which are regularly the major attraction at the sale.

There were 127 quilts which sold for an average price of $120 each, totaling $15,225. In addition, 38 baby quilts and 45 colorful afghans brought in over $3,100.^®

These articles often attempted to emphasize other aspects of the sale but always highlighted the importance of the quilt auction. A presale story in 1974 said:

The most popular attraction and tops in sales is the quilt display. Mr. and Mrs. David Geiser, Apple Creek, will again arrange the displays and supervise the auctioning of the fabulous creations of Mennonite church women.

Also of exceptional interest to buyers are the woodcrafied items which include grandfather’s clocks, furniture, games, windmills, and toys. These are usually auctioned at intervals between quilts.^

A similar set of priorities can be seen in a 1981 article:

The Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale is currently being billed as one of the biggest one day events in the state of Ohio. The main attraction is, of course, the chanting of area auctioneers echoing over the grounds as over

“Ohio Relief Sale Nets $80,000,” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping, folder for 1974 Relief Sale.

Met! Layman, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Slated for August 10,” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping, folder for 1974 Relief Sale.

314 100 beautiful quilts, needlework, handcrafted clocks, crafts, and rockers, all donated, are auctioned off to the highest bidder/^

A photo-essay written in 1986 fisr the local Orrville Courier-Crescera stated that

“some of the most popular and most costly items placed on the auction block were hand- woven quilts donated by Mennonite families firom around the state as well as fiom

Pennsylvania.” The economic aspects of the Sale were highlighted by a probably staged photo, one of seven, of a pile of cash sitting on a table/® The old-fashioned and unworldly aspects of the Sale and its organizers were highlighted by three of the remainingsix photos in the two-page spread featuring conservative Amish or Mennonite women in plain dresses and white caps or men in lapel-less coats and untrimmed beards.

While conservative Anabaptists certainly contributed to and attended the Relief Sale, they by no means formed anywhere near half of the participants. Interestingly, two of the remaining three photographs were of quilts and the quilt auction. The final photograph was of people getting off a farm-wagon after the ride in firom the parking Iot.“

News articles sometimes used quilts as a symbol for the whole Sale. A 1982 article that appeared in both the W ooster D aily R ecord and the Wayne County Bargain

“Plans Underway for 1981 Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale,” Wayne County Bargain H unter, 28 January 1981, p 3-4, folder for 1980 Relief Sale.

OMRS Board records reveal that organizers actually went to a great deal of effort to keep cash safely out of sight of visitors m order to protect both the cash and the workers. See, for instance, “Mmutes,” 11 August 1980, OMRS Board, folder for 1980 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 20 April 1982, special meetmg of Relief Sale officers and Securi^ Committee, folder for 1982 Relief Sale.

“ Bruce Griffin, “Relief is in Sight,” OrrviUe Courier-Crescent, 7 August 1986, p 1,7, folder for 1986 Relief Sale.

315 H unter said that ‘^like the making o f the quilts which are the backbone o f the sale, the planning of the sale begins early, many people cooperate and give them time, and bit by bit, piece by piece, it is put together with all the pieces in place.”^^ Similar statements were made in a 1985 article:

The most important items of the sale are the quilts. These are beautiful and artistic love gifts from the generosi^ of church women and organizations of many churches far and wide. These are the wonders that draw the buyers to pay liberally to obtain possession of their favorite quilt or other artistic embroidery piece.^

This conjunction of statements emphasizing the interrelationship between Mennonite goals of Christian service and communier building with the commercial value of quilts during the late twentieth century quilt revival can also be seen in the following quote from 1989:

The purpose of the sale, as summed up in a phrase in the Rev. Gerry Vandeworp’s noon prayer, is “to share our abundance so others can eat”

The main attraction was the quilt tent where 151 creations from more than 100 churches—including Amish, Apostolic, Brethren, Mennonite, and Conservative Mennonites in Ohio and western Pennsylvania—were auctioned.®

“People Staying Active...The Real Story of the Relief Sale,” Wayne County Bargain Hunter, 4-10 August 1982, p. 1, and “People Staying Active...The Real Story of the Relief Sale,” Wooster Daily Record, 4 August 1982, no page number, folder for 1982 Relief Sale.

® “RelirfSale Nets $180,000,” Dalton Gazette and Kitô'on News [published as one paper with two titles in masthead], 7 August 1985, page unknown, folder for 1985 Relief Sale.

® Celia Lehman, “24th Relief Sale Brings $185,000,” unidentifred newsp*q)er, undated clipping, folder for 1989 Relief Sale.

316 The Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale reached maturity during the 1980s. While real

income held relatively steady, organizers sought ways to diversity their offerings and to

reach a larger audience while remaining within Mennonite territory, both culturally and

geographically. The group of women and men responsible h)r collecting quilts and

overseeing their display became a committee in its own right. Large and small items

made by local woodworkers became a popular addition to the Relief Sale and led to the

development of a dual auction format However, quilts remained a central feature in

advertising plans and remained the single largest income-producing commodity.

Women’s commodities, rather than men’s, were clearly central to the financial success of

the Relief Sale.

The 1990s

In the 1990s, the OMRS Board continued to seek ways to maintain and improve

their achievement In 1992, an extra-large tent made of sun-enhancing fabric was

obtained for the quilts and the main auction. This tent was chosen because it “allowed

the viewers to see the true color of the quilts to be auctioned off.”^ In 1993, the Board

recognized a potential for increased female leadership. The revised constitution that year

changed the original requirement that women be elected to replace women to read that the executive board be constituted of no more than two-thirds male or female members.

In 1994, the board had four female members rather than the usual three.^^ Organizers

^ Celia Lehman, “Volunteers Bring Relief and Sun Shines as Kidron Sale Grosses $200,000,” Wooster Daily Record, 3 August 1992, sec. CL

“Minutes,” 17 August 1993, OMRS Board, folder for 1993 Relief Sale. Board composition taken fiom “Elected Board Officers,” in Lehman, History o fthe Ohio 317 contmued efforts begun in the mid-1980s to centralize money collection and improve security by creating a single cashier’s ofSce, registermg all bidders, providing receipts that could be used by buyers to claim tax deductions, and accepting credit cards. They also considered computerizing all records and sale-day transactions.^ However, the cost of television spots and the Board’s desire to retain a “family-friendly” atmosphere hampered their ability to make more effective use of advertising to broaden attendance.^^

The first Relief Sale in 1966 was reported to have been attended by three thousand people. Estimates for the 1970 sale placed attendance at five thousand; the

1971 sale was a “record breaker,” with attendance estimated at 10,000. By the mid-

1970s attendance jumped again to 25,000. Afrer that point, however, attendance stabilized at 20,000 to 30,000 people, a set of figures that remained constant through

1995. Of that number, approximately a thousand people registered as buyers eligible to purchase the expensive quilts or wooden items at auction.^^

Mennonite R eliefSale, 18. A woman served as Board president in 1996, outside the time period o f this essay.

“ “Minutes,” 12 August 1985, OMRS Board, and “Minutes, 21 October 1985, Annual Relief Sale Meeting, folder for 1985 Relief Sale; map in quilt booklet, 1991, folder for 1991 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 5 October 1992, Annual Relief Sale Meeting, folder for 1992 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 14 June 1944, OMRS Board, folder for 1994 Relief Sale.

“Minutes,” 8 March 1982, OMRS Board, “Mennonite Relief Sale Kick-Off Supper Set,” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping “BCick-Off Dinner is June 28th,” Wayne Cotmty Bargain Hunter, undated clipping, folder for 1982 Relief Sale; “Minutes,” 12 March 1991 and 9 April 1991, OMRS Board, folder for 1991 Relief Sale.

^ Figures taken from newspap^ cl^pings in OMRS Board folders for 1970 through 1975,1977,1986, and 1995; Press Release, 20 July 1989, folder for 1989 Relief Sale; “1991 Ohio Mamonite Relief Sale,” typed mformation sheet, undated but with 318 Board members and other communia members began to develop new ways to increase donations to the MCC that could be tied indirectly to the Ohio Mennonite Relief

Sale. Organizers discussed helping Mennonites in other areas of the state to establish a second Relief Sale in Ohio to attract people who would not or could not travel to Kidron.

Some volunteers developed a “fun run,” a race with sponsored runners and walkers, on the morning of the Sale.^ Others coordinated the building and sale of a large home constructed by unpaid workers using primarily donated materials (a la Habitat for

Humanity, but on a luxury scale). The two “Houses for Humanity” realized significant profits in 1992 and 1994.’® Both of these projects were intended to attract potential participants who were not enticed by the “traditional” Relief Sale activities.

Records of registered btyers indicate that organizers were somewhat successful in bringing non-local people to the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale. For instance, a summary

records for 1991, folder for 1991 Relief Sale; Celia Lehman, Press Release, 10 July 1992, folder for 1992 Relief Sale; Phyllis Troyer, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sales” typed information sheet, August 1993, folder for 1993 Relief Sale.

Phyllis Troyer, “Ohio Mennonite Relief Sales” typed information sheet, August 1993, folder for 1993 Relief Sale; Celia Lehman, “Mennonite Relief Sale Quilts Establish New Price Records,” Wooster Daily Record, 9 August 1993, p. Al-2.

Celia Lehman, “Relief Sale Draws Big Crowd; Grosses Estimated $225,000,” unidentified newspaper, undated clipping folder for 1991 Relief Sale; Celia Lehman, “Meimonite Relief Sale Quilts Establish New Price Records,” Wooster Daily Record, 9 August 1993, sec. Al-2; “Relief is on the Way: Annual Kidron Sale Scheduled August 6- 7,” Wooster Daily Record, 21 July 1993, sec. B l; Lori Williams, “Kidron Relief Sale Nets $210,000; Quilts $77,700,” Wooster Daily Record, 8 August 1994, p. 1; “Relief Sale and House Against Hunger Contributions,” MCC Workbook 1996, p. 142 and “1997 Relief Sale and House Against Hunger Contributions,” MCC Workbook 1997, p. 154, supplied by Cmdy Smoker, MCC Constituency Ministries, 8 February 1999, in possession of the author. The MCC Workbook is equivalent to an Annual Report; it includes comparative data for sevaal years previous.

319 fiom. the 1986 sale indicated that 93 percent of all buyers were fiom the state of Ohio.

Non-Ohioans came fiom eleven other states. Twenty-two percent of Ohio buyers (or 20 percent of the total) came fiom Wayne County. Similardata fiom 1997 showed that 87 percent of all buyers were fiom Ohio, with non-Ohioans coming fiom twenty other states and two Canadian provinces. IhirQ^-one percent of Ohio buyers (28 percent of the total) came finm Wayne County.^^ This uneven shift was based on the continued reliance on ads in tourism publications and newspapers, direct mailing of brochures, locally displayed posters, and word-of-mouth. Board members encouraged congregational representatives living in urban areas away fiom the Mennonite heartland to seek out donations of public service advertisements, but there is little evidence this succeeded.^

Conclusion

Regardless of the growth of the Relief Sale fiom 1966 to 1995, Kidron remained a very small rural community centered on filling the needs of the local Mennonite and

Amish population. Lehman’s Hardware, Cozy Comer Quilts, Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, and two Amish furniture stores drew a steady stream of outsiders into the area, but the center of the “Ohio Amish” area was in Holmes County forty miles to the south. While

Berlin and its neighboring villages catered to tourists with gift shops, boutiques, candy

Data for 1986 taken fix>m typed report, no title, showing the number of buyers fiom each county in Ohio and finm oÂer states, folder for 1986 Relief Sale; data for 1997 supplied by Ron Reimer, OMRS Board Treasurer, 22 March 1999, hi possession of the author.

^ See, for instance, “Minutes,” 18 April 1995, OMRS Board, and Letter finm Don Falb, OMRS President, no salutation but contents suggest recipients were congregational contact people, 1 May 1995, records for 1995 Relief Sale.

320 stores, restaurants, historical dioramas, and yes, several quilt shops and a quilt museum,

Kidron’s commercial area featured a grocery and dry-goods store with a restaurant in the basement, a bam that bustled every Thursday with a livestock auction and flea market, several farm-supply businesses, and a chicken-processing plant. Even the Kidron

Historical Society Museum was closed as often as it was open because of lack of attendance by anyone except genealogists. The Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale was a commercially successful venture that bad a significant impact on women’s activities and roles in the denomination, but as a one-day event, it did not have a large impact on the community that hosted it.”

In 1995 as they prepared to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the Relief Sale,

OMRS organizers stated that “the main attractions in Kidron the first weekend in August are the Amish/Mennonite quilts and the wood items auction.”^'^ As this chapter has demonstrated, the quilt auction, with its imagery of old-6shioned and traditional lifestyles, was the more popular of the two events. The marketing of noncommercial values was and is the secret of its success and embodies the commodification of chari^.

” Colleen Hewitt, 11 June 1997, Dalton; Ruth Hershberger, I August 1997, Kidron; personal observation.

Celia Lehman, “Dual Anniversaries: Cause to Celebrate.” unidentffîed newspaper, unrated clippm^ fiildor fi>r 1995 Relief Sale.

321 CHAPTER 9

CONCLUSION

In February 2000, a writer for the Los Angeles Times syndicate made two statements about quilts that outline the central paradox in my study. Diane Benson

Harrington wrote that *^e American style of quilting [... 1 came about by necessity. In the earlier days, women hoarded every scrap of fabric, stitching them together to make blankets. Each square or swatch had a story of its own.” This statement is inaccurate but widely believed. Harrington also stated that ‘‘depending on the size and quality, quilts

[today] can cost as little as $50 for a twin-size imported hom China, to thousands of dollars for an American-made, hand-crafted, king-size heirloom.”' While Harrington was referring to completed quilts purchased firom large retail outlets or independent quiltmakers or shops, the money spent on materials and patterns to make a large heirloom-style quilt could easily run to several hundred dollars. Even in this situation,

Harrington’s second statement is true. Late twentieth century quiltmaking was a highly commodified luxury, regardless of vdiether it involved making or buying quilts Quilting skills and labor had been commodified, and the acquisition of materials had also joined

' Diane Benson Harrington, “Quilts Offer Warmth as a Blanket or Artwork,” The Coltmbtts Dispatch 6 February 2000, sec. 115. 322 the consumerîst trend. In spite of this reality, or perhaps because of it, quiltmakers and other people maintained the image of quiltmaking as a historically frugal and domestic activity. Wayne County quiltmakers of all ages tended to assume that they were among the first to use new materials and purchased patterns on a regular basis. They believed that “in the old days,” quiltmakers always used scraps of fabric and approached quiltmaking as a necessary, albeit pleasurable, part of their domestic work.

1 have argued in this dissertation that women have continued to make quilts and have maintained the mythic history of quiltmaking because they found the combination to be culturally useful. Making a quilt required skill and creativity; the quiltmaker herself chose whether this was the creativity that implied the origination of a unique design or the more simple production of a complete item from its component parts according to a set pattern. Quiltmaking was also a socially sanctioned activity that allowed women to take time away from domestic and family duties for personal meditation, conversation, group socializing, and community work. While quiltmakers who made clothing at home could draw on leftover soaps to make tops, this was never the only source of fabric for twentieth century top-makers and it became a less viable option as fewer and fewer women sewed clothes ft)r themselves or their families. Furthermore, the need to buy batting, backing fabric, and thread, and the buying and selling of quiltmaking skills added other potential expenses. Thus, quiltmaking was always somewhat costly and became more so as the century progressed. In this commercialized context, quiltmaking myths functioned to coimect women to a particular vision of the American past in which the importance of “the 6mily” and women^s roles as wives and mothers was presumably unquestioned. By embracing these images, women coimected themselves with those 323 values and minimized the commodified nature of their choice of leisure activity. Thus, increasing commodification was associated with increasing mythologizing of quiltmaking, which was particularly useful for Mennonite women whose commitment to a pietistic, noncommercial ethos could therefore be reaffirmed, even as their charitable quiltmaking became a large enterprise that intensified their labor.

This dissertation has compared and contrasted the experiences of women who began making quilts in three time periods: the 1920s and 1930s, the 1940s through the

1960s, and the 1970s and 1980s. Women in each group shared similarities in their attitudes toward quiltmaking, viewing it as a gender-sanctioned creative activity that reinforced the importance they placed on their family roles. The financial costs associated with quilts and quiltmaking were discounted, even by women who made quilts that sold for hundreds of dollars. The women differed, however, in the age at which they began quiltmaking,their access to fabric and other resources, their use of commercially produced patterns and tools, their approaches to using quiltmaking as a source of income, and the nature of the quilt-related groups they joined. These differences were related to when they learned basic quiltmaking skills and consequently to what other opportunities were available to them as young women.

The differences and similarities among the groups demonstrate not only the ways in which women's access to money and personal time has increased over the past eighty years but also how so-called "traditiotml" gender-roles have remained popular among large segments of the population. The experiences of women m the first and last groups discussed in this dissertation are similar to early- and late-twentieth century quütmakmg revivals documented by other researchers. These revivals are usually described as being 324 caused by shifts m cultural and artistic trends; they thus appear to be distinctly different phenomena not directly related to gender issues or economic change. I suggest that the two revivals, and the years in between, w ae closely related and that the transition 6om one set of characteristics to the next reflects an on-going negotiation by women in the

United States for time, space, and resources within restrictive but valued femily roles and within an increasingly consumerist economy.

To summarize the history, quiltmaking in the British colonies of North America was an elite feminine activity involving expensive imported febrics and needlework techniques associated with noble households and clerical garb. The few examples of

American quilts that exist firom that time are identical to European quilts. Even after the

1750s, when economic conditions permitted more women the fiee time and material resources to make quilts, designs continued to reflect elite fashions. The widespread industrialization of textiles in the second quarter of the nineteenth century opened quiltmaking to larger numbers of women, including poor white native-born, enslaved.

Native American, and immigrant populations. The piecework or appliqué quilt made of small fabric shapes sewn mto geometric and naturalistic block patterns that is so strongly associated with ‘^ditional American quiltmaking* became common only after this revolution of material resources and cultural exchange.

Concurrent with quütmaking’s mid-nineteenth century growth mto a widespread activity, a m ytholo^ about the history of quütmakmg began to develop. The myth stated that throughout the colonial and early Republican period of U.S. history, women of all classes made quüts fi»m every scrap of cloth they could acquire. These quüts were absolutely necessary, both as warm bedcovers and as much ne^Ied social and creative 325 outlets for hard-working helpmates. In the nineteenth century, these images were articulated in such venues as articles in women’s magazines, popular novels and songs, and numerous colonial kitchen fund-raising events at fairs and exhibitions. In the twentieth century, quiltmaking contmued to be a widespread and occasionally prominent leisure activity. The mythic images—sometimes still associated with their fictional sources, sometimes stated as fact—were passed on in quilt history and how-to books, and in newspaper articles, novels, and occasionally even museum catalogs.

In many ways the experiences and attitudes of the Wayne County quiltmakers interviewed for this study were imbued with this contradiction between mythology and reality, between idealistic domesticity and commercialism. Because many had favorite processes, they purchased products or services in order to complete projects they had started, or they sold their specific quiltmaking skills in order to engage only in their favored activities. Women who preferred or enjoyed making quilt tops did so because of the opportunity for creativiQf and self-expression that could easily be incorporated into a domestic routine. As the century progressed, purchasing fabrics and patterns replaced saving sewing scraps and collecting patterns fiom family members as the main methods to acquire resources. Women who preferred or enjoyed quilting cited the time it gave them to relax, to converse with fiiends, or to think their own thoughts as their reason for favoring that activity. With relatively few exceptions, Wayne County quilters preferred hand- to machine-quilting for this reason; hand-quilting gave them more time and was more relaxing and aesthetically pleasing.

Hand-quilting was associated with emotional and financial value by both quilters and top-makers. Quilts with elaborate quiltmg designs and small stitches were perceived 326 to have higher intrinsic value than other quilts, a judgment that reflected most of these women’s acceptance of conventional Euro-American culture. If a quilt was intended as a gift, the intrinsic value was equated with the love and good wishes the maker felt toward the recipient. This emotional value compensated âm üies for the time and space used in quilting. Quiltmakers also expected fîne-stitched quilts to sell for more at auctions or in stores than less painstakingly worked quilts. Some articulated a straightforward analysis of this phenomenon: knowledgeable buyers knew they were paying for the quilter’s skill and time, with the implication that any skillfully done, labor-intensive, personalized item would naturally cost more than something mass-produced. Other women expressed astonishment that people would pay high prices for a quilt that did not carry real emotional weight for them. They believed that a quilt made by a stranger could not have the emotional value that they considered essential, regardless of how skillful the stitches or beautiful the pattern.

Regardless of whether they expressed a preference for one of the major processes, women included in this study chose quiltmaking as their major leisure activity because the emotional value and familiar processes allowed them to create objects of beauty, to express their creativity, or to take time and space for themselves within the context of theb family lives and domestic tasks. Top-makmg could be done in the interstices of daily work and family sociability and tune and space spent on quiltmg was recouped in the emotional value of gift-giving. Quiltmaking was thus a successful negotiation between personal and cultural expectations of women’s responsibility for family health and happmess and a more modem impulse toward mdividualistic leisure activity.

327 Fif^-nine quiltmakers could pinpoint a specific time in their lives when they first learned quiltmaking skills. Approximately one-third learned before 1940, one-third learned between 1940 and 1970, and the final third learned after 1970. These time periods correspond to two revivals of interest in quiltmaking in the twentieth century— before 1940 and again after 1970—and the years between. The different experiences o f women who learned to make quilts during these periods reflect the shared desire of the women included in this study to claim an autonomous creative outlet w ithin conventional family and domestic relationships. They wished to participate in the on-going expansion of women’s opportunities during the twentieth century without sacrificing the values of the past. For women in the earlier groups, quiltmaking was a family- and community- based activity that maximized the use o f domestic resources, although as the century progressed these women turned more to commercial rather than domestic resources for quiltmaking supplies. For women in the final group, quiltmaking was a completely commercialized activity that was nevertheless used to reinforce family and communia ties.

Dividing the women in this study according to when they learned to make quilts rather than by age highlights that, while women have attained more lifestyle options as the century has progressed, even womoi bom early in the century walked difièrent paths.

Some chose, or were tracked into, primarily domestic roles early in their lives. For these women, quiltmaking was one way to combine fiunily and personal needs. Other women, especially those bom later in the century, were able to obtain more formal education.

They chose or were required to balance paid work with the roles o f wifo and mother. For them, finding time for quiltmaking allowed them to claim r%ources to meet their own 328 needs and to express the importance of family over work in their emotional landscape.

As family and personal expectations for women changed over the twentieth century, quiltmaking provided a way for some women both to embrace and resist new roles. It allowed them the individualistic luxury of a personal leisure activily—one that grew increasingly more commercial as the years passed—while still emphasizing the importance of family and the nurturing roles o f wife and mother.

One of the significant features of quiltmaking in Wayne County was the buying and selling of quiltmaking services and completed quilts. As early as 1901, church groups in the area discussed quilting tops made by other women as a way to add money to their treasury. This practice became common after the 1940s. Individuals and church group members charged for quilting services, while individuals accepted informal paid contracts finm other individuals or groups to make tops, mark quiltmg designs, or bind completed quilts. This commercial phenomenon relied on the strong inclination of some women toward quilting while others preferred to make tops. For most of the twentieth century, customers for quiltmaking services were primarily other quiltmakers who exchanged cash for skill in order to engage only in those parts of the process they most enjoyed or were able to make time or room for. Non-quilters who belonged to church sewmg groups engaged in a variety of other projects, but because quiltmg allowed group members to converse and fulfill their goals of Christian fellowship, while also raising money to support mission work and congregational projects, it gradually became the dominant activity at the women^s meetings. After the mid-1960s, Meimonite women’s quilting groups shifted much of their focus away fiom custom quiltmg m fevor o f making

329 complete quilts to be sold at the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale and other fond-raising auctions.

The commodification of quiltmaking extended to intensification of the labor process with the increase of charitable activities, especially among the Mennonites. For the first two-thirds of the century, most Mennonite women in Wayne County were, like

Mennonite men, relatively isolated fiom their non-Anabaptist neighbors. While less separatist than the Amish, Mennonites nevertheless limited their social contacts to co­ religionists. In order to maintain this group cohesrveness, congregations adapted some institutions, including women's sewing groups, fiom their neighbors. As a denomination of many congregations and conferences, Mennonites supported proselytizmg missions and overseas and local service projects. Much of this work was coordinated by the

Mennonite Central Committee and supported by donations fix>m families and congregations. Women’s sewing groups were strong contributors. Thus, while isolated fiom other women, Meimonite quiltmakers engaged in the same activities that Methodist,

Brethren, and Lutheran women enjoyed at their sewing groups. After World War II, the

MCC’s projects expanded. Local congregations responded by developing new fund­ raising venues. Relief auctions throughout North America raised millions of dollars beginning the 1960s; the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale in Wayne County was one of the largest and most profitable. At the denominational level, the umbrella organization supporting the women’s sewing groups rose in institutional status as quilts and the money raised through quiltmaking became increasingly important to the service projects that helped to de&ie the new, more open Mennonite identity that began developing mid­ century. In Wayne County, Mennonite women partook o f this new standing; they also 330 expanded their roles as organizers of the Relief Sale and of its consistently successful quilt auction, so that commoditization of women’s labor in this cases resulted in more authori^ for these women.

By the 1990s, retail shops in Wayne County and elsewhere began to hire individual quilters on a more formal basis to quilt tops for sale to non-quiltmaking customers, and businesses offered fast custom quilting on specially adapted sewing machines to top-makers. This pervasive commercial activity did not decrease the reality of quiltmaking as primarily a leisure activity, nor did the myth of the fiugal domestic quiltmaker become less necessary. Business women, informal custom quilters, and women quiltmg with church groups all limited the work they would do and classified that work in such as way as to de-emphasize the cormnodiGcation of their labor. Even when most pressed for time to finish a quilt for auction or for a customer, church group members stressed the voluntary social nature of their activities; they also emphasized the importance of the causes they supported over the fiscal value of the money they made.

Individual custom quiltmakers and business owners made clear that they chose their work because they enjoyed the processes and the people they came into contact with rather than because they believe quiltmaking to be a financially sound investment. The popular, romanticized imagery of American quilts ensured that there were plenty of buyers at shops and auctions who were willing to pay enough money to provide quiltmakers and shop owners with a welcome secondary or even non-essential income. However, that imagery and many quiltmakers’ own assessment of quiltmaking as a leisure rather than

331 financial acfivity ensured that prices stayed low enough that buyers were willing to consider purchasing handmade American quilts rather than cheaper imports.^

Since the mid-nineteenth century* quiltmaking has had the reputation of being an old-fashioned but honorable aspect of domesticity. It has been associated with emotional and physical warmth and with the wise use of scarce resources. These images have hidden the transformation of quiltmaking into a highly commercialized activity dependent on the purchase of new fabrics, patterns, and tools, and on the buying and selling of services. Some women in Wayne County, Ohio, have continued this “doubled” experience o f quiltmaking: buying materials and claiming time for themselves while emphasizing family and community relationships in the values they assign to their activities. Researchers have documented similar patterns among members of other contemporary groups. For instance, Kristin Langellier studied members of a statewide quiltmaking guild in Maine. She concluded that women can and have used the revival to create a sense of femininity that enlarged the fi^edom, self-expression, and individuality of “traditional” roles without necessarily challenging the definitions of those roles. In her ethnographic exploration of a quilt guild in metropolitan Miimeapolis/St. Paul, Catherine

Anne Cemy argued that quiltmaking helped women establish an updated version of a

^ See Jane S. Becker, “Epilogue: True American History in the Bedroom at a Price,” in Sellmg Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction o f an American Folk, 1930-1940 (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolma Press, 1998), 225-237, for how this played out in the Appalachian area during mid-century. This chapter also discusses the reaction of American quiltmakers against the Smithsonian histitution's attempt in 1992 to license “American quilt pattern^ to an overseas manufacturer. Becker makes clear that quiltmakers objected as much to what they perceived as the overt commercialization o f tradition as to the “slave wages” paid to the workers.

332 feminine identity that was tied to the past but acknowledged modem individualistic impulses. While Lorre Marie Weidlich focused much of her sttuly on how the commercialized quiltmaking activities of the late twentieth century “revival” pulled quiltmakers away firom domestic tasks, she nevertheless demonstrated that the Texan women she studied remained committed to their family roles.^ Thus, while my study is geographically isolated, my conclusions coincide with those drawn by researchers studying racially and economically similar groups in geographically divergent locations.

Jane Przybysz hoped to show that the late twentieth century quilt revival was an unheralded dimension of the feminist movement In analyzing some of the performances of women at quilt festivals and fairs, she saw that modem quilt culture could provide a supportive environment for women to challenge conventional notions of compliant and sexualized femininity. She was, however, fi)rced to conclude that while the culture could provide women with the opportunity to interact as empowered individuals, the recurring images in U.S. culture of quilts as domestic objects and quiltmakers as domestically-oriented people hindered that goal.'^ I would temper this assertion. While the kind of quiltmaking engaged in by most women in Wayne County reinforced rather

^ Kristin M. Langellier, “Contemporary Quiltmaking in Maine: Re-Fashioning Femininity,” in Uncoverings I990y ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1991), 29-55; Catherine Anne Cemy, “A C^uilt Guild: Its Role in the Elaboration of Female Identity,” in Uncovering 1991, ed. Laurel Horton (San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1992), 32-49; Lorre Marie Weidlich, “Quilting Transformed: An AiUhropological Approach To The Quilt Revival” (PhD. diss.. University of Texas at Austin, 1986), 66,104-120.

* Jane Ellen Pttybysz, “Senthnental Spectacle: The Traffic In (guilts,” ÇPhD. diss.. New York University, 1995), 17-19,23,262-298.

333 than challenged conventional expectations for middle-class white women, it also allowed them to engage in individualistic, non-essential activities and thus to participate in the expansion of women’s roles and opportunities. While steps toward women’s freedom and equality made in this fashion are necessarily small, those steps may be a more realistic option for women for whom the expressions and goals of feminism are off- putting. It is also worth noting that it was precisely the commercialization and consumerization of quiltmakmg that provided the more “liberating” opportunities for these women, so that they have more incentives to continue these trends than abandon them.

334 THE OHIO STATE UNTVERSITY Protocol tfoPtl (O ffief(Rcr. (/m OfUy6,95 APPLICATION FOR EXEMPTION FROM HUMAN SUBJECTS COMMTITEE REVIEW •

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► PROTOCOL TITLE: Quiltmaking in Wayne County. Ohio

* THE ONLY INVOLVEMENT OF HUMAN SUBJECTS IN THE PROPOSED RESEARCH ACTIVITY WILL BE IN ONE OR MORE OF THE EXEMPTION CATEGORIES USTED ON THE BACK OF THIS APPUCATION.

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OSk* Use: EXEMPTION STATUS: 1 / APPROVED DISAPPROVED"

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335 APPENDIX B

SAMPLE PERMISSION FORM

Consent for Participation in an Oral History Interview on Quiltmaking in Wayne County, Ohio

I,______(full name) consent to be interviewed by Valerie S. Rake about my quiltmaking activities now and in the past. The interview process has been explained to me and I have received satisfactory answers to any questions I have asked. I understand that I may decline to answer any parts of the interview I wish and that I can discontinue the interview whenever I choose to do so. Further, I understand that I can revoke my consent to participate in this interview even after it is completed. I have been given a card with the researcher’s name and address so that I may contact her if I have any questions or concerns.

I do / do notagree that this interview may be tape-recorded and transcribed.

I give my authorization for Valerie S, Rake to use the information contained in this interview: yes / no—ina dissertation written for the Department of History at the Ohio State University; yes / no— for any oral presentations that may result firom this research; and yes / n o—for any publications that may result firom this research.

336 I (and members of my family that I may mention) wish to remain anonymous be referred to by a pseudonym______be referred to by my real name in the written or oral works that result firom this interview.

I have read and understood this consent form. The choices circled represent my wishes. I sign this form fireely and voluntarily.

Name: Date:

337 APPENDIX C

SAMPLE INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEW FORM

Individual Questionnaire

Female / Male

Marital Status Year Married

Year of Birth Spouse’s Year of Birth

Religious Affiliation Education Level

Number of Children Number of Siblings F M

E’s Birth Order Gender Age/ Marital Status o f Children Number of Children’s Year of Birth Children

[Personal Income Range Family Income Range

Primary and Past Occupations Occupation Started Job Ended Job Hours Week/Month

Spouse’s Occupations Occupation Started Job Ended Job Hours Week/Month

Residence and how long (name of community; in town, in the country, on a 6rm , etc.) Residence Arrived Left Citv/Town/Rural/Farm

338 What quiltmakîng activities do you do? What do you enjoy most? Why? (piecing, appliqué, quilting, etc.)

When did you leam quiltmaking? From whom? How was this person related to you? (alternate question: How did you meet this person?)

Do you know how the person you learned from teamed how to make quilts? Who did that person team from? (trace this “lineage” as far as the subject can remember.)

Have you taught anyone how to make quilts? Who? When? Why?

Why did you leam to make quilts? Why have you continued making quilts?

How many quilts (or quilt related objects) do you make each month/year? What have you used quilts for and why make them? What other objects do you make and why make them? Has production level or type changed? When? Why?

Have you ever made quilts with or for a group? What group? When? Why? What did the group use the quilts for?

Do you hand sew your quilt tops or use a machine? Or both? Why? Did you used to do differently? When? Why? Do you think hand or machine sewing is more valuable? Why?

Do you quilt your tops by hand or do you use a machine? Or both? Why? Did you used to do differently? When? Why? Do you think hand or machine quilting is more valuable? Why?

339 Do you use any “special” tools or gadgets when you make quilts? What do you use? Why? Where did you get than? When did you start using them? What did you used to use?

Do you read quilting, craft, or other needlework magazines or books? What do you read? How often? Where do you get them? What do you like about them?

What makes a comfort/comforter different than a quilt? What are they used for? When do you remember them having been made? Do you ever make comfbrts&'comforters? When? Why?

Where in your home do you work on your quilts? Does that space have other uses? Why do you work there? Have you ever hM more or less room? When? Why?

How much time (per week/day) do you spend making quilts or quilt related objects? Does this ever conflict with other responsibilities or hobbies? Have you ever spent more or less time quiltmaking? When? Why?

Where do you get the fabrics / battings / linings/ patterns / other that you use for your quilts? Have you ever gotten them from somewhere else? Type of Materials Source of Materials How Paid Why this (new . scraps, used, etc.) /store name. tvoe. etc.) For? Material? fabric battins lining patterns other Have you ever bought a quilt kit or used precut fabrics or “cheater cloth” fix)m a catalog or store? When? Why? Where did you buy it firom? Why did you buy it? How often do you use this method? How do these materials compare costwise with other materials?

340 Have you ever given quilts or comfbrts/comfbrters as gifts? What did you give? Who did you give it to? Why? When did you give it? Who decided on the materials and patterns? How does this gift compare costwise to other gifts?

Have you ever given quilts or comforts/com&rters to social organizations or charities? What organization? ^ e n ? Why? What did they do with it? Who decided, on the materials and patterns? Did you receive anything in return? What? Do you give other kinds of donations as well?

Have you ever paid someone to quilt a top after you had pieced it? Why? Who quilted it? How did you find this person? How much did you pay? Who decided this? Did this seem expensive/cheap? Compared to what?

Have you ever quilted a top that someone else had already made? When? Why? Who made and/or owned the top? What did they pay? Who decided the amount? Who picked the quilting pattern? What did you do with the money?

Have you ever sold a quilt that you had made? When? Why? Who did you sell it to? What did they pay? Who decided the amount? Did you make the quilt especially to sell / What was the quilt’s original purpose? Who decided the materials and patterns? What did you do with the money?

When you have made money firom making quilts, did you have another source of income for yourself? for your family? How did the money firom quiltmaking compare to your other sources of income (amount)? Did you keep your quiltmaking money separate firom your other sources of income? Why?

Do you have other things about quiltmaking that you would like to tell me about?

Do you know someone else who makes quilts that might be interested in doing an interview with me? (name, address, phone number, if possible)

341 APPENDIX D

SAMPLE CHURCH GROUP INTERVIEW FORM

Quilt Group Questionnaire

Pseudonyms / Names and Individual Identifying # of people participating in this interview (if taping, have each person say her name/pseudonym and a few words at the beginning of the tape so her voice can be identified for transcription)

Group Name

Affiliations, if any

Year the group was founded?

Have the group name or its affiliations ever changed? Time Period Name/Affiliation Why Change? Who Made Decisions?

Do you know the names of the founding members? Are they still living? Do they have relatives in the area that I could speak to? Do you know of any quütmakers who don’t belong to a group?

Are there any other things about this group that you would like to talk about?

Group Activities Section

What is the purpose of this group? Has the purpose ever changed?

342 What does the group do at regular meetings (quiltmaking, social activities, worship, etc.)? Where do you meet? How often? For how long? Why this schedule? Has this ever changed?

Does the group ever have special meetings? What are these meetings for? Has this ever changed? When? What did the group do differently?

Where do different activities take place (at meetings? at home? etc?) How has this changed? Why? Piecing Quilting Knotting Binding Other Why do members come to meetings? Have people’s reasons for coming changed? When? Why? Has membership grown or increased? Since when?

Do other people (visitors, children, etc.) ever come to meetings? When and why do they come? Has this ever changed? When? Why?

Why does the group make quilts/comforts? (If group is not primarily a quiltmaking group: when and how often does the group do quiltmaking?) What are the quilts/comforts used for? Have these reasons ever changed? Who makes decisions about makingquilts and how they are used? Has this person/roll ever changed?

Does/did the group make^raise money by quiltmaking? How? When? Why quilts as a fimd-raiser? Were other methods also used? What is the money used for? Who makes decisions about raising and/or using the money?

Where do the fobrics / tops / threads / battings / linings / patterns come feom? Type of Matoials Source of Materials How Paid Why these /new. scraps, used, etc.) fstore name. tvpe. etc.) For? Materials? fabrics tops threads 343 battings linings patterns

Individual Member Information Section

Pseudonym / Name Female / Male

Marital Status______Year Married______

Year of B i r t h ______Spouse’s Year of Birth

Religious Affiliation. Education Level

Number of Children Gender A ge/ Marital Status of Children Number of Children’s Year of Birth Children

[Personal Income Range

Family Income Range __

Primary and Past Occupations Occupation Started Job Ended Job Hours Week/Month

When did you leam quiltmaking? From whom?

Why do you make quilts/comforts with this group?

Do you make quilts/comforts outside of this group? What do you use these for?

Where do you get fabrics / battings / linings?

Where do you get patterns for tops and quilting?

344 APPENDIX E

SAMPLE BUSINESS OWNER INTERVIEW FORM

Quilt Business Questionnaire

If the individual interview was not done:

When was the owner bom?

Is the owner married? What year married? What year was the spouse bom?

How many children does the owner have? What years were the children bom?

How much formal education has the owner had?

What occupations did the owner have before opening/acqumng this business? How long were these occupations held? Where these foil or part time?

What occupations has the owner^s spouse had?

Does the owner live in Wayne county? Where? Has the owner ever lived outside of Wayne county? Where?

Business Name (and affiliations, if any)

What year was the business was founded?

Did the current owner found the business? Who founded it and how was this person related to the current owner? How did the current owner come into possession?

345 What does this business do (retail sales; services; 6bric, patterns, books; finished quilts; classes, etc.)? Have these business activities ever changed? When? What was done in the past? Does any part of the business involve non-quilt related activities (dressmaking and/or crafts fabrics, patterns, or services; finished crafis, etc.)? Have these activities always been part of the business? Are the quilt or non-quilt parts of the business bigger? Which parts were the original purpose?

Where is the business located (storefiront, office space, owner’s home; downtown area, shopping center or mall, residential area)? Has it always been located here? Where was it before? Why did it move?

When is the business open? Do the hours ever change? Have they ever been different? When and how have hours changed?

Does this business have employees besides the owner? How many? How are they related to the owner? What skills are employees required to have? How are potential employees located? Roughly, how much are employees paid? Do they receive benefits? Has this ever changed? When and why?

What parts of the work of running the business does the owner do? What do the employees do? Are consultants or contractors ever used? What for? How many hours does the owner work compared to the employees? Has this ever changed? When and why?

Generally speaking, who are the customers for this business (people fix>m Wayne county, people fiom nearby counties, tourists, etc.)? Do different parts of the business have a different customer base (walk through the different parts)? Has this ever changed? When and how were things different?

Why are people mterested in buying the products or services offered by this business? Has this ever changed? When and why?

346 What kind of advertising does the business use? What kinds are most effective? Why were these methods chosen? Have the advertising methods ever changed? How was advertising handled in the past? When and why?

Who supplies the materials used in this business (fabrics, patterns, batting, thread, finished items, etc.)? How were these contact made? Have the suppliers ever changed? When and why?

How are prices set for the different goods and services? What is the ‘profit margin?” Who determined this? Are some goods/services more profitable than others? Why are less profitable lines maintained? Has this procedure or the relative profits available changed over the years? What had clianged and when?

Who or what is the biggest competitor for this business? Has this always been the case? What was different and when?

Why did the owner start/acquire this business? Does that need still exist, or has the business climate changed and the business fills a different niche?

Is the business profitable? How profitable? Has the amount of profit available changed? When and why? Where does most of the profit come firom? Has this ever changed? When and why?

Is this a ‘^good” business to be in? What makes it good? Has this ever changed? When and why?

Why did the business close/what would cause the owner to close or sell the business? Did the owner know when she started/acquired the business what the conditions for closing it would be?

347 Does the owner recall any quilt-reiated business in the past? When? What kinds of business where they? Do those businesses still exist?

Does the owner make quilts or quilt items in her free time? What activities does she do?

Are there any other things about the business that I should know about?

348 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Sources

Published Sources

Newspapers: Dalton Gazette (Dalton, Ohio). 1875-1971; Dalton Gazette and Kidron News (Dalton, Ohio). 1972-1995 ; Kidron News (Kidron, Ohio). 1934-1971; Orrville Courier-Crescent (Orrville, Ohio). 1911-1995; Shreve News (Shreve, Ohio). 1943-1952; Wooster Daily Republican (Wooster, Ohio). 1900-1920; Wooster Daily News (Wooster, Ohio). 1905-1920; W ooster D aily R ecord (Wooster, Ohio). 1920-1995.

Sears Catalog, Fall Issue, 1915-1985.

Unpublished Sources

BCidron Mennonite Church Archives. Records for the Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 1919-1983; Kidron Junior Sewmg Circle / Dorcas Sisters, 1938- 1966; Willing Workers and Busy Bees, 1953-1970; and WMSC / Women’s Cabinet, 1970-1975. Kidron, Ohio

Records of the Oak Grove Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 1905-1937; and Girls’ Sewing Circle, 1930-1933. Smithville, Ohio. Records in possession of group leaders.

Records of the Ohio Mennonite Relief Sale Board, 1966-1995. Kidron, Ohio. Records in possession of group leaders.

Records o f the Orrville Mennonite Church Tina Royer Circle / Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 1916-1991. Orrville, Ohio. Records m possession o f group leaders.

349 Records of the Salem Mennonite Church Women, in Mission, 1947-1996. Dalton, Ohio. Records m possession of group leaders.

Records of the Smithville Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 1985-1993. Smithville, Ohio. Records in possession o f group leaders.

Records of the Sonnenberg Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission, 1952-1988. Kidron, Ohio. Records in possession of group leaders.

Records of the Sterling United Methodist (formorly United Brethren) Church Ladies Aid Society, 1900-1906,1917-1962. Creston, Ohio. Records m possession of church leaders.

Oral History Interviews (all recordings in possession o fauthor)

Individual Interviews

Baab, RoseMarie. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 7 May 1997.

Bennett, Marian [pseud.]. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 11 June 1997.

Berg, Ha. Tape recorded interview. Walnut Creek, Ohio. 8 May 1997.

Berkey, Mary Lou. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 23 June 1997.

Brown, Ann. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 16 June 1997.

Connors, Martha [pseud.]. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 1 August 1997.

Davis, Sue [pseud.]. Unrecorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 26 July 1997.

Eicholtz, Velma. Tape recorded mterview. Wooster, Ohio. 16 May 1997.

Farnsworth, Alice [pseud.]. Tape recorded interview. Kidron, Ohio. 10 June 1997.

Fetter, Shirley. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 30 May 1997.

Fickes, Jeri. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 1 July 1997.

Forrer, Lola. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 29 May 1997.

Grosser, Marie. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 1 July 1997.

350 Haitzler, Arlene, and Alberta Matheny. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 23 June 1997.

Hewitt, Colleen. Tape recorded interview. Dalton, Ohio. 11 June 1997.

Hodges, Mary. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 13 September 1997.

Horst, Kevin. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 16 June 1997.

Huff, Diana. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 25 June 1997.

Irvin, Joyce. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 4 June 1997.

Karaiskos, Beverly. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 17 June 1997.

Leisy, Allyson. T ^ recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 8 May 1997.

Moomaw, Betty. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 7 May 1997.

Norton, Myma. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 16 May 1997.

Nussbaum, Estella. Tape recorded interview. Apple Creek, Ohio. 10 June 1997.

Parker, Sophy [pseud.], and Jane Wilson [pseud.]. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 17 June 1997.

Partridge, Elizabeth [pseud.]. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 23 October 1997.

Pavlovicz, Phyllis. Tape recorded interview. Moreland, Ohio. 15 August 1997.

Rehm, Mary. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 21 May 1997.

Rohrer, Ella. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 29 May 1997.

Ross, Juanita. Tape recorded interview. Apple Creek, Ohio. 31 July 1997.

Schar, Doris. Tape recorded interview. Creston, Ohio. 16 May 1997.

Shie, Susan. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 18 July 1997.

Simmons, Rachel [pseud.]. Unrecorded mterview. Dundee, Ohio. 6 September 1997.

Smucker, Mabel. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 30 May 1997.

SoUenberger, Thelma. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 23 June 1997.

351 Steffen, Jean, Pauline Gerber, and Sandra Stoltzfiis. Tape recorded interview. Apple Creek, Ohio. 18 September 1997.

Steiner, Mary. Tape recorded interview. Dalton, Ohio. 5 June 1997.

Steiner, Ruth. Tape recorded interview. Dalton, Ohio. 3 June 1997.

Sykes, Ruby. Tape recorded interview. Creston, Ohio. 30 May 1997.

Tokheim, Marilyn. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 31 July 1997.

Yoder, Esther. Unrecorded interview. Apple Creek, Ohio. 18 July 1997.

Church Group Interviews

Members of the Augsburg Lutheran Church Day Center. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 21 May 1997. Participants were Maxine Buss, Mary Chaffin, Esther Dodd, Lola Forrer, Freda May Smith, and Mabel Smucker.

Members of the Chestnut Ridge Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 2 September 1997. Participants were Edith Horst, Mary Steiner, and Evelyn Thompson [pseud.].

MembCTS of the Christian and Missionary Alliance Women’s Alliance. Tape recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 17 July 1997. Participants were Doris Bosley, Evelyn Forfia, and Emma Gonter.

Members of the Crown Hill Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Rittman, Ohio. 24 June 1997. Participants were Barbara Carter [pseud.], Adah Nussbaum, Martha Ramseyer, Rebecca Smith Ijpseud.], Grace Turner [pseud.], and Velma Zimmerly.

Members of the East Chippewa Church of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship. T ^ recorded interview. Orrville, Ohio. 11 June 1997. Participants were Elizabeth Hamilton [pseud.], Katherine Jones [pseud.], Martha Kaufinan, Florence Martin, Thelma SoUenberger, and Tina White jjpseud.].

Members of the BCidron Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Kidron, Ohio. 2 July 1997. Participants were Anna Amstutz and Rosa Kratzer.

Members of the Oak Grove Mennonite Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tzgie recorded interview. Smithvflle, Ohio. 2 July 1997. Participants were Doris Daly, Doris Hahn, and Marilyn Tokheim.

352 Members of the Orrville Mennonite Church Tina Royer Circle / Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Ttçe recorded mterview. Orrville, Ohio. 3 July 1997. Participants were Kathryn Hamsher, Deborah Lawrence [pseud.], and Renee Roth [pseud.].

Members of the Paradise Chinch of the Brethren Women’s Fellowship. Tape recorded interview. Smithville, Ohio. 4 June 1997. Participants were NCllie Blaugh, Maxine Caster, Patricia Darling [pseud.], Arlene Hartzler, Joyce Irvin, Alberta Matheny, and Pearl Murray.

Members of the Salem Meimonite Church Women in Mission. Tape recorded mterview. Kidron, Ohio. 4 June 1997. Participants were Sophy Parker [pseud.], Betty Troyer, and Jane Wilson [pseud.].

Members of the Salem Meimonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 10 June 1997. Participants were Colleen Hewitt, Rose Jensen [pseud.], Estella Nussbaum, and Jennifer Patterson [pseud.].

Members of the Smithville Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 16 May 1997. Participants were Saioma Faib, Virginia Krabill, Lucille Mast, and Ella Rohrer.

Members of the Sonnenberg Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Kidron, Ohio. 9 July 1997. Participants were Gladys Amstutz, Helen Marvin [pseud.], Ellen Nussbaum, Juanita Ross, Jean Steffen, and Francis Underwood [pseud.].

Members of the Wooster Mennonite Church Women’s Missionary and Service Commission. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 3 June 1997. Participants were Marian Bennett [pseud.], Alice Farnsworth [pseud.], and Carol Yoder.

Members of the Wooster United Methodist Church Quilting Group. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 3 June 1997. Participants were Aileen Anderson, Patricia Marr, Dolores Miller, BetQr Moomaw, Margaret Myers, and Rosemarie Sherry.

Business Interviews

Hershberger, Ruth, owner o f C o ^ Comer Quilts. Unrecorded interview. Kidron, Ohio. 1 August 1997.

Hodges, Mary, former owner o f Fabrics Unlimited. Tape recorded mterview. Wooster, Ohio. 13 September 1997.

353 Huf^ Diana, owner of the Quilting Elf. Tape recorded interview. Wooster, Ohio. 25 June 1997.

Lehman, Lena, owner of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe, and Cheryl Gerber, manager of Hearthside Quilt Shoppe. Tape recorded interview. Kidron, Ohio. 15 August 1997.

Pavlovicz, Phyllis, owner of Log Cabin Quilts. Tape recorded interview. Moreland, Ohio. 15 August 1997.

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354 Becker, Jane S. Selling Tradition: Appalachia and the Construction o fan AnKrican Folk, 1930-1940. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Behuniak-Long, Susan. ‘Preserving the Social Fabric: Quilting in a Technological World.” In Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley, 151-68. Columbia: University o f Missouri Press, 1994.

Benberry, Cuesta. Always There: The African-American Preserve in American Quilts. Louisville: The Kentuclty Quilt Project, Inc., 1992.

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Bemick, Susan Ellen. “A Quilt Is an Art Object When It Stands Up Like a Man.” In Q uilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley, 134-50. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994.

Beyer, Jinny. “Sources for Quilt Patterns.” In The Quilter’s Album o fBlocks and Borders. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, Inc., 1980.

Bilger, Audrey. “ ‘A History Reduc’d into Patches’: Patchwork and the Woman Novelist.” In Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley, 18-32. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994.

Bonfîeld, Lynn A. “Diaries of New England Quilters Before 1860.” In Uncoverings 1988, ed. Laurel Horton, 171-97. San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1989.

______. “The Production of Cloth, Clothing, and Quilts in 19th Century New England Homes.” In Uncoverings 1981, ed. Sally Garoutte, 77-96. Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982.

Bower, Anne L. “Reading Lessons.” In Quilt Culture: Tracing the Pattern, ed. Cheryl B. Torsney and Judith Elsley, 33-48. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994.

Brackman, Barbara. “A Chronological Index to Piwed QuHt Patterns, 1775-1825.” hi Uncoverings 1983, ed. Sally Garoutte, 99-127. Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1984.

______. Introduction to Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them, by Ruth Finley. McLean, VA: EPM Publications, 1992.

355 . Patterns o fProgress: Quilts in the Machine Age. Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 1997.

. “Quilts at Chicago’s World’s Fairs.” In Uncoverings 1981, ed. Sally Garoutte, 63-76. Mill Valley, CA: American Quilt Study Group, 1982.

Bradley, Martin B., Norman M. Green Jr., Dale E. Jones, Mac Lynn, and Lou McNeil. Churches and Church Membership in the United States: 1990. An Enumeration by Region, State, and County Based on Data Reported for 133 Church Groupings. Atlanta: Glenmary Research Center, 1992.

Brown, Elsa Barkley. “AMcan-American Women’s Quilting: A Framework for Conceptualizing And Teaching African-American Women’s History.” Sigps 14, no. 4 (1989): 921-29.

Callaharu Nancy. The Freedom Quilting Bee. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1987.

Cemy, Catherine Anne. “A Quilt Guild: Its Role in the Elaboration of Female Identity.” In Uncoverings 1991, ed. Laurel Horton, 32-49. San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1992.

Chapman, S. D. The Cotton Industry in the Industrial Revolution. London: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1987.

Chase, Pattie, and Mimi Dolbier. The Contemporary Quilt: New American Quilts and Fabric Art. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1978.

Clark, Ricky. “Germanic Aesthetics, Germanic Communities.” In Quilts in Community: Ohio’s Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Quilts, Quiltmakers, and Traditions, Ricky Clark, George W. Knepper, and Ellice Ronsheim, 20-45. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991.

______. “Ruth Finley and the Colonial Revival Era.” In Uncoverings 1995, ed. Virginia Gunn, 33-65. San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1995.

Clark, Ricky, George W. Knepper, and Ellice Ronsheim. Quilts in Community: Ohio *s Traditions: Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Quilts, Quiltmakers, and Traditions. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press, 1991.

Clarke, Mary Washington. Kentucky Quilts and Their Makers. The Kentuc^ Bicentennial Bookshelf. Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1976.

Cmiel, Kenneth. A Home o fAnother Kind: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle o f Child Welfare. Chicago: University o f Chicago Press, 1995.

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