Ethnic Quilting Traditions in Magazine Articles 1900Â•Fi1980

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Symposium of the International Quilt Museum International Quilt Museum 4-2009 Ethnic Quilting Traditions in Magazine Articles 1900–1980 Colleen Hall-Patton University of Nevada - Las Vegas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/iqsc4symp Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Hall-Patton, Colleen, "Ethnic Quilting Traditions in Magazine Articles 1900–1980" (2009). Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Symposium of the International Quilt Museum. 9. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/iqsc4symp/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the International Quilt Museum at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Proceedings of the 4th Biennial Symposium of the International Quilt Museum by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Presented at the 4th Biennial Symposium of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum: The Global Quilt: Cultural Contexts, Lincoln, Nebraska, April 2-4, 2009. Copyright © 2009 Colleen Hall-Patton. Ethnic Quilting Traditions in Magazine Articles 1900–1980 Colleen Hall-Patton Abstract Quilting, while often seen as a quintessentially American art form, has a long history throughout the world. Americans’ exposure to other traditions has been intermittent, but reflects other trends in the study of ethnic arts. In the 1950s, interest in folk art overlapped with interest in ethnic art as both create an exotic “other” to readers. Before 1960, that “other” was primarily Hawaiian and European. The 1960s added Cuna molas, and the 1970s saw an explosion of interest in worldwide quilt traditions from Tibetan to Amish. This paper is a content analysis of quilting traditions referenced in magazine articles from 1900 to 1980. The article database was derived from the Read- er’s Guide to Periodical Literature and the Art Index. These indexes provide a replicable source and describe national level magazines of (more or less) popular interest. I reviewed six categories in each index; any articles which included the techniques of applique, piecing, or quilting were included. I examined changes over time, types of magazines, the contexts where ethnic quilts were published, and the intersectionality of gender and ethnicity. y research used magazine articles from 1900 to 1980 to examine how other Methnic quilt traditions were noted and viewed. I used content analysis to examine overall societal views of ethnic quilting. This work is an extension of my dissertation research, which examined approximately 200 magazine articles, ad- vertisements and books published between 1940 and 1971. Magazine articles provide a national level perspective on how quilts were portrayed throughout the twentieth century. In this paper, the articles were used to see how non-Euro-American quilt practices were described. The two indexes used for this research were The Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature and the Arts Index. The Art Index covers magazines aimed primarily at artists, collectors, and industries such as textile manufacturers, while the Reader’s Guide covers magazines aimed at a more general public. While the indices omit specialized needle- 2 COLLEEN HALL-PATTON IN THE GLOBAL QUILT: CULTURAL CONTEXTS (2009) work magazines like Workbasket and Quilter’s Newsletter, or farming and ranching magazines with homemaker columns, they do provide a consistent, accessible, and replicable index. They also provided a more popular view than specialized publications like pattern catalogs which were marketed to those already inter- ested in quilting. The articles were predominantly written by designers, home furnishing ed- itors, artists, and other experts, thus skewing the articles towards idealized and marketable representations of quilting. While the articles tended to focus on cul- turally valued artifacts such as rare 19th century quilts, they demonstrate how quilts, quilt culture, and the role of quilts in American culture were described to the more general public, what values were applied, and what were common un- derstandings and assumptions about quilts. The study focused on articles from six headings: a) applique, b) bedding, c) counterpanes, d) needlework, e) patchwork, f) quilts, and g) sewing. Within these categories, I excluded titles that were obviously not quilt related, such as ones on bedframes or woven coverlets. Articles were included if they used or referenced at least one of the three main quilt methods (patchwork, applique, or quilting) and mentioned quilting or quilters outside the United States or ethnic quilters within the U.S. The line between folk art and ethnic art has not always been clear, even in the articles themselves, where the terms were sometimes used interchangeably. I defined a somewhat arbitrary line for quilting inside the United States that included African American, Amish, Hawaiian, and Native American quilting as American grown, though part of distinct cultures, but excluded Appalachian and Pennsylvania Dutch quilting, often seen as holdovers of 19th century American traditions. The sense of ‘othering’ and exoticism also existed for these two quilt traditions, but there was a greater sense of looking at those traditions as ‘one of ours.’ The boundary was clearly made in a 1978 Essence article which noted the study of Pennsylvania Dutch and Appalachian quilters, but not Black quilters (Bray and Freeman 1978, p.112). In this case, Bray’s criticism was supported by the fact that, through 1980, African American quilting had yet to appear in any magazines aimed at a more general population. Overall trends Overall, there was a huge increase in the number of articles in the 1960s, which doubled again in the 1970s (see Table 1). The impact of the quilt revival is evident in how the overall number of articles nearly tripled to 172 in the 1970s. While the 1930-1959 time period had articles on two or three ethnic groups, the 1960s mentioned four groups and the 1970s mentioned nine. Thus the increase was in both the quantity of articles and the variety of cultures described. The highest number of articles were written about Cuna molas (10 articles), followed by Hawaiian (eight articles), British (four articles), and African Amer- ETHNIC QUILTING TRADITIONS IN MAGAZINE ARTICLES 1900–1980 3 Table 1. Article counts and percentages by decade Decade ethnic %ethnic overall articles articles articles 1900-19 0 0.0% 37 1920-29 1 4.4% 23 1930-39 4 8.2% 49 1940-49 4 6.2% 65 1950-59 2 4.4% 46 1960-69 9 14.1% 64 1970-79 18 9.9% 172 Total: 38 456 ican quilts (three articles). Amish, Canadian, Fons (Dahomey), French, German, Indian, Irish, Native American, Samoan, Spanish, and Tibetan quilting practices were referenced in only one or two articles each. In looking at the quilt methods mentioned in the ethnic quilting articles, over 90% of the articles described work that included applique; more than 50% included quilting. Patchwork was referenced in just over 25% of the articles, but two thirds of those were found in North America. Embroidery was also mentioned in approximately 25% of the articles. Applique has often been seen as hav- ing greater freedom of design, and thus being more art-like because its designs are curvilinear and representative rather than geometric and abstract like piecing. Like paint and embroidery, it is “applied” to a background canvas or fabric. Pictorial work, where applique was often used as another embellishment method along with embroidery, was far more prevalent than geometric designs. I categorized the articles from both indexes by the type of magazines in which they appeared. The six types, based on the magazine’s primary purpose and/or market, were: women’s, home/shelter, antique/collecting, art/museum, scholarly, and general/other. The majority of articles were found in magazines from the home, antique, and museum categories. While home/shelter type magazines such as House Beautiful and Better Homes and Gardens are primarily geared towards women, it is especially striking that, except for Essence, women’s magazines did not carry a single article on ethnic quilting over 80 years of publishing. The Arts Index, with its more cutting edge artistic magazines, had more articles on ethnic quilting than Reader’s Guide. The more conservative a magazine category seemed to be, the less likely they were to portray nonstandard quilt practices. This lack of ethnic quilting articles demonstrates the conservative nature of women’s magazines. As a similar example, from my dissertation research, 34 of almost 200 articles from 1940 to 1971 questioned the status quo concern- ing quilting. Here also, not a single article was published in a women’s magazine, though three articles appeared in home magazines and one in a general 4 COLLEEN HALL-PATTON IN THE GLOBAL QUILT: CULTURAL CONTEXTS (2009) magazine aimed primarily at women. The absence of women’s magazines from these discussions substantiates Betty Friedan’s claim that magazines were a re- pressive force for women (Meyerowitz 1994:231). Articles on ethnic quilting followed a similar pattern. I also categorized articles by their primary purpose. These included: a) antiques, b) how-to, c) exhibition notice/review, d) about people, e) about folk/ethnic art, and f) scholarly/industry. Some articles were coded in more than one category, such as antiques and how-to. The greatest number of articles (almost 25%), were written to elicit interest in museum exhibits. Even when not the focus of the article, museums or galleries were mentioned in 21 of 38 articles (55%). Articles about objects identified as antiques or museum pieces were written almost exclusively between 1925 and 1950. Antique quilts were also the primary type of quilt featured in the articles on ex- hibitions.

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