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Nebraska Quilt Project

Nebraska Quilt Project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

International Quilt Museum | University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections

The Nebraska Quilt Project began in 1987 under the leadership of Lincoln Quilt Guild member Frances Best in collaboration with 20 members of the Lincoln Quilters Guild and in consultation with Dr. Patricia Crews, University of Nebraska Professor of Textiles, and Dr. Ronald Naugle, Nebraska Wesleyan University Professor of History. The project members worked together to register over 3,000 quiltmakers and almost 5,000 quilts made in Nebraska or brought to the state by homesteaders or pioneers before the 1920s. The findings of the project were published in Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers (Lincoln, Neb: University of Nebraska Press, 1991.) The records, slides, and archival materials related to the project are in the collections of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries Archives & Special Collections.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Libraries is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, with holdings of approximately three million volumes. Among its 9,000 linear feet of archival and manuscript materials in the Archives/Special Collections are notable collections on folklore and folk arts, Great Plains history and literature, U.S. military and wartime history, and ethnic American collections. The folk arts collections include extensive materials on quilts, quilting, and quiltmakers. UNL is also the home of the International Quilt Study Center (IQSC), established in 1997 as a result of the donation of more than 900 quilts by collectors Ardis and Robert James. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln responded to the Jameses’ gift by establishing the International Quilt Study Center and creating a graduate program in Textile History with an emphasis in Quilt Studies within the Department of Textiles, Clothing and Design in the College of Education and Human Sciences. The program, which encourages scholarship and nurtures the appreciation of quilts as art and their significant cultural history, is the only one of its kind in existence.

View the NQP documentation forms: (pdf file format)
    Quilt Analysis
    Quiltmaker Information
    Quiltowner Information

Project description provided by the Nebraska Quilt Project.



View all records in this project