1880-1889

Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt History Photographs

UnCased Tintype c. 1875-1885
Photographer: Unknown
Size: Sixth Plate (2.625" x 3.25")

What the quiltmaker called this pieced star block is not known, but by the end of the nineteenth century, the Ladies' Art Company, founded in St. Louis by H. M. Brockstedt and credited as the first mail-order quilt pattern company, called this block a Hexagonal Star. Pattern companies have been known to give quilt patterns new names upon publication.

-- With permission of the publisher, excerpted from Janet E. Finley, Quilts in EveryDay Life 1855-1955 (Schiffer Publishing, 2012).