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The “Cooish” Rescue of the Quilt in Harry Kelly’s Cottage

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From Uncoverings 2013, Volume 34 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group

2013

By: Cheek, Dr. Cheryl

Cheryl Cheek is an Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State Mont Alto. For fifteen years, she has been researching identity, or how individuals define who they are. She is particularly interested in studying how a sense of self develops and also how it is expressed over a lifetime. She believes that as people go through their lives, they have new opportunities to express different aspects of their identities. One way that Cheryl researches the way individuals express their identities is through their use of "identity kits," or the objects that they keep near them. In particular, she has studied the ways in which Amish, Appalachian, and Mormon quilters, as well as quilters on the Isle of Man, express their identities through quilting.