1988

Union County Historical Society

Union County, Pennsylvania, United States

The Union County Historical Society's Oral Traditions Project organized a three day symposium where this paper was presented in conjunction with a quilt exhibit at Bucknell University in 1987. It was published in Pieced By Mother: Symposium Papers, 1988.

Acknowledgments

In 1985 and 1987 three-day long quilt symposia were held at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, in conjunction with major quilt exhibitions based on original research in central Pennsylvania by the Oral Traditions Project. The results of those exhibitions and symposia have now been published with grant support from a variety of groups, including the Pennyslvania Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Oral Traditions Project will next focus its research efforts on the evolution of the dowry in Pennsylvania. The goal is another exhibition and publication held in conjunction with a quilt symposium in the spring of 1990. This time the symposium will be at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. At the same time the Heritage Center of Lancaster County is concentrating on Lancaster dowry quilts. Their findings will be the result of quilt search days and documentation. As in the past, when the next symposium is held, there will be simultaneous related exhibitions at area museums and historical societies.

To bring such multi-faceted efforts as the past two quilt symposia to fruition necessitates contributions from many talented and dedicated people, each individual searching through new and familiar materials, accessing their findings and formulating often new ideas - a job sometimes mind-expanding, never dull. We were fortunate indeed, to have had so many fine collaborators on this last symposium. Their material is in this volume. Most of the papers follow in the order in which they were presented: focussing first on different ethnic groups in Pennsylvania and their traditions (the Anglo-Saxons, the Quakers, the Pennsylvania Germans, the Hmong) followed by the issue of "plain" versus "fancy" quiltmaking, and then the plainest of the plain, the "hap," and its cousin the Australian "wagga." The second day dealt with quilt types as they evolved over time and in relation to each other: quilts made of hexagonal pieces - first in template construction, then pieced, friendship or album quilts, fundraisers of all sorts, the Crazy phenomenon, and finally the colonial revival movement. Concluding the conference were papers on the source of pattern names, the latest thoughts on care and conservation, as well as quilt documentation efforts. The film Hearts and Hands, a social history of women and quilts in the nineteenth century, was previewed with Pat Ferrero and Julie Silber, co-producers present.

Allen Keyser's article on Pennsylvanian German bedding is reprinted here in a slightly abbreviated form with permission of the Pennsylvania German Society, which first published it in Appalachian Journal (Autumn 1982) and then in North Carolina Folkore Journal (Fall/Winter 1982) and their permission allows us to make it available again in its entirety. By truly serendipitous coincidence Annette Gero, an Australian quilt scholar, was able to extend her visit to the United States and to attend the symposium and share with us some of her research on historical Australian quilts.

The papers represent just part of the excitement of bringing together quilt owners, dealers, makers, collectors, magazine writers and editors, researchers, museum personnel, and the curious for three days of lectures and discussion. Each group was challenged and moved by the presentations. Such was our intent - that quilts not be isolated from the circumstances of their creations, but rather be placed within their social, technical, and cultural contexts. We think we succeeded and we welcome your responses. Ideas of additional research which might be undertaken or refined are not lacking since the public and the scholars in this field are constantly urging each other to explore deeper and further.

I especially want to thank the following individuals for their dedicationxs in making the 1987 symposium such a tremendous success: the speakers Tandy Hersh, Patricia Herr, Alan Keyser, Sally Peterson, Geralding Johnson, Annette Gero, Virginia Gunn, Ricky Clark, Dorothy Cozart, Penny McMorris, and Barbara Brackman, whose papers and visual materials were uniformly excellent; the audience which responded with thoughtful concerns and questions added dynamism; and Oral Traditions staf members: Emily Blair, Diana Lasansky, Martha Root, Elsbeth Steffensen, and Sue Taylor as well as the Center Gallery staff coordinated by assistant director, Cynthia Peltier. All were responsible for meeting the needs of over three hundred people and making the event memorable.

Jeannette Lasansky
April 1988