Joyce Gross’ collection is housed in the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. Her collection includes more than 200 quilts and quilt tops. Her related research materials, include books, journals, exhibit catalogs, subject and biographical files, patterns and kits, visual materials, and ephemera documenting twentieth-century quilting history.

Dates: 1800-2006
Extent: 320 ft.

Content: Joyce Gross is a native Californian with a passion for quilts and a deep curiosity about the lives of their makers. She spent nearly forty years assembling this extraordinary collection and is widely recognized as one of the foremost authorities on twentieth-century American quilt making.

Joyce's career as a quilt historian, publisher, teacher, and collector has been critical in promoting the study of quilt history in the United States. She shared her love of the art with the public by organizing quilting tours throughout the nation; hosting her celebrated annual quilting retreat in Point Bonita, California; and founding and publishing the Quilters' Journal from 1977 to 1987. In 1980, Joyce helped organize the American Quilt Study Group. In recognition of her many contributions to American quilting, Joyce Gross was inducted into the Quilter's Hall of Fame in 1996. She is considered a "Quilt Treasure" by the Quilt Alliance.

Her historically important quilt collection numbers more than 200 quilts and quilt tops, including quilts by American quilters from the late 1930s to 2002, including Pine Hawkes Eisfeller's The Garden (1938) and Tree of Life (1939). In 1999, the Ultimate Quilt Search named these two Eisfeller quilts as among the twentieth-century’s one hundred best American quilts. Other prominent twentieth-century American quilters whose works are represented in the Joyce Gross collection include Bertha Stenge, Emma Andres, Florence Peto, and Dr. Jeannette Throckmorton. The 1804 Quilted Crewel quilt in the collection is the earliest dated quilt in the Briscoe Center's Winedale Quilt Collection. The study of these textiles are supported by Joyce’s extraordinary collection of related research materials, including books, journals, exhibit catalogs, subject and biographical files, patterns and kits, visual materials, and ephemera documenting twentieth-century quilting history.