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Detroit News Quilt History Project
Edith as she appeared in her column in 1932.
Edith in 1950.
Edith in retirment, 1957
Initial research on quilt history and the Detroit News was conducted in by Marsha MacDowell, curator at the Michigan State University Museum in East Lansing, Michigan. She first became aware of the Quilt Club Corner when, as a teenager, she inherited the quilt scrapbook of her great-grandmother, Alice Ginger Lane, filled with clippings of the column and correspondence with fellow quilt club members. She published on her research as part of an essay in Ruth D. Fitzgerald and Marsha MacDowell, eds. Michigan Quilts: 150 Years of a Textile Tradition (MSU Press, 1987) and in an article entitled “Quilting with The Detroit News,” Quilter's Newsletter Magazine, April 2002, 53–59.
In 1985, Dr. Harriet Clarke brought her quilts to a Quilt Documentation Day sponsored by the Michigan Quilt Project and the Michigan State University Museum. Clarke's mother, grandmother and aunt had made dozens of quilts, many made with patterns from the Detroit News. When she donated her family quilts to the Michigan State University Museum, she included clippings from The Quilt Club Corner, where her grandmother was a member.
California-based quilt researcher Susan Salser also became interested in researching The Detroit News Club Corner as her grandmother, Mary Gasperik, was a master quiltmaker who was a member of The Quilt Club Corner. Gasperik entered contests and garnered much praise from Edith Barton Crumb. In 1992 Karen Finn and Susan Salser assisted The Amador Valley Quilt Guild in organizing an exhibition of Mary Gasperik's quilts. In the ensuing 15 years, Salser located or identified Gasperik’s corpus of quilts and worked to identify every single quilt pattern, quilting design, or packaged quilt kit that her grandmother used. This led Salser to an exhaustive search of the Detroit News (and some Detroit Free Press) looking for quilt patterns and links to Gasperik. At her local library she requested microfiche files of the Detroit News and shared scanned digital files of them with the Michigan Quilt Project.
Mary Worrall and Beth Donaldson of the MSU Museum worked closely with Salser and MSU students to insure that the Detroit News files, with permission from the Detroit News, are presented in the Quilt Index. This work was supported by a grant from the Salser Family Foundation and the Harriet Clarke Quilt Endowment.
Read How I Researched the Mary Gasperik Collection by Susan Salser, here.
Salser's notes on The Detroit News Quilt Club columns are here.
-- Marsha MacDowell, August 2020
View all records in this project
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Documentation Project
Michigan Quilt Project Michigan State University
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Quiltmaker
Clarke, Bozena Michigan Quilt Project
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Quiltmaker
Clarke, Laura May Michigan Quilt Project
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Quiltmaker
Voelker, Bertha Michigan Quilt Project
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Quiltmaker
Lane, Alice Michigan Quilt Project
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Legacy
Gasperik Legacy Project, Mary -
Quiltmaker
Gasperik, Mary Mary Gasperik Legacy Project
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Ephemera
Alice Lane Scrapbook
Lane, Alice
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Collection
Clarke Family Quilt Collection
Michigan State University Museum
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Essay
Mary Gasperik and the Detroit...
Salser, Susan
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Ephemera
Trip Around the World-Reproductions fr...
MacDowell, Marsha
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Ephemera
Quilt Patterns and Contests of the Oma...
Stehlik, Jan
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Collection
Janet E. Finley Collection of Quilt Hi...
Finley, Janet E.
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Ephemera
Womenfolk 08. Depression Era Quilts: C...
Breneman, Judy Anne
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1939
Tree of Life Voelker, Bertha
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1935-1940
Colonial Quilting... Gasperik, Mary
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1937 circa
Double Feather St... Gasperik, Mary
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1938-1940
Hungarian Harvest... Gasperik, Mary
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1936
Wedding Quilt Gasperik, Mary
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1944
Calla Lilies Gasperik, Mary
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1956
Bridal Bouquet Gasperik, Mary
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1993
Double Feather St... Gasperik, Mary
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1936
Four Little Pigs Gasperik, Mary
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1938
Roses and Forget ... Gasperik, Mary
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1939
Old-Time Nosegay Gasperik, Mary
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1935
Laurel Wreath Gasperik, Mary
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1936
Cottage Behind th... Gasperik, Mary
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1939
Antique Urn Clarke, Laura May
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1934
Flower Garden Clarke, Bozena Vilh...
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1930-1949
Handy Andy Clarke, Bozena Vilh...
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1944
Rags and Tatters Clarke, Bozena Vilh...
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1942
Rose Basket Clarke, Bozena Vilh...
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1933
Trip Around the W... Clarke, Laura May
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1935
Colonial Sewing B... Miller, Marjorie
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c1930
Horoscope Miller, Marjorie
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4/14/1937
The Airplane Quil... Miller, Marjorie
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1935
Tiger Pennant Bas... Ansell, Stuart
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1932
Friendship's Park... Schlenter, Emma
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1930-1949
Dresden Plate Sig... -
1938
Georgian Marquardt, Edna
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