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The Elizabeth Stanton Inscribed Quaker Quilt

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From Uncoverings 2015, Volume 36 of the Research Papers of the American Quilt Study Group

2015

By: Terrell, Terry Tickhill

Abstract: Elizabeth Stanton, a young Quaker girl, created an inscribed, one pattern, allograph quilt with dates ranging from 1856 to 1865. The quilt contains fifty- three names, said by the quilter’s descendants to be family and friends who were members of the Stillwater Monthly Meeting. In examining that claim, it became clear that deaths in the quilter’s family, religious upheaval, and historic events including the Civil War were pertinent to the construction and meaning of the quilt to the quilter herself. This study documents the identities of the names inscribed on the quilt, describes the quilter’s life and times, and attempts to show how they imbued the quilt with significance to the quilter.

Terry T. Terrell is an independent quilt researcher with a wide range of inter­ests in textile design and production, quilts from the eighteenth and nine­teenth centuries, and the influences of historic and social forces on the lives of quilters and their quilts. Dr. Terrell received a B.S. in Botany and Ph.D. in Ecology. She spent a thirty-year career as a scientific researcher and supervisor of researchers. Upon retirement, she shifted her research interests to quilt history. She has taught numerous quilting classes and has taken the Quilt History class from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She was instrumental in founding the High Plains Quilt Study Group serving southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado.