Uncovering the past

Material Witnesses: Quilts and Their Makers

Opens May 29 at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum

Material Witnesses: Quilts and Their Makers features textiles made as close as Virginia and as far away as the Polynesian Islands. Colonial Williamsburg curators have uncovered the stories of the past through the study and research of these quilts and coverlets, some of which were created as early as the 1830s.

Like the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt, quilts can tell us a lot about the past and the people who created them. Sometimes the meanings are obvious, while other textiles reveal their tales more quietly, their stories teased out only through determined research into the genealogical roots of the makers.

About the Quilts and Makers

Quilt Makers Offer Glimpse of Regional Life

Jemima Parmalee Prentice was a New York quilter whose creations passed down through her family until they were donated to Colonial Williamsburg by her great-great-grandsons.

Virginia Alsop of Virginia began quilting as an unmarried girl and continued to quilt as a widow in her 70s.

The Midwest region of America is represented by the embroidered bedcovering of Virginia-born Esther Griffith, who moved to Indiana in the 1860s.

See the bold, large patterns and cutting techniques of the Pacific territory in the appliqued quilt from the Polynesian Islands, whose maker is unidentified.

Twentieth-century quilts made by African American women in the Gee’s Bend area of rural Alabama reveal a lively and distinctive quilting style. Similar quilts traveled the country in recent exhibitions.

Quilts Tell Stories through Fabric Pieces

Learn about friendship quilts, which were often shared efforts to commemorate an event or to honor a person.

Find out why crazy quilts, known for their seeming disregard for symmetry, are actually well- thought-out designs, and see an example made in 1886 by 20 women of The Ladies of the First Presbyterian Church in Reedsburg, Wisconsin, as a gift for the pastor and his wife.

Marvel at the works of weaver David Daniel Haring, who produced more than 30 coverlets from 1833 to 1835. His techniques combined the typical style of New Jersey weavers, Dutch designs and symbols, and his own signature logo.

The exhibit is funded by Mary and Clinton Gilliland of Menlo Park, Calif., through the Turner Gilliland Family Fund of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.