Dated 1986
Elkhorn, Nebraska
Gift of the artist, 2005.011.0001

“The Promise” was a finalist in the Great American Quilt contest hosted by the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City in 1986, which commemorated the centennial of the Statue of Liberty.

Peters’s quilt represents the symbolism of the Statue of Liberty by embodying the hopeful spirit of new immigrants gazing across the American landscape. Peters used several techniques to focus the eye of the viewer towards the landscape including both the pointed hand of one of the silhouettes as well as the vertical quilting lines of the pier on which the immigrant family stands, pointing to the future.