Joanna S. Rose is a graduate of Bryn Mawr College, and an honorary fellow of St. Hilda’s College, Oxford University. She served on the boards of the literary journal Partisan Review and the groundbreaking children’s theater group, the Paper Bag Players.

The yellow-orange color found in pre-1880s “cheddar” quilts was produced with chrome orange, a mineral dye derived from crocoite, a hard, metallic element. Chromium, a by-produce of crocoite, was identified as a dye source by the French chemist Louis N. Vauquelin in 1797. Chrome orange was introduced as a pigment in 1809, and became popular in the 1820s, following the discovery of chromium deposits in Britain, France, and the United States. 

Mineral dyes like chromium, also known as pigment dyes, were mixed with a binding agent, applied directly to the surface of a fabric, and then heat-set. The process was simpler and less costly than vat-dyeing, which required submerging fabric in a dyebath. In addition to a more efficient method, mineral dyes produced brighter, more colorfast hues than organic dyes extracted from plant or animal sources.

The discovery, in the late 1850s, of pigments produced from coal-tar products—most famously, mauve—introduced the aniline or synthetic dyes that supplanted mineral dyes. Synthetic dyes were cheaper, more consistent, and safer, and by 1900, virtually all dyed or printed fabrics were produced using synthetic pigments. 

The distinctive yellow-orange color now known as “cheddar” first appeared in the U.S. in Pennsylvania German album quilts. These grid-like designs were composed of different blocks featuring appliquéd floral motifs in reds and greens, with orange accents.

Pieced, repeat-block designs overtook the appliqué style in the decades following the Civil War, and orange dominated pieced patterns like Irish Chain, Drunkard’s Path, and Log Cabin. In the 1880s and 1890s—the heyday of cheddar quilts—orange was a common element in two- and three-color quilts, where it was often combined with analogous reds and yellows, and complementary blues and greens.

The popularity of orange quilts persisted in the twentieth century. Common patterns of the 1920s and 1930s—Double Wedding Ring, Grandmother’s Flower Garden, Dresden Plate—were rendered in palettes that included orange fabrics produced from the superior German dye recipes that were introduced to the U.S. as war reparations after World War I

In the early 1800s, German immigrants from Switzerland, and the Palatine and Upper Rhine regions of Germany represented a majority of southeastern Pennsylvania’s population. Along with the Germans who settled in Virginia and North Carolina, these immigrants incorporated the bright colors and bold designs of their traditional folk arts into their quilts.

The households of these new Americans contained many items decorated with a visual vocabulary transplanted from home. Wedding chests, ceramics, and commemorative certificates were typically painted with symmetrical, nature-inspired motifs. Samplers and household linens were embroidered with similar pictorial elements. As Pennsylvania Germans became politically active, they decorated their domestic objects with patriotic emblems like stars and eagles. 

In the 1840s, the designs found on Pennsylvania German furniture, linens, and documents were adapted and incorporated into appliqué album quilts. These early cheddar quilts, typified by a particular folk art aesthetic, and color schemes of reds, oranges, and greens, became popular across the east coast region, and throughout the western states of Ohio and Indiana.