Uncased tintype
c.1875-85
Photographer unknown
Original size: Sixth plate (2.625” x 3.25”)
From the collection of Janet Finley

The elderly couple appears innocent of any fashion pretensions, and both have expressions of a life of hard, sober work. Her right hand looks like it is clasping a book, most likely a Bible or hymnal. Her thin hair is unfashionably pulled back from the face. The loose fit on the elderly gentleman’s notched sack suit depicts an older jacket styles and has a worn look. The man’s white shirt goes collarless and is worn under his single breasted, shawl-less, three button vest. In this era, it was considered proper to wear your vest buttoned at all times.

Cabinet card
Dated 1904
Photographer: Unknown
Original size: 4.25” x 6.5”
From the collection of Janet Finley

A young lady, Dora Petty-Wood (1881-1943) of Scottsville, Kentucky, is having her full-length portrait taken by a photographer. Behind her is a scrappy pieced quilt sometimes called Spider Legs today, though what Dora would have called it is unknown. On October 2, 1904, at age 23, Dora married James Wood, a widower twenty-nine years her senior. A great-grandson of Dora believes this photograph was taken shortly after her wedding and that she is displaying her bridal gifts. Dora and James had a long and successful marriage, producing six children.

Focus on Fashion: 
Dora’s dress speaks of the 1890s. Skirts were made so plainly in this decade that all of the dressmaker’s ingenuity was focused on the bodice with frills, gathers, tucks, pleats and fancy collars, especially toward the latter half of the 1890s. Skirts were wide at the hem and smooth over the hips from which they flared dramatically in a tulip or bell shape.

Tobacco premium quilt
c. 1915-1925
Possibly made in North Carolina
IQM, Ardis and Robert James Collection, 1997.007.0902

Three siblings pose outdoors for their portrait taken by Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, photographer, Joseph G. Morris. The baby is covered by a quilt made from especially large flannel tobacco premiums, many of which feature an American flag. Like the flags in the photo, the American flags on this quilt have 48 stars, indicating they were printed after 1912, when New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and 48th states. 

The American Tobacco Company’s James B. Duke is credited with introducing collectible cards as premiums to promote sales of cigarettes, a gimmick adopted by competing firms as well. Beginning in the 1890s, printed fabric premiums began to replace the cards, which by this time were waning in popularity.  Tobacco product manufacturers began to include cloth premiums with subject matter designed to appeal to women, who promptly incorporated them into quilts. 

Cabinet card
c.1889-96
Photographer: R. H. Ripsom & Co., Fairmont, Nebraska
Original size: 4.25” x 6.5”
From the collection of Janet Finley

This charming cabinet card pictures a little girl with brush in hand about to comb her doll’s hair. Propped up on the ground and next to her straw hat is a doll-sized Crazy quilt, which appears to include velvet fabrics.

The photograph was taken in the portrait studio of F. H. Ripsom and Company in Fairmont, Nebraska. Notice the similarity between the fan decoration in the studio backdrop and the appliqued fan in the corner of the typical 19th-century Crazy quilt pictured here. The quilt was likely made in the 1890s but was supplemented with a lace border in the late twentieth century by Joan White, a collector and quiltmaker who enjoyed giving new life to old quilts that she found at antique stores and estate sales.

Cabinet card
c.1900-03
Photographer unknown
Original size: 4.25” x 6.5”
From the collection of Janet Finley

Doc Grisham’s family came together for a family reunion portrait at their historic Dade County, Missouri, homestead. Dade County is located in the Southwest portion of the Missouri Ozarks. A Seven Sisters quilt can be seen to the right side of the group, likely made by one of the three adult women. 

Mounted photograph
c.1897-1900
Photographer unknown
Original size: 4” x 5.5” on a 5.5” x 8” mount
From the collection of Janet Finley

It took two Crazy quilts to cover the background for this outdoor family portrait. A large rock appears to be anchoring the bottom edge of the Crazy quilt on the right. 

The facial expressions on the family are all quite stern and serious as they stare into the camera’s lens. In addition, the adults are all wearing black, the Victorian color for mourning. Could they have experienced a recent death in the family? The older lady is holding a handkerchief. Perhaps she is grieving the recent loss of her husband.

Focus on Fashion:
Although black was a favorite fashion color during the late Victorian era, it was also the color for mourning clothes; however, as here, children were not expected to wear black during the mourning period. 

We know that the baby the mother is holding is a little boy because his part is on one side of his head and not in the middle. Side parts were generally given to boys and middle parts to girls. Both boy and girl infants wore the white cotton day dress we see on this little boy.

Carte de visite (“Visiting Card”)
c.1868-69
Photographer: P. S. Weaver, Hanover, Pennsylvania
Original size: 2.5” x 4”
From the collection of Janet Finley

Post mortem images are almost never made today; in fact, they are virtually taboo. However, during the 19th century, they were a treasured keepsake that memorialized a family member. With high infant mortality, post mortem photographs such as this were often the only image of the child that the family ever had.  They document a personal tragedy. 

Can you imagine going through the trauma of Civil War battles fought in your backyard and then having to deal with the death of a child shortly thereafter? This is exactly what happened to Dr. Horace Alleman and his wife, Rebecca, residing in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Of the Allemans’ ten children, only five survived to adulthood.

Little Anna Cornelia was born January 17, 1865. She lived 3 or 4 years before passing away sometime in 1868 or 1869. Anna rests peacefully under an appliquéd leaf quilt. The photograph was found in an album filled with children’s images from the Alleman family. The name “Father Alleman” is inscribed in pencil on this particular album page. 

On the carte de visite’s reverse, the photographer’s stamp reads: From P.S. Weaver’s Photograph Gallery, Baltimore Street, Hanover, Pennsylvania. Peter S. Weaver, son of Samuel Weaver, operated his studio in Hanover around 1862. He was a renowned photographer in the Gettysburg, Abbottstown, Hanover, and Baltimore area of Pennsylvania until 1910. His father, Samuel, was one of Gettysburg’s first photographers, operating his studio from 1852-1865. 

Cased Melainotype tintype 
c.1856
Photographer unknown
Original size: Sixth plate (2.625” x 3.25”)
From the collection of Janet Finley

A young man, dressed in an ornate vest and cravat, is lying post mortem, covered with an Eight Pointed Star quilt; a second quilt, pieced in rectangles and half-square triangles, is seen beneath him. His chin whiskers are visible but there is no mustache, as was fashionable at this time. This is the oldest photograph featured in the exhibition. 

Albumen print 
c.1900
Photographer: Unknown
Original size: 5” x 7”
From the collection of Janet Finley

This fragile albumen print is a photograph of the Byrn family, taken in Missouri, that includes a family quilt as a backdrop. The quilt’s appliquéd pattern block is known as Turkey Tracks or Wandering Foot. In the back row, hanging from a cord, is a framed family genealogy containing portraits of Byrn family ancestors inserted into prepared ovals. The title “Family Record” is printed at the document’s top and an open book rests below, presumably for writing in additional family names. It was a common practice in the Victorian era to incorporate the memory of departed loved ones into a family photograph and the resulting images are sometimes called “remembrance photos.”

The patriarch of this family was Arthur Byrn (seated). His father, Daniel Joel Byrn, emigrated from Ireland to Holland to Halifax, Nova Scotia, finally settling in Hastings, Ontario. Later, after moving several more times, Arthur’s family ended up in far southeastern Missouri. There he made a home, raised his family, and died there on the family farm. 

The Byrn family’s long tradition of quilting continued well into the twentieth century. One descendent remembers quilting parties at his grandmother Byrn’s home in the early 1950s, when he was a young boy. He recalled, “Neighbor ladies would come over and sit around a quilting frame set-up in the living room. I was just old enough to be a pest. I thought it was great fun to crawl around under the quilt and pretend it was a tent.” 

Mounted photograph
c.1899-1905
Photographer unknown
Original size: 6” x 8” on a 10” x 12” mount
From the collection of Janet Finley

A large family of eight children and a mother, father, and grandfather pose before a pieced Union Square quilt. A framed portrait, most likely the deceased grandmother, is hung in front of the quilt. This photograph is an example of the so-called “remembrance photography” that Victorian-era Americans were so fond of staging. 

The photograph was taken outdoors: witness the wood siding and the porch’s rough plank flooring. This photograph is probably the work of a traveling photographer as it contains all the hallmarks: taken outdoors, a quilt backdrop provided by the family, and the family’s pose (some standing, some seated).

The first mail-order quilt pattern company in the United States, the Ladies Art Company, called this pattern #160 “Union.” The pattern was available for purchase sometime between 1889 and 1895. In later years, the block became known as Four Crowns, Union Block, and Union Square.

Cabinet card 
c.1885-93
Photographer: Sherburne, Barre, Vermont
Original size: 4.25” x 6.5”
From the collection of Janet Finley

Barre, Vermont, photographer Fred W. Sherburne captured an elderly quiltmaker in the process of doing what she perhaps loved most—creating quilts. She appears to be working on Log Cabin blocks for a “potholder” quilt, a modern term for a quilt whip-stitched together from individually quilted and bound blocks. Recent research has shown that the “potholder” technique was popular in New England during the mid-nineteenth century. It is likely that this quiltmaker learned the “potholder” technique back in the 1860s or early 1870s and continued to enjoy doing it. 

Focus on Fashion:
A white lace frill finishes the cuffs of the woman’s close fitting sleeves, and her bodice front is fastened with tiny close-set buttons, both a distinct fashion feature of the early 1880s. Her little black bonnet is neatly tied in a soft bow under her chin, and her skirt is comfortably gathered at the waist.

Mounted photograph 
c.1897-1903
Photographer unknown
Original size: 4” x 5” on a 5.5” x 6.5” mount
From the collection of Janet Finley

The pieced block, in an unidentified pattern, is a work in progress for this elderly lady. She is seated in her favorite rocker and chose to be photographed with her piecing project, no doubt reflective of her lifelong love for quiltmaking.

Poor lighting made interior photographs in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century difficult. The lighting in this photograph, taking advantage of a nearby window, highlights the elderly woman’s face. The abundant houseplants, so typical for Victorian homes, indicate that there is a window nearby. Houseplants were a relatively new concept. Before the 1830s, typical homes were too dark and cold for plants to thrive indoors. With the coming of the Victorian era, windows of better-quality glass were larger and less expensive to manufacture. Sunlight streamed in, warm stoves replaced fireplaces, and homes became more comfortable for people, pets, and plants. 

From the collection of Janet Finley

Medallion Quilt
Made by Bertha Neiden, Lincoln, Nebraska
1909-1914
International Quilt Study Center, Gift of Max Neiden and Sylvia Jacobs, 2008.017.0001

Bertha Neiden of Lincoln, Nebraska, made this 10,222-piece quilt between 1909 and 1914. Bertha was a seamstress at downtown Lincoln’s Miller and Paine department store, and the quilt’s wool fabrics may have been scraps from the custom clothing she sewed for the store. It also may have been from cloth she brought with her when she immigrated to the United States from Russia.

Triple Irish Chain 
c. 1860-1880
Possibly made by Mary Elizabeth McCauley, Towson, Maryland
IQM, Ardis and Robert James Collection, 1997.007.0839

Mounted photograph, dated 1897
Photographer unknown
Original size: 5” x 7.75”
From the collection of Janet Finley

“Henry Happy Helpers” is written in cursive on this mounted photograph’s front. It was taken in Henry, Illinois, and the young ladies pictured were part of the Happy Helpers, a forerunner of today’s 4-H Clubs. 

On the card’s reverse is written: “October 7th, 1897. Presented by Mrs. A. H. Kunnear and Mrs. Mary Anderson” (the lady with the very tiny waist). The table is set for tea. One young lady has her doll in its doll carriage along with two doll chairs. The scene is staged as a quilt show, and each of the young ladies, or Happy Helpers, has the same Four Patch quilt on her lap. It is possible this photograph was staged to celebrate their finished quilting project.

Red Cross signature quilt
University Place (Lincoln), Nebraska
Circa 1916
IQM 2009.002.0001, gift of Mary Alice Jones

The Red Cross quilt on view here was made by the third grade Sunday School class of First Methodist Church, University Place (now part of Lincoln, Nebraska) in 1916 to raise funds for the Lincoln Chapter of the American Red Cross.  The teacher Edith Wing, helped her daughter Alice S. Wing with putting the project together.  Each child in the class was responsible for collecting nine signatures at 10 cents each and embroidering a block with those nine names and his/her name.  Two hundred forty names were collected for a total of $24.00. Mary Alice Jones, historian for the Lincoln Chapter of the Red Cross, donated the quilt to the IQM.

Mounted photograph, dated 1897
Photographer: J. W. Ard, Mulhall, Oklahoma
Original size: Mount cut down to 6” x 8”
From the collection of Janet Finley

J. W. Ard photographs the Epworth Junior League of Mulhall, Oklahoma, in front of five pieced quilts destined for the relief of the cyclone (tornado) victims of Chandler, Oklahoma. A terrific tornado struck the town of Chandler the evening of March 31, 1897, devastating the town of 1,500 inhabitants. In a matter of minutes, 45 of the town’s inhabitants were killed and more than 20 were injured, many fatally. Only two buildings were left standing; the remaining buildings were reported on fire with many of the injured burning to death. The few homes that were left were turned into hospitals. What was left standing of the leading hotel became a morgue. “Many citizens wander about the streets dazed by the calamity and almost on the verge of insanity at the loss of family and homes,” reported a Guthrie, Oklahoma, newspaper.