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Winedale - Center for the Quilt Page 2
Spotlight Quilt
Mexican War Commemorative Quilt, ca. 1848 (detail)
One of Winedale's rarest quilts is a ca. 1848 comforter commemorating an episode in the second battle of the Mexican War. The top is constructed of three vertical lengths of roller-printed cotton featuring a large-scale scenic design repeated every 13 ½ inches. The scene depicts the surrender in May 1846 of Mexican General la Vega to Captain May at the Battle of Resaca de la Palma. The printed design is from a wood engraving that appeared in the 1847 biography The Life of General Taylor. Miss Ima Hogg donated this quilt to Winedale in 1972.
The Quilt Index Project
The Center for American History is participating in a multi-insititutional project funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to enter descriptive information about and photographs of quilts to the Alliance's Quilt Index, a growing online research and reference tool designed to provide access to information about quilts held in private and public hands. Other participating institutions in this project are the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Museum of American Quilter's Society, the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum, and the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum. By late 2007, the Quilt index is expected to include more than 15,000 quilt photographs and records.
The Quilt Index was conceived and developed by the Alliance in partnership with the Michigan State University Museum and MSU's digital library research center, MATRIX. This IMLS-funded project builds on the highly successful pilot Quilt Index project supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Current contributing partners are the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, the Illinois State Museum, the University of Louisville Archives and Records Center, the Tennessee State Library and Archives, the Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., and Quilts of Tennessee.
For the IMLS Quilt Index project, the Winedale Center for the Quilt will add images and data records to the Quilt Index from two groups of Texas-held quilts:
(1) Eighty-five quilts from the Winedale Decorative Arts Collection;
(2) selected quilts from the documentation archive of the Texas Quilt Search, a statewide quilt survey, specifically:
- 150 quilts featured in Lone Stars: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, Vol. I, 1836–1936, and Vol. II, 1936–1986, by Karey Bresenhan and Nancy O'Bryant Puentes (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986, 1990);
- an additional subset of quilts represented in the Texas Quilt Search documentation archive.
Recent Acquisitions
Freedom Quilts Collection
In the fall of 2005, the Center for American History acquired the Freedom Quilts Collection, a unique group of 139 quilt blocks made by quilters throughout Japan as a gesture of condolence to the United States following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The blocks were sent to the United States and ended up in San Antonio, Texas, where they were fashioned into thirty-nine quilts and wall hangings by members of local quilt guilds under the direction of San Antonio quilter Dr. Barbara Gilstad, who worked as project facilitator. The collection includes complete project documentation.
Kathleen McCrady Quilt History Archive
In March 2006, the Winedale Center for the Quilt finalized its acquisition of the Kathleen McCrady Quilt History Collection, an extraordinary collection documenting both quilt history and Kathleen McCrady's longtime interest, expertise, and activities associated with quilting, quilt preservation, teaching, and quilt history. A resident of Austin, Texas, Mrs. McCrady is nationally known as a gifted quilter and quilt historian. In 1995 she established her Quilt History Study Hall, a backyard studio where she offered free classes on quilt history using her extensive collection of quilts and quilt blocks, quilt remnants, and period fabrics from about 1800 to 1970, as well as quilt and sewing documentation and ephemera.
The McCrady Collection, which measures more than twelve linear feet, contains the contents of her Quilt History Study Hall, printed materials and publications, including quilt booklets and patterns, and photographs. A finding aid for the 2003 accession is available and the collection is accessible at the CAH's Research and Collections Division in Austin.