PIECES OF HISTORY: THE STORY OF GEE’S BEND

Quilts are what propelled the small community of Gee’s Bend into the headlines, so it is fitting their quilts tell the Gee’s Bend tale…

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Long before the quilts of Gee’s Bend hung in museums of Fine Art, the women of Boykin, Alabama were making quilts. It was in 1937 the area informally known as Gee’s Bend was first noticed by the rest of the world. Photographed for the Roosevelt Administration, these quilts were initially nothing more than a passing mention on a photo caption in a New York Times article.

In 1937, the town of Boykin, Alabama was one of the poorest in the United States. The entire country was coming out of the Great Depression and the South had been particularly hard hit. The Federal Government employed artisans throughout the United States to document various aspects of life.

Sent to document life in the south, one of the places photographers Marian Post Wolcott and Arthur Rothstein were sent to was Gee’s Bend. Named after Joseph Gee, the original owner, Gee’s Bend