Hidden Treasures: Quilts from 1600 to 1860, Rarely Seen Pre-Civil War Textiles from the Poos Collection

By Lori Lee Triplett and Kay Triplett

One hundred spectacular antique quilts from one of the largest, privately held quilt and textile collections in the world.

Turn back time with color photos and insightful essays about America’s quilting past! Admire one hundred antique quilts and textiles you’ve never seen before, curated from the remarkable Poos Collection. Flip through the pages to find a wide range of styles in pre-Civil War quilting—elaborate hand piecing and appliqué, signature quilts, wholecloth beauties, cutout chintz, and intarsia, plus the only known example of an American pictorial war quilt. An invaluable resource to America’s quilt history, the Poos Collection shares its classic, one-of-a-kind quilts.

• Admire one hundred colorful artifacts from the priceless Poos Collection
• Read insights and information on the history behind the quilts
• Relax and feast your eyes on these pre-1860 quilts, including album, wool, paper-pieced, white-on-white wholecloth, red and green, indigo, and chintz quilts

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781617458088

Book preview

Publisher: Amy Marson

Creative Director: Gailen Runge

Acquisitions Editor: Roxane Cerda

Editor: Liz Aneloski

Cover/Book Designer: April Mostek

Production Coordinator: Tim Manibusan

Production Editor: Jennifer Warren

Photo Assistant: Rachel Holmes

Cover photography by Diane Pedersen

Interior photography by Diane Pedersen, unless otherwise noted

Cover quilt: Detail of Starburst Garden Quilt

Title page quilt: Detail of Lydia A. Parker Flower Basket with Birds Quilt

Published by C&T Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 1456, Lafayette, CA 94549

DEDICATION

To the three generations of textile lovers who went before us: Grandma Boatwright, who taught our grandmother and mother to love fabric and needlework; Grandma Poos, who taught us to quilt; and Mother, who taught us to sew. The love of textiles was our heritage.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to the American Quilt Study Group for the Lucy Hilty Research Grant and the H. Mark Dunn Research Grant, which have allowed us to expand our research.

INTRODUCTION

My sister, Kay, began collecting quilts when she was in elementary school. I jokingly say that she never met a quilt she didn’t like. However, that doesn’t accurately describe her connoisseur’s ability to purchase quilts and create a preeminent collection, nor does it fully explain when the group of textiles became the Poos Collection. The road to a collection such as this is not without speed bumps. The process requires seven effective C’s.

Creation of a collection can be based on various motivations, such as building a stash, a love of shopping or preservation, simple appreciation, or the desire to learn more about the items being collected. Kay loves to shop, but more than buying, she also wants to preserve the history of this art form. The need to categorize and group similar items has also led us to build our knowledge about quilts and quilt history.

Calculating and budgeting are crucial for any collection. Not just because restricted resources might limit your purchasing power but also because taking care of the collection requires funds.

Caring for the collection according to industry standards in order to preserve the collection as it should be maintained is yet another step in the process. Caring involves properly storing each individual quilt as well as providing climate-controlled storage for the collection as a whole.

Curation, or managing and organizing, is important to the vitality of the collection. With a collection of this size, cataloging and photographing all the quilts plus the other textiles in the collection is an enormous undertaking. This is our fifth book—with no repeats among these 100 quilts—which gives you some idea of the size of the collection. This doesn’t even account for the total number of textiles other than quilts, such as international weaving and hand-dyed indigo from around the world. Additionally, the conservation needs of each item need to be addressed as the item ages.

Calibrating or fine-tuning the collection over time allows the collection to effectively fulfill its stated purpose, such as research, preservation, or simply appreciation. If there are categories/ types or time periods to be developed, these themes need to be maintained. For us, the decision to focus on pre-1860 quilts hasn’t eliminated other areas of collecting, but it has narrowed the scope. Readers will also recognize several themes, such as stars, birds, and inscribed quilts, which have all been longtime favorites of Kay’s. Calibrating is crucial to the health of the collection as well, which leads to the next effective C.

Culling, or deaccession, may be vital to allow the collection to survive. Caring for or maintaining quilts that do not fit into the parameters of the collection may impede the ability of the collection to survive as needed. It pulls resources that could be better put to use acquiring and maintaining quilts in the proper category. Deaccession can also provide funds to allow for the longevity of the collection, which leads to the final C.

Conversion, or transition of the collection—in particular if the collection is privately held—is a possibility that needs to be considered. Will the collection remain in the family or be transferred to a nonprofit, government, or business entity?

As you continue reading, please enjoy a small taste of the Poos Collection.

—Lori Lee Triplett

ALBUM QUILTS

BALTIMORE ALBUM QUILTS

Baltimore Album Quilt with Rose Border, American, 1848, 100½˝ × 99½˝

This quilt, which features a variety of early fabrics, including cottons, silks, and silk velvets, is an example of the Designer I style. It was exhibited in 2012 at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, Washington, and was published in the The Quilt Engagement Calendar as the Louisa Blessing Quilt because Louisa Blessing signed two of the blocks.¹ However, because it is a friendship quilt, it was likely owned by someone else.

Baltimore Album Quilts (BAQs) were considered the elite of the American quilt art form. These quilts also serve as an example of the trend of inscribed quilts, which started in the 1840s. Previous researchers have studied these quilts extensively since the 1940s; however, new online resources have allowed the research to expand.² This new research has divided BAQs into three distinct time periods, known as Designer I, a high style popular from 1845 to 1849; Designer II, a simpler style with fewer pictorials, embraced starting in 1850; and Designer III, a small-scale, distinct style based more on German folk art.³ The same quilt artists often created similar blocks for multiple quilts, but there are also other reasons that so many of the quilts have similar blocks. The blocks could be purchased precut, ready for assembly; pre-basted, ready for stitching; or completely stitched, simply awaiting the quilter’s signature.⁴

This block was previously published in the Baltimore Album Quilt 2008 Calendar.⁵ The eagle is carrying a banner that says, Fountain of Life. The block also includes a pitcher and a cup, as well as two hammers. Of the documented BAQs, there are four quilts with similar blocks, each with a different phrase, such as The Fountain of Health or The Fountain of … Temperance.⁶

God is love, Mary Haney, Baltimore, MD, Sept 14, 1848. The U.S. Federal Census in 1870 lists a Mary Haney born in 1822, living in Baltimore Ward 16, Maryland, with an occupation of keeping house.⁷

This quilt has three blocks with Bibles in it; however, our focus is on the block beneath the center fountain block. Two other BAQs from the Lovely Lane Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, have the exact same block in them: the Reverend Henry Wilson BAQ and the Reverend C. Roberts BAQ. Nine additional BAQs have very similar blocks.⁸

Baltimore Album Quilt with Stair-Step Border, American, c. 1850, 100½˝ × 100˝

This is an example of the Designer II style of quilts, which tend to be simpler and less pictorial in nature.

The majority of BAQs inscribed with names fit the pattern of quilts made with blocks signed by friends and family members. A large number of BAQs were made for clergy, primarily Methodist or German Reformed. It may be that the larger number of Methodist quilts simply reflects the larger number of Methodist churches. Another contributing factor may have been the policy of the Methodist church to reassign pastors every two years. However, BAQs have also been traced to Catholic and even Jewish communities.

Sadly, this particular beautiful BAQ, in the Designer II style, does not have any signatures to give us an idea of the maker or the community where it originated. It is unclear whether the signatures were never present or whether they were lost over time. However, there is one block on this BAQ that may provide us with some additional clues.