Divided Hearts: A Civil War Friendship Quilt

By Barbara Brackman

The fascinating story of Civil War friendships across the Mason-Dixon line from the bestselling author and “renowned quilt historian” (Time).

Create your own historically inspired friendship quilt with twelve popular blocks from the Civil War era. Each album block comes with design variations and an optional center flourish, plus setting instructions. Read compelling narratives of the women who found their hearts divided during the war, yet left a legacy of friendship quilts as proof of their bond.

“Inspired by friendship quilts created between 1840 and 1861, Brackman focuses on women with ‘divided hearts,’ Northern women living in the South, and Southern women educated in the North, or with families divided by the Civil War . . . readers learn about twelve women’s lives that spanned the divide. Photographs and maps accompany the biographies. History comes alive through these women . . . You don’t have to be a quilt maker to enjoy reading the history and biographies of these amazing women.” —The Literate Quilter



“The historical narratives about the women are so interesting . . . The quilts are beautiful and I love the idea of a friendship quilt . . . [an] amazing book.” —Crafty Moms Share

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: May 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781617458897

Book preview

Introduction: Hearts Divided

Album quilts or friendship quilts captured the hearts of American women in the antebellum years, 1840–1861. Evidence is in thousands of surviving quilts composed of blocks with names of friends and relatives—bedcoverings that played on the idea of a bound paper autograph album. Contributors might sign their name in cross-stitch, but most used ink, and many added a sentiment and romantic flourish.

In 1845, Mary Ellen Barnes of New York signed her block with a rhyme: The gift is small as you plainly may see. And given as a token of friendship from me. Mary Ellen’s is one of three blocks by women who identified their home as New York in this particular album quilt. Three others included homes in South Carolina. The quilt, in the collection of the North Carolina Museum of History (H.2000.96.2), intrigued me. There were no two places further apart in the antebellum years than New York and South Carolina, yet these women were close enough that they shared tokens of friendship. How could they have met and created such ties of affection in the sectionalism of pre–Civil War America?

Detail of an album quilt made for New Yorker Benoni Pearce in 1850, which includes far more appliquéd blocks than pieced—a typical format in the antebellum years. For this book’s sampler, I’ve picked a dozen popular pieced designs.

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution

A class in England, about 1810

A class in Brooklyn, New York, 1925. My mother is on the far right in the middle.

Photo from the collection of Barbara Brackman

Detail of Mrs. Moore’s class from a crazy quilt, Bourbon and Harrison Counties, Kentucky

Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution

This book, and the yearlong 2018 Block of the Month project we stitched on my blog Civil War Quilts, grew from possible answers to that question. Did young women of the generation so enchanted with album quilts have relatives on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line? Did they travel up the Atlantic on coastal steamers to vacation in different climates, and then make friends there? Perhaps they went to boarding schools far from home, making lifelong friends—until the Civil War interrupted not only the mails and their correspondence but also their friendships.

Blog readers stitched pieced blocks drawn from those antique antebellum albums, the most popular designs of the 1840s and 50s (although I was surprised to find that album quiltmakers were far more likely to contribute an appliqué square than a pieced design).

Ambrotype of young women and a flag, about 1865

Study in Cheddar #2 by Meliss Henderson Swanson, Maine

Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress from the Liljenquist Collection

The 12 blocks in this book were fashionable in those first years of friendship quilts. As time passed, tastes changed, and some designs were forgotten, while others became classics that have endured for over 150 years.

Inking a fine signature was important in antebellum album quilt blocks, so each block includes a flourish pattern to copy for the center, as well as a spot for a name. Many blog followers experimented with inking, just as a mid-nineteenth-century quiltmaker might. You will see that some of today’s stitchers became quite proficient with their pens.

Tip: How to Ink the Center Square

The inking patterns are sized to fit the larger 12˝ blocks. You can ink them freehand or make a template to trace. You can also scan the illustration and print it onto pretreated cotton. You may want to ink your patch before you stitch it into a block.

To ink a block, use a permanent Pigma Micron pen, size 05. Brown ink mimics the way old inks have oxidized to a warm brown, but black ink is also good for a period look. Or, if you are modernizing the look, why not choose magenta?

Divided hearts: The United States during the Civil War with Union states in blue, the Confederacy in gray, and Union territories in light blue

Friendship Star block by Becky Brown, Virginia

Sweet Briar by Becky Brown, Virginia

Teaching at a freed people’s school right after the Civil War

Double Star/Double Life block by Denniele Bohannon, Missouri

In the back of the book are some examples and instructions for settings for the blocks, as well as a gallery of other settings—so you have plenty of examples for putting the blocks together into a friendship quilt.

Each block is accompanied by a biography of a woman or two whose story might explain connections across the sectional divide. The quiltmakers were of the generation who called themselves Young America. Born in the 1810s and 20s, they went to school in the 30s and 40s and saw their lives disrupted by the Civil War. We follow these girls and women from school through the war and after. A sad number of them died young—some apparently in childbirth or possibly from the era’s chronic diseases, tuberculosis and malaria. Another group of women here were their elders, teachers, and principals at the female academies that educated Young America. A number of the older generation were French refugees, either from the Caribbean or revolutionary France. Under their tutelage, their students spoke French well and danced and flirted gracefully.