Janneken Smucker

Since I made my first quilt in 1991 I have been interested in quilt history. I have also always been interested in American history and in recent years have read numerous books on President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration and New Deal programs. So, when I saw Janneken Smucker’s book A New Deal For Quilts it immediately caught my interest. The book was published in conjunction with a quilt exhibit at the International Quilt Museum which runs through April 20, 2024.

The Introduction presents Fannie Shaw’s amazing quilt “Prosperity is Just Around the Corner” in which people from all walks of life look around the corner of a brick building hoping to see evidence of President Herbert Hoover’s sanguine prediction that the economy would right itself.

Quilts have a long history of reflecting the social and economic concerns of women. Women made quilts with abolitionist messages and quilts that showed support for the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and quilts made with political handkerchiefs and bandanas. Quilts have been made to donate to victims of disasters of all kinds. Included in Smucker’s book are quilts with Donkey and Elephant blocks created to represent political parties and quilts supporting the National Recovery Act and quilts made for President Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

But how fascinating to discover that Federal government programs used quilts to promote it’s goals and philosophy!

It is well accepted that quiltmaking thrived during the Depression a symbol of ‘making do’ and thrift. But the association is deeper than we comprehend. Smucker analyzes the many ways the New Deal programs used the iconic symbolism of quilts to promote it’s philosophy, even if that traditional understanding was flawed.

She begins with the Colonial Revival of the 1920s which propelled an interest in quilts and quilt making. The mythology of colonial women sitting by the fireside sewing patchwork quilts from worn clothing and scarps is homey and quaint, but a complete fiction. The early 20th c quilt historians promoted this image while designing ‘Colonial’ quilt patterns that were decidedly modern, not thrifty scrap patchwork, but applique quilts that required buying yards of new fabric and requiring advanced sewing skills.

Still, the myth that quilts represented thrift and self-reliant American values persisted, and Smucker shows how it came to be employed by the New Deal.

Chapter Two, entitled “Visual Rhetoric”, begins with a 1937 Farm Security Administration photograph. On the surface, it shows women at a quilt frame, hand quilting a patchwork quilt, watched by children and a younger woman. Except, the quilt distinctly shows quilt lines–the quilting had been completed! Smucker demonstrates that the photographers had an agenda–to promote the New Deal goals–and composed their photographs accordingly.

Photographs of the homes of impoverished families and migrant workers showed patchwork quilts on beds, some without mattresses or on the floor. These photographs spurred empathy while confirming the family’s frugal make-do values.

New Deal programs established sewing rooms where unskilled women were shown how to make quilts and mattresses that were then distributed to needy families. The women learned to make their own clothing, often using feedsacks. The feed companies created sacks printed with designs in response and the government promoted using thrifty cotton cloth. Learning how to quilt could provide some income for women, but did not translate to real job security.

The book also addresses African American quilt making and the inherent racism of the Federal programs, overwhelmingly run by white women. The singular quilts designed by Ruth Clement Bond, whose husband was personnel director over African American workers on the TVA, inbodied the dual concern of rural electrification and Black empowerment.

The book is richly illustrated with photographs taken by the Federal Writers Project, Farm Security Administration, Federal Art Project, Works Progress Administration, and museums.

In her Preface, Smucker connects Pandemic quilt making to the past and in the last chapter includes examples of Pandemic quilts, demonstrating how quilters respond to current events and situations through quiltmaking.

I learned so much from this book.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.… (mehr)

I have been enamored with Amish Quilts for more years than I care to admit to! My obsession with them began with an exhibit of Amish Quilts at the Whitney Museum in New York City in the 1970’s. I have always thought that Amish quilts represent the height of quilt artistry and I’ve collected books on Amish quilts for many years. I was, therefore, thoroughly delighted when I was asked to review this new book from Pomegranate Communications!

“Amish Abstractions: Quilts From The Collection of Faith & Steven Brown” is a lush, beautifully printed, book presented by the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums and is, as mentioned above, published by Pomegranate Communications . I have known about Pomegranate as a purveyor of fine cards, book marks and calendars, but I was not aware of their extensive, very beautiful, line of art books. Their catalogue is impressive!

The forward to “Amish Abstractions” is written by John E. Buchanan, Jr. Director of Museums/ Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Faith & Steven Brown have written an excellent ‘Collector’s Note’ about their superb collection and the book contains essays written by noted quilt historians; each essay is both interesting and very informative.

Janneken Smucker, quilt historian, presents an excellent, very enjoyable, essay entitled ‘Quilts In Amish Contexts : Traditions and Adaptations’ in which she explains a bit about the history of the Amish, the Amish aesthetic, and how the tradition of Amish quilt making began. This essay offers a compact history of how the Amish began making quilts, initially large scale patterns made from fabrics left over from clothes making - progressing to how the Amish ultimately used more mainstream patterns in their quilt making.

The eminent quilt historian Robert Shaw has contributed an essay entitled “Fundamentally Abstract: The Aesthetic Achievement of Amish Quiltmakers”. This is a well written essay that describes the evolution of Amish design work and the historical differences between the quilt styles of various Amish sects. From the Lancaster Amish and their brilliant central diamond designs that feature large open spaces filled with beautiful feathered quilting patterns to the Midwestern Amish quilt makers who favored blue & black, used pieced patterns, and used more main stream cottons and other fabrics as opposed to the wools used by Lancaster County quilters – this essay is an excellent preview to the history of Amish quilt patterns.

An essay contributed by Joe Cunningham, another noted quilt historian, is entitled “All In The Details: The Making of Amish Quilts”. It’s a concise, well presented introduction to the history of the quilt patterns that were most often used by the Amish.

What I enjoyed the most about this book is that the Brown’s collection of Amish quilts contains some amazing examples of quilts that I have seldom seen. The plates in this book offer some prime examples of the large, beautifully quilted, wool quilts of the Lancaster Amish, but there are also some spectacular examples of quilts made from main stream patterns. Amish crazy quilts, abstracts, nine-patch and variations, ocean waves, hole in the barn door, broken dishes – all ‘main stream’ patterns that, in the hands of the Amish, become works of art. The Amish aesthetic and their utilization of colors make the patterns sing and their use of juxtaposed colors raise the patterns from traditional patch work to artistic masterpiece. I think that the artistry in Amish quilts is what has always fascinated me about them – they are brilliant, bold, aesthetically pleasing and, to my eye, they always represent the epitome of quilt artistry.

I highly recommend this book for quilt enthusiasts in general but most certainly quilt historians and those who admire Amish design will be especially pleased with the Faith & Steven Brown Amish quilt collection presented in this book. The color plates are very well done and the text portions of the book are excellent reading. I could go on and on about the patterns and color plates in this book – but it is probably best if you just buy the book! All in all, although I seldom provide the rating, I believe that this book deserves five stars!… (mehr)