![]() 1970, exemplifies her favorite pattern and the use of repurposed fabric that is a hallmark of many African American quilts. Loretta Pettway’s Log Cabin or Bricklayer Quilt, c. Her work is illustrated here by the One Patch quilt, 1970 (shown at the top), where she used leftover scraps of dashiki cloth provided by her daughter, Mensie Lee whose recollection quoted above highlights the spontaneous “just add on until you get what you want” process that characterizes many of the improvisational designs of Gee’s Bend. America Irby (1916-1993), described by her daughter, above, represents the quilting matriarch. The continuity of the tradition passing from generation to generation has resulted in familial successions of quilters and the handing down of particular designs. ![]() Many are descendants of enslaved families who worked the Pettway plantation and bear the name. The women of Gee’s Bend, a small patch of land on a meander of the Alabama river, have achieved great fame making quilts for more than a hundred years. Image and data from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Subjects: African American History, People Terms: United States - Georgia, Gender - Women, Military Conflict - Civil War, 19th Century (1800-1899), United States - Massachusetts, Education - Historically Black Colleges (HBCU), United States-Washington D.Dora Smith. Harriet Powers was inducted into the Georgia Women of Achievement in 2009. A few books and a play, “Quilting in the Sun,” honor her memory. The headstone was uncovered at Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery in Athens, Georgia. In January 2005, doctoral student in history at the University of Georgia, Cat Holmes, discovered the grave of Harriet Powers, her husband, and a daughter. Hall’s heirs by folk art collector Maxim Karolik and donated to the Museum of Fine Arts. The second quilt consists of 15 panels, and illustrates Bible stories and natural events, such as the Leonid meteor storm. The wives gave the quilt as a gift to the Reverend Charles Cuthbert Hall of New York, while he served as the chairman of the board of trustees at Atlanta University. The second quilt was acquired by wives of faculty members of Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University in 1898. Armstead Powers left her in 1895, and she most likely supported herself and her family by working as a seamstress.Ĭourtesy National Museum of American History By the 1880s Harriet and Armstead Powers owned a small farm but had to sell parts of their land to make ends meet. Powers could not read or write, but the stories she heard came to life on her quilts. Broken vertical strips divided the quilts into panels that told stories. The figures were colorful and stitched to a watermelon-colored background. The first quilt was made of 299 separate pieces of fabric, depicting scenes from Bible stories and spirituals. At the time of the sale, Powers explained the imagery in the squares, and Smith recorded the descriptions for posterity. ![]() Smith and Powers remained in touch and when Powers fell on hard times about five years later, she agreed to sell the quilt for five dollars (about one hundred and thirty-eight dollars in 2020). They were constructed through applique and piecework and were a mixture of hand and machine stitched. The cotton quilt consisted of numerous pictorial squares, depicting biblical scenes and celestial phenomena. Jennie Smith, an artist and art teacher at the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens, Georgia, approached Powers about purchasing the quilt displayed, but Powers declined to sell it. The first known display of Powers quilts were in 1886 at a cotton fair in northeast Georgia. According to the 1870 US Census, she married Armstead Powers, a farmhand, in 1855, at the age of eighteen and the couple had nine children. There are few details about her early life as a child and young adult. Harriet was born into slavery on October 29, 1837, in Clarke County, Georgia, on a plantation owned by John and Nancy Lester. One is in the National Museum of American History collection at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the other is in the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, Massachusetts. Only two of her quilts survive today, both made after the Civil War. Harriet Powers is one of the best known southern African American quilt makers in the nation.
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