tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post2806025423652947841..comments2023-07-24T14:24:06.237+01:00Comments on Welsh Quilts: Southern American QuiltsPippa Moss - Welsh Quiltshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12102958156763153144noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-24544168049445404272012-11-04T22:49:41.315+00:002012-11-04T22:49:41.315+00:00I can only re-iterate that I attended what I thoug...I can only re-iterate that I attended what I thought was a well presented and enjoyable hour's lecture, and reported in good faith what I had heard. If I have touched on some raw nerve felt by others, I apologise. This North-South thing seems to be a can of worms!!I was brought up in New Jersey and although I visited Florida many times, cannot pretend to know the area well. However, I do feel that everyone is entitled to their own opinions, and would like to draw a line under this now.I am an academic, but of science, not quilt history. I will not be publishing any other comments as this blog is really to do with British quilts and I only presented the US quilts as I felt there was something to be learned from seeing quilts from another area. Thanks to everyone for their views. PippaPippa Moss - Welsh Quiltshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12102958156763153144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-4436556331278633522012-11-04T21:53:47.711+00:002012-11-04T21:53:47.711+00:00Pippa, I hope you will not be offended if I questi...Pippa, I hope you will not be offended if I question parts of what you passed along from others. The rural South was cash-poor both before and after the Civil War. It was a rural, bartering region and its economy cannot be judged by cash on hand. Aside from isolated regions where land was poor, poverty was not so grinding or general as is commonly believed. First, the inland South was still pioneering when the War began. A tremendous wave of migration from the seaboard states followed the War of 1812, and Jackson's removal of the Indian threat in Alabama and Florida opened up what is called the Old Southwest. Land Lotteries offering free land opened, and war veterans who had taken land in the absence of money as payment for war services flooded into the area. Cotton and tobacco provided needed cash. War was devastating personally, but once foraging troops were out of the area, people had food because they grew their own gardens, had cattle, hogs, sheep, and goats for meat and milk. Second, after the War, the great timber barons like Jay Gould brought work into the areas of the great pine forests of the South. The timber/lumber industry provided cash to supplement the farms. It also led numbers of people westward into Louisiana and East Texas, where they found yet better, newer land, prospered, sent their children to school. During the Depression, artists were paid by the Works Progress Administration to document poverty in parts of the region. And that's what they documented. The same was true of Dust Bowl residents. They did not depict the general South, but only that which they were assigned to depict. So the picture their work presents is skewed. I'm sure there were "shacks" (BTW The term "cracker" is as insulting as "redneck" and "nigger" and denigrates the people to whom it is assigned). Yet I submit "shacks" were atypical in lowland South. The access to timber on one's own property and to mills in close proximity made housing affordable. The houses might have been more or less "fancy," but most were soundly built---but they were built for a near tropical region, where summer ventilation was more important than winter cold. High ceilings, lots of windows, and large hallways built specifically for summer ventilation---this was the Southern building model. Most were heated by fireplaces (again, the abundance of wood made heating costs nil) . So Southerners who live in tightly sealed and centrally heated homes of today naturally shiver when they recall the cold bedrooms of such houses. But the bedrooms of most mansions of the time were equally cold. Memory is deceptive. I think what matters most is fact, and since the 1980s substantial scholarhsip by cultural geographers; architects who study venacular housing; historians studying the timber industry, economic history, political history and other aspects of the Southern past; and cultural anthropologists have offered information that can balance memory. I write this not because I wish to be a contrarian, but because I think such generalizations hinder the serious study of Southern quilts. By encouraging an unsubstantiated generalization, they discourage our exploring the quilts of the region as they should be explored, with minds open to what we find. Having spent my life studying and teaching the literature and culture of the South, I know the negative effects such stereotypes have on the advancement of learning. The dearth of critical studies of Southern quiltmaking is mainly a result of these. We wonder at people who perpetuate the unsupportable tale of UGRR quilts. We must exercise the critical attitude we recommend to others. I submit this only because I would like to see the knowledge of our regional quilts advance. Thank you for considering my views. gaye ingramhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17725964019337785550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-64022960943041008952012-11-04T16:11:31.341+00:002012-11-04T16:11:31.341+00:00Thanks so very much for balancing the perspective ...Thanks so very much for balancing the perspective of the original post. Having lived in the south the majority of my life, and having a southern heritage which includes generations of women who rightly took pride in their exquisite handwork, I felt confused by the generalizations of poverty and low quality of technique and design. I do not doubt that the veracity of the original post, but the broad characterization felt demeaning... Tho i imagine that was not the intent.... Perhaps the point had less to do with characterizing the South as it was to highlight characteristics that can be loosely associated with certain social & economic conditions, but even then i have seen magnificent examples of glorious workmanship and design.... Even those in great poverty can produce glorious work. I do not mean any disrespect to the author, so i hope my post does not offend. Thanks again.Becky Ghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17766885506874699243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-71096003761677291332012-11-02T07:31:18.474+00:002012-11-02T07:31:18.474+00:00Many thanks for your considered response GAye, whi...Many thanks for your considered response GAye, which will help others fo follow up on this topic. Of course I was just reporting in my own way another persons research - and an hour's talk is a very short time to put all details across, as I well know. I think that the speaker did acknowledge that she was speaking of rural quilts and that coastal and city areas had a different tradition. And I think we have to acknowledge that the South was a very poor area by any standards and yes, there were a lot of people who did live in "cracker shacks". There were a lot of heads nodding in the audience at that! So lots of different experiences and opinions in the South. Thanks for your comments.Pippa Moss - Welsh Quiltshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12102958156763153144noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-29081526350755796762012-11-02T04:31:30.360+00:002012-11-02T04:31:30.360+00:00YankeeQuilter is correct. "The South" is...YankeeQuilter is correct. "The South" is a huge area, with so many regional differences it is hazardous to generalize about it as a whole, even about the rural sections. Many fine quilts with perfect geometry came out of the so-called "backward" and cash-poor regions like the mountains of West Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Georgia. both before and after the Civil War. And because of the many rivers in the Lower South, access to fabric was much more readily available than is commonly understood when the interior regions were still pioneering. Long after other regions turned to manufactured woolen blankets for winter warmth, much of the South retained a preference for quilts, Thus we find many, many utility quilts, sometimes stuffed with one or two earlier quilts. Yet even those often have well-made tops. And even the humblest usually have some pieced design. The red, white, and green "Rocky Mountain Road" pictured above is a pattern that is distinctively "Southern." Probably made at the end of the 19th century, it seems well-pieced and is quilted in the "fan" quilting favored in the South for quilts made for "everyday use." I also feel constrained to observe that both before and after the Civil War, most Southern homes were not "shacks" with wind whistling through them. The boundless pine woods of the region always made sound housing affordable, whether log cabin or milled lumber structures. For those interested in southern quiltmaking and quilts, I suggest "Georgia Quilts" (Weinraub), "North Carolina Quilts," (Robertson) and "Lone Stars: A Legacy of Texas Quilts, 1836-1936"(Bresenhan) as books that represent the diversity of quilts in the American South. To see the work of one typical rural quilter from a farming family who quilted from before the Civil War through WWII, see "Legacy: the Story of Talula Bottoms and Her Quilts" (Burdick).gaye ingramhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17725964019337785550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-64294722674013749022012-10-25T02:04:06.846+01:002012-10-25T02:04:06.846+01:00Much of what you saw were rural southern quilts......Much of what you saw were rural southern quilts...there don't represent all quilts from the south. I've documents many southern quilts that are finely constructed.YankeeQuilterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03324287185970922332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-2738825988087198832012-10-14T21:03:58.716+01:002012-10-14T21:03:58.716+01:00Interesting post Pippa and very enlightening .Interesting post Pippa and very enlightening .Suehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14919240469331985688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-69328234782723176302012-10-14T18:16:51.290+01:002012-10-14T18:16:51.290+01:00Very informative - I was one that had always wonde...Very informative - I was one that had always wondered why the quilts from the South were so thick. Thanks for sharing what you learned.Janhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17407140105406299126noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1738660161076439950.post-36170338442725932592012-10-14T18:04:44.145+01:002012-10-14T18:04:44.145+01:00Such an interesting blog Pippa, thank you so much ...Such an interesting blog Pippa, thank you so much for sharing all that information.Angie Burretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07959452738410188957noreply@blogger.com