Quilts and Coverlets of the Battles & Webster Families

Abstract

Quilts and coverlets keep us warm at night and give our waking eyes pictures to study in the morning. They represent loving hands of foregone days, mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers now passed away. So important a part of the American lifestyle, their designs have now inspired everything from wall paper to paper towels. Yet what has happened to all these family collections? Large families had to have used enough quilts and coverlets to cover the many beds. Some have been used up - used until they fell apart. Others have been consumed by the ravages of time. Many collections have been dispersed among the descendants of the artist-matriarch. This article explores the collection of quilts and coverlets at the Battles Museums of Rural Life in Girard. Were the many items made by one woman or do they represent the work of several different women? Because there is so much information left about these families, both in paper form and in three dimensional form, perhaps the makers can be determined.