The Underground Quilt Controversy
January 19, 2008 by Mary Emma Allen
Filed under Home & Living
Do you believe that escaping slaves, during the Civil War [in the United States], often used quilts and their symbols as guides to freedom?
Are you on side of the story that maintains there isn’t enough evidence, only folklore, to justify this theory?
Or are you trying to figure out just where you stand?
Much discussion has evolved and a number of books written about this topic, from various viewpoints. Justifiably, the slaves made quilts during the early to mid-1800s for their owners and themselves. Did they incorporate secret codes or symbols into the quilts and their patterns to guide fellow escaping slaves a path to freedom?
Although the experts can’t agree, quilter Barbara Reeves Hart presents programs on the topic. Learn about one she’ll be giving on Feb. 2, Quilts preserve a part of history telling story of Underground Railroad. She finds that people are fascinated by this topic.
From the nearby woods, a runaway slave looks with hope at the colorful quilts spread out on the plantation’s clothesline. Did those displayed quilts give him a message, show him the way to freedom? (From the newspaper article above by Fran Fralow in the Gaston Gazette.)
The book, Hidden Plain View, A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, by Jacqueline L. Tobin and Raymond G. Dobard, popularized the idea of the codes found in quilts of this era.
The secret code used by Ozella [McDaniel Williams'] ancestors to assist fellow enslaved blacks in their escape to freedom became the subject of Hidden in Plain View.
Numerous novels, including Jennifer Chiaverini’s The Runaway Quilt, along with children’s books tell this tale and captivate readers. Songs also have evolved around this theme of secret codes in quilts
Some researchers claim there is no valid evidence, only folklore, to support the theory, so they are dubious.
Where do you stand on “The Underground Quilt Controversy?”
Related Posts:
The Runaway Quilt (An Underground Railroad Novel)
Hidden in Plain View – A Favorite Quilt Book
(c)2008 Mary Emma Allen
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] Underground Quilt Controversy? Interesting article from the Quilting and Patchwork blog on whether or not the underground railroad used messages encoded into quilts. Never heard of this [...]
[...] about Civil War Quilts are somewhat related to my previous post, The Underground Quilt Controversy, since the events underlying all of them date back to that era surrounding the Civil War or War [...]