Object Record
Images
Additional Images [8]
Metadata
Object |
Quilt, Bed |
Artist/Creator |
Stickle, Jane A. Blakley |
Date |
1863 |
Description |
Quilt made by Jane A. Stickle in 1863. Made of 169 five by five inch blocks roughly arranged by color in squares around center, border of triangles with scalloped edge. 5,602 pieces. No pattern or fabric is the same. Bottom left corner marked in ink "In War Time. 1863." "Pieces. 5602." stitched in black thread over ink on left side of block and "Jane A. Stickle." in ink along bottom (formerly stitched over, tiny holes all along signature where thread was). Six ply, double stitch thread with 8-10 stitches per inch. Linen back in two pieces stitched in center with strip of smaller pieces along top edge. "SB" cross stitched around center of left edge. Presumably backed with an old linen sheet from Stickle's mother Sarah Blakely. |
Width (inches) |
80.250 |
Height (inches) |
80.250 |
Information |
Jane A. Stickle (1817-1896) of Shaftsbury, Vermont, put three pieces of information in the signature block of her remarkable quilt: her name, the number of pieces (5,602), and the fact that it was made in war time in 1863. This unusual sampler quilt is made up of 169 five-inch blocks, each with a different pattern and fabric plus a unique pieced and scalloped border with over 100 more different fabrics and patterns. Many of the patterns are unique, and Stickle may have studied at one of the local female seminaries as a child and developed the art and geometry skills that she put to such good use. The dizzying array of fabrics was made possible by New England textile mills, which took slave-produced cotton from the south and created up to one thousand or more new designs annually by the mid-1800s. In 1863 the Civil War was finally starting to turn around for the Union after two years of loss and stalemates. More than ten percent of the state's population served in the military during the war. Though forbidden from the armed services, women were involved with the war effort in both symbolic and practical ways. Stickle’s choice to mention the war in her quilt indicates just how deeply it affected local citizens. Jane Stickle was bedridden and according to the local newspaper the quilt was the result of her "ambition to do something to kill the time." We do not know the exact nature of her disability, but it may have contributed to her family’s bankruptcy in 1877. Jane Stickle died in poverty in 1896, but today people from around the world visit Bennington to view this famous quilt, and many attempt to make copies of their own. For more information there is an article "A Masterwork Worthy of Reverent Whispers," by Pam Weeks, Binney Family Curator at the New England Quilt Museum, published in the Summer 2013 issue of the Bennington Museum's Walloomsack Review, available here: https://benningtonmuseum.org/visit/regional-history-room/walloomsack-review-articles/volumes-11-20-2013-2017/ |
Related People |
Stickle, Jane A. Blakley |
Credit line |
Museum Purchase |
Catalog Number |
A2064 |