Quilts Of The Underground Railroad
In 1999 a theory surfaced indicating a possibility slaves used quilt blocks to alert other slaves about escape plans during the time of the Underground Railroad (approximately 1780-1860). Some historians support this theory while other historians dispute this as myth.
Read more about Quilts Of The Underground Railroad: Presentation of The Quilt Code, Lack of Support For The Theory, Historians and Writers
Famous quotes containing the words quilts, underground and/or railroad:
“In the quilts I had found good objects—hospitable, warm, with soft edges yet resistant, with boundaries yet suggesting a continuous safe expanse, a field that could be bundled, a bundle that could be unfurled, portable equipment, light, washable, long-lasting, colorful, versatile, functional and ornamental, private and universal, mine and thine.”
—Radka Donnell-Vogt, U.S. quiltmaker. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981)
“Political correctness is driving machismo underground and recalling effeminacy from exile.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“... no other railroad station in the world manages so mysteriously to cloak with compassion the anguish of departure and the dubious ecstasies of return and arrival. Any waiting room in the world is filled with all this, and I have sat in many of them and accepted it, and I know from deliberate acquaintance that the whole human experience is more bearable at the Gare de Lyon in Paris than anywhere else.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)