The definitive treasury of Massachusetts’s historic quilts, and a tribute to the creative spirit of their makers
The Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project (MassQuilts) is a volunteer organization that holds “documentation days” across the state to identify, date, and photograph pre-1950 quilts in private and museum collections. Formally organized in 1994, approximately 5,000 quilts have been documented (the original goal was 3,000). These quilts provide a window through which to view the history of the state, telling stories of international trade and domestic manufacture, economic booms and busts, national politics, and neighborly discourse. The project focuses on quilts that have a history of original use in Massachusetts.
Massachusetts Quilts will present the group’s findings. Essays by experts will lend context to catalogue-like entries on notable quilts. The quilts themselves will star, in about 200 illustrations, most in rich color.
“Solidly grounded in impeccable scholarship, yet written in an accessible and engaging style, the authors skillfully use quilts to provide another lens into the history of Massachusetts. Organized by region of the state, rather than by quilt style or type, it offers a fresh way of examining the nearly 6,000 quilts documented in the MassQuilts project. It is an important contribution to the literature on quiltmaking in America and on the lives of New England women.”—Patricia Crews, Willa Cather Professor of Textiles and Director, International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
“Quilt historians have eagerly awaited this book that documents the quilts of Massachusetts. Lynne Zacek Bassett and MassQuilts have gathered quiltmakers’ stories and significant quilts into a comprehensive overview of the commonwealth’s history, geography and culture. Truly Massachusetts's quilt history is a treasure in America’s common wealth.”—Barbara Brackman, Quilt Historian and Author
