An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and SlaveryAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Tuesday 8 October 2019
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Paperback
08 Oct 2019
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€15.65
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Description
Following the trail left by an unfinished quilt, this illuminating saga examines slavery from the cotton fields of the South to the textile mills of New England-and the humanity behind it.
Rachel May's rich new book explores the far reach of slavery, from New England to the Caribbean, the role it played in the growth of mercantile America, and the bonds between the agrarian south and the industrial north in the antebellum era-all through the discovery of a remarkable quilt. While studying objects in a textile collection, May opened a veritable treasure-trove: a carefully folded, unfinished quilt made of 1830sera fabrics, its backing containing fragile, aged papers with the dates 1798, 1808, and 1813, the words shuger, rum, casks, and West Indies, repeated over and over, along with friendship, kindness, government, and incident. The quilt top sent her on a journey to piece together the story of Minerva, Eliza, Jane, and Juba-the enslaved women behind the quilt-and their owner, Susan Crouch. May brilliantly stitches together the often-silenced legacy of slavery by revealing the lives of these urban enslaved women and their world. Beautifully written and richly imagined, An American Quilt is a luminous historical examination and an appreciation of a craft that provides such a tactile connection to the past.
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