Martha Jane Pettway of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, made this quilt sometime between 1975 and 1995. The women of Gee’s Bend have been making quilts for more than a hundred years. Originally the site of a large plantation, many of the families who still live in Gee’s Bend are descendants of the slaves from the plantation. Quiltmaking is one of the traditions their ancestors have passed to new generations of women.