Quilts are three layers of fabric stitched together.
But beyond that simple definition, quilts also
In addition to all this, quilts are good to think with; they help us contemplate many large and relevant topics, including politics, race, community, and economics. Quilts are tactile pages of our shared American story, each different, but part of a collective whole.
Quilts serve as a lens into American history and traditions—our memories and our myths. The study of quilts reveals important aspects of industrialization, consumer culture, community engagement, everyday creativity, utility, aesthetics, nostalgia, domesticity, and globalization.
This is a story of American quilts, but quilts are not American objects. Although the world has come to consider patchwork quilts as quintessentially American, the United States is just one stop in the long history of global quiltmaking.
