With its so-called alphabet soup of agencies, the New Deal presented numerous opportunities for quiltmakers to show support for specific governmental efforts. The earliest New Deal quilts reflected their makers’ support of the National Recovery Administration (NRA), formed in the early days of the Roosevelt administration with the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA), the first major recovery legislation passed as part of the New Deal. Businesses that signed on to the blanket code rules of the NRA—minimum wage, maximum workweek, and the right for workers to collectively bargain—were allowed to display the NRA’s Blue Eagle emblem, and consumers were encouraged to boycott those who did not. Soon, the Blue Eagle was everywhere, with seventy million cards, stickers, and posters printed and shortages of the logo causing anxiety among businesses which did not wish to be boycotted. With such mass interest in displaying the Blue Eagle, it did not take long for quiltmakers to show support by brandishing the logo on their bedcovers; some adapted published patterns while many created quilts of original design.

Similar to the array of quilt styles created to mark the NRA, WPA quilts shared no unifying pattern or particular design characteristics, and instead were a grassroots outpouring of gratitude and loyalty toward this massive government agency.

Quilts like these suggested allegiance to group identity, as did ones made by a group of African American women who accompanied their husbands to the Muscle Shoals region in Alabama to work for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). The Tennessee Valley Authority Act of 1933 created this federally owned corporation designed to provide electricity and expertise to rural communities throughout the Tennessee River Valley region. These women created decorative objects now known as the TVA quilts that showcased their support for the agency and for racial empowerment.