The federal government harnessed not only the symbolic potential of quilts as thrifty, comforting domestic objects; it also trained women in the skills of quiltmaking. The Works Progress Adminstration’s (WPA) Women’s and Professional Division created sewing rooms and handicraft projects in which women without a husband or father supporting them could find work. The government disparagingly characterized these workers as “unskilled,” with their only ability using a sewing needle. 

Sewing rooms trained women to make quilts, resulting in the production of tens of thousands of bedcovers, along with the garments and mattresses that comprised the bulk of their output. Handicraft projects instructed women in more specialized patchwork and appliqué techniques, among other skills like block printing and bookbinding. College-educated home economists facilitated quiltmaking and other home beautification and sewing techniques as part of the Department of Agriculture’s Cooperative Extension Service and as Farm Security Administration (FSA) Supervisors, who visited rural families to provide expert advice on how to be thrifty homemakers. Women living in the New Deal’s many planned communities and migratory labor camps learned from the home economists staffing these federally funded outposts, each outfitted with a community sewing room.