Ruth Clement Bond was the wife of the most senior African American official working for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a New Deal agency that focused in part on flood control and the creation of hydroelectric power in some of the poorest parts of the southeastern United States. Bond designed this quilt and a series of others as part of home beautification efforts in the temporary TVA workers’ villages. She aimed to tell the story of rural electrification and African American empowerment through these modernist quilt designs.