The grand prize-winning submission was entered by Margaret Rogers Caden of Lexington, Kentucky, who did not make the quilt herself. Caden entered an exquisitely pieced, intricately stuffed and quilted, and otherwise very ordinary star design she called “Star of the Bluegrass,” pictured here. Caden and her sisters ran a quilt shop in Lexington that employed local women, some of whom worked on various aspects of this quilt Caden called “Star of the Bluegrass.” After Caden won the prize, her shop sold the pattern and the fabrics from the quilt. Yet none of the rural Kentucky women who worked on it received recognition, credit, or any of Caden’s prize money. To top this story of deception, when Sears presented the prize-winning quilt to Eleanor Roosevelt as stipulated by the contest, Caden was not pleased, for unlike many quilters who sent quilts of their own labor to the White House as expressions of gratitude, Caden did not care for the First Lady.

Title: 
Prize quilt given to Mrs. Roosevelt
Maker: 
Ewing & Harris
1933
Library of Congress