Quilts made by pioneers

With women's studies now a mainstream offering in institutions of higher learning, long-neglected avenues of research, such as women's letters and diaries, are getting the attention they so richly deserve. One topic that has recently been mined with great success is women pioneers and their substantial contributions to the settlement of the Pacific Northwest. A recently revised and substantially enlarged publication entitled Quilts of the Oregon Trail, written by Mary Bywater Cross, is one such welcome addition to the growing literature in this field.

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In her introduction Cross sets the stage with factual information, informing us, for example, that between 1840 and 1870 more than 350,000 people traveled from points around the United States to destinations in Oregon and California. The author divides the quilts in her study into primarily three categories: "those made before the journey, those made during the journey, and those made afterward." These delineations are further divided into three time periods: 1840-1850, 1851-1855, and 1856-1870. The fourth and largest part of this edition "features quilts made by those women who waited--either for a loved one to return, or to join a loved one in the West after they were established."

Many pioneers moved west to take advantage of the Provisional Government of Oregon's offer in 1848 to give 640 acres of land to every married couple willing to settle on the land and prepare at least a portion of it for farming, the latter a labor-intensive process that usually took between two and five years. Residents of the Mississippi and Missouri River valleys were the first to flock to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Wagon trains assembled in Independence, Saint Joseph, and Council Bluffs, Missouri, and in Omaha, Nebraska. For those who made it across the continent unscathed, the journey took as much as nine months, traveling between five and twenty miles per day depending on the terrain and the weather. Many perished from disease and starvation, and others were victims of wagon or firearms accidents, stampedes by livestock, attacks by other pioneers, lightning, gunpowder explosions, and suicide. Western migration changed altogether with the establishment of the railroad connecting the East with the West in 1870 and specifically with the Pacific Northwest in 1883.

Bed quilts brought west by settlers were used in transit as bedcovers, to line the inside of the wagons to insulate them from the cold and the damp, and even as burial shrouds for those who died along the way. When the going was slow, women were able to sew while the wagon was moving, and we know that some quilts were at least partially worked on during the journey west.

Once families arrived women were responsible for multiple chores that ranged from raising vegetables to child care and preparing wool and cotton to make into clothing. For many women, free time was at a premium and they did not necessarily have the leisure moments to sew quilts. Others like Sarah Owens bemoaned the lack of any sort of needlework supplies when they did have free time: "I think the most unhappy period of my life was the first year spent on Clatsop [Plains], simply for the want of something to do. I had no yarn to knit, nothing to sew, not even rags to make patches.... One day Mrs. Parrish gave me a sack full of rags and I never received a present before nor since that I so highly appreciated as I did those rags."

In her analysis of the themes treated in these quilts, Cross relates that celebration and migration are the most common. The former included rites of passages such as birth, marriage, and personal or professional achievements; some quilts celebrate surviving the trip west and establishing a family in the new territory. Migration themes more specifically recognize the role of nature in human life, particularly as it affected pioneers both on the journey west and in their new life. The designs range from representational but highly stylized depictions of birds, plants, and stars (among other things found in nature) to patterns based on geometrical shapes such as squares, rectangles, and triangles.

This book is handsomely produced with nearly every one of the fifty-six quilts illustrated in color in a large format (generally a full-page image). In many cases, a period photograph of the maker is included and, less frequently, a photograph of the house in which she lived. Biographical information about the maker and her family is also included. Appendixes are devoted to explanations of various patterns and analyses of the meanings associated with the colors used and themes expressed by quilters; excerpts from diaries and letters; and a listing of the museums, historical societies, and house museums that own quilts. There is a good deal of solid information in this book. It is a detailed and valuable study of the women who made quilts and accomplished so much more as they settled the American Northwest.