Baltimore album quilts

Magazine Antiques, March, 1994 by Jennifer F. Goldsborough

Taken together, Baltimore album quilts are a rich resource for exploring the history of the city a century ago, while at the same time they may be enjoyed for their beauty as works of art and exquisite craftsmanship.

The quilts illustrated in this article are on view in the exhibition Lavish Legacies: Baltimore Album Quilts at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore from March 6 to November 28.

(1)This style of applique quilt emerged about 1840 when Turkey-red fabric became readily available to middle-class American women, according to "Turkey Red," a lecture delivered by Barbara Brackman at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore on November 12, 1993.

(2)Dena S. Katzenberg, Baltimore Album Quilts (Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, 1981), pp. 58--60.

(3)Elly Sienkiewicz, Baltimore Beauties and Beyond, vol. 1, Studies in Classic Album Quilt Applique (Lafayette, California, 1989), p. 37.

(4)See Catalogue of the First Annual Exhibition of the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, Held October 31st, 1848 at Washington Hall, Baltimore (Baltimore, 1848); Third annual Exhibition of the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, Held October 14th 1850, at Washington Hall, Baltimore (Baltimore, 1850); The Book of the Exhibition: Fourth Annual Exhibition of the Maryland Institute (Baltimore, 1852); and The Book of the Exhibition: Sixth Annual Exhibition of the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts (Baltimore, 1853).

(5)Simon's work can conceivably be divided into two groups, based on the palettes used and other elements. Further study may clarify this issue.

(6)See ANTIQUES, January 1990, pp. 156, 178, 206, and December 1990, p. 1174. Because she was so long linked to the squares, Mary Evans Ford has been the subject of much research, although little information about her has turned up. The 1850 Federal census lists her as a girl of seventeen living with her widowed mother and siblings. She was a member of the Caroline Street Methodist Church and attended Methodist Sunday school classes at the East Baltimore Station. In 1873 she married John Ford of New York.

(7)Baltimore American, December 17--22, 1846.

(8)Examples are in the Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont; the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center, Williamsburg, Virginia; the Maryland Historical Society; and several private collections.

(9)The diary is MS2517 in the manuscripts division of the Library of Maryland History at the Maryland Historical Society.

(10)The baptismal records of Saint James Roman Catholic Church in Baltimore provided Mary's maiden name along with the information that she was from the town of Lucktersbach, Bavaria. In 1844 she married Philip Simon, who was born in 1813 in Burckenau, Bavaria. He is listed in the 1850 Federal census as a carpet weaver at 105 French Street in Baltimore, on the corner of Chestnut (the entrance to the residential part of the building was on Chestnut). Church records document the births of four children: Joseph (b. 1845), Adam Laurentius (b. 1847), Joannes (b. 1852), and Maria Theresia (b. 1856).