Product Description

The Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project (MassQuilts) is a volunteer organization that holds "documentation days" across the state to identify, date, and photograph pre-1950 quilts in private and museum collections. Formally organized in 1994, to date 6,000 quilts have been documented (the original goal was 3,000). These quilts provide a window through which to view the history of the state, telling stories of international trade and domestic manufacture, economic booms and busts, national politics, and neighborly discourse. The project focuses on quilts that have a history of original use in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts Quilts will present the group's findings. Essays by experts will lend context to catalogue-like entries on notable quilts. The quilts themselves will star, in over 200 illustrations, most of them rich in color.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #73120 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 360 pages

Review
"Massachusetts Quilts, in addition to its vivid narratives about individual quilts, puts quilting history into its larger context... A large, sumptuous, brilliantly executed book, it should be welcomed into the library of anyone interested in American textiles, folkways, folk art, New England history, women's history, and Americana in general."--Maine Antique Digest

"Massachusetts Quilts, Our Common Wealth is a powerful presentation of historic quilts and their gifts makers. This newly released volume offers and important study of American quilt making... This book is enriching with its detailed text and beautiful color illustrations..."--Inside Antiques

"In the years since the Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project got underway in 1994, it has examined 6,000 quilts preserved in museums and historical societies and treasured in private homes. They are, as historian Marla R. Miller notes, "artifacts of sentiment . . . mediums for nostalgia, affection, and veneration across generations." And they are also, she writes, "texts of historical insight." Some 200 examples are now handsomely displayed in "Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth," edited by Lynne Zacek Bassett, the project's founder. The book offers commentary on each quilt, its design and composition, the particular circumstances surrounding its making, and, frequently, the maker herself. In all, it is a valuable document of the Commonwealth's cultural history." --Boston Globe

History lovers will appreciate how this book records the stories of Massachusetts people and towns from Nantucket to the Berkshires."--Lexington's Colonial Times

Review
"Solidly grounded in impeccable scholarship, yet written in an accessible and engaging style, the authors skillfully use quilts to provide another lens into the history of Massachusetts. Organized by region of the state, rather than by quilt style or type, it offers a fresh way of examining the nearly 6,000 quilts documented in the MassQuilts project. It is an important contribution to the literature on quiltmaking in America and on the lives of New England women." (Patricia Crews, Willa Cather Professor of Textiles and Director, International Quilt Study Center & Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln )

About the Author
LYNNE ZACEK BASSETT is an independent scholar specializing in New England's historic costume and textiles, a well-known guest curator, and the author of numerous catalogues and articles. She helped found the Massachusetts Quilt Documentation Project.

Other contributors to Massachusetts Quilts are Dawn C. Adiletta, Marjorie L. Childers, Helen Ewer, Anita B. Loscalzo, Marla Miller, Aimee E. Newell, Pamela A. Parmal, Paula Bradstreet Richter, Vivien Lee Sayre, and Lauren Whitley.

Customer Reviews

excellent history book
Massachusetts, being one of the more important states in America's cotton textile history, lends itself to meaningful research of its quilts made in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. 6000 quilts filled the research pool in this state documentation project. What resulted is this book of splendid historical and scholarly text accompanied by beautiful photography. This is a textile and quilt history book, not just a quilt book or coffee table book. The provenance accompanying the quilts is impressive with many added details that broaden the picture and give the reader historical context. This makes the book more worthwhile as a reference and genealogists might be interested in it. The quilts are accompanied by family photos when possible and the family history. Close-up pictures are scattered throughout, as well as photos of related items for making quilts.

Beautiful book
This book is wonderfully done. The pictures are gorgeous, the narrative is well written. I own many quilt history books from the individual states and this is clearly one of the best. The inclusion of items that were quilted beside bedding were such a nice addition. I had never heard of quilted petticoats until I read my book. This is a must for anyone interested in quilt history. I also appreciated the way the book was divided on subjects. Well done and a pleasure to own.

A must have for the quilt historian.
As a member of a quilt study group,this incredibly detailed book is a must have for its content and the quilts that are represented. I have a particular interest in signature quilts and was overwhelmed by the examples that are featured. This book is destined to be one of the greats. Buy it now while in print or, like Barbara Brackman's books that are out of print, the price will soon be beyond reach.