Piece by Piece: Crazy Quilting and Making Memory in 19th-Century Massachusetts, with Tenesha Carter

Look closely at a crazy quilt and you’ll find a life woven in the mosaic of textured surfaces: a scrap of wedding silk, a ribbon from the county fair, a souvenir swatch, a sliver of someone’s favorite dress. Gaining distinct popularity by the end of the nineteenth century, “crazy” quilting was more than a technique, but how makers kept record of what mattered to them. What did it mean to spend hundreds of hours of nimble labor into something you’d sleep under every night? These quilts reveal how ordinary women turned scraps and keepsakes into personal archives—and what their quilts can still tell us about the relationship between memory and material culture today.
Lectures are free to the public and can be watched online or in person at Smith Commons (5th floor), Sargent Hall, Suffolk University, 120 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108. The lectures will be recorded and available after the fact.
The in-person location is wheelchair accessible and has accessible restrooms. Seating is in free-standing chairs which may be moved. The live-stream and recording will have auto-generated closed captions only. Please contact the Paul Revere House with any questions about accessibility.