Quilts from the Underground Railroad, Part 1

swing low Sweet Chariot coming for to carry me home swing low Sweet Chariot coming for to carry me Oh welcome two quilts from the Underground Railroad I'm Eleanor burns well today we're going to jump aboard the Freedom Train for a historical look at quilts from the 1860s and the significant part they played in helping slaves communicate undercover I'll conduct as we gather our monkey wrench and we'll hop on to the wagon wheel we'll follow the bear's paw trail through the mountains and we'll meet safely at the crossroads well it's an adventure you won't want to miss coming for to carry me home swing low Sweet Chariot coming for to carry me home the Underground Railroad really wasn't a train at all the Underground Railroad refers to the 19th century movement that transported thousands of slaves to freedom and network of participants called conductors who were both black and white Shepard the slaves called passengers North the Kannada now they harbored them in stations or safe houses along the way now their safe place may have been a church or a stately home or even a log cabin but our story is just getting way ahead of us let's follow a slave woman living in a small shack on a plantation in the south it's the 1830s now she would be up at 6:00 a.m. working in the field all day long and then she would come home and work all night at quilting oh they'd have the best quilting bees they would rather quilt than sleep and if the moon and the stars weren't out they would hold the light for each other the missus of the plantation and may have given the scraps for this quilt well my favorite piece of fabric is the vibrant blue and the border oh I just love it and then there's plenty of indigo blue there's double Pink's there's yellows Browns the other quilt patterns had stories and meanings behind them for instance there's no straight lines in this quilt they believed it's bad luck to make straight lines or to make a perfect quilt that's not hard because evil spirits follow straight lines an imperfect quilt will distract the devil in the night now if something bad happened on the plantation they would hang a quilt as this with all the triangles now the triangles offer prayer in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Ghost ooh the orange triangles are wonderful then there's also triangles of shirting their stripes there's checks small prints just a gray quilt now superstitions and stories like this may have gotten them to thinking other quilts could talk for them well most of the slaves couldn't read or write and their masters didn't like them talking to each other maybe quilts could help them escape from bondage to freedom well to me that's a logical assumption now perhaps they had a secret meeting in their cabin and they would turn the pot over at the door to catch the sounds of their secret meeting there they devised a quilt code made up of ten quilts they would put one quilt on the fence at a time and then each quilt would meet something the quilt would stay on the fence until all the planning to escape had been completed now ancestors of runaways were forbidden to talk about this so let's face it much of this is hearsay it's just passed on stories it's oral family history some of the information I'm going to share with you today came from this woman this is mrs. O's Ella Nick Daniel Williams and she was from Charleston South Carolina she was told this oral family history by her mother and her grandmother authors Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond debarred published the oral family history in hidden in plain view the secret story of quilts and the Underground Railroad now as Ella Williams passed on just before this book was published by doubleday in 1999 so this is a zealous story her oral family history by people go oh press so hard they could not stand let my people go go down ozawa said the monkey reg quilt was the first quilt displayed as a signal for anyone who planned to escape oh when this monkey wrench is just a beauty with its black morning prints then it's wonderful reds and blues the blocks are set on point with butterscotch was just a great yellow and orange fabric now you can make your own monkey wrench block this is what it looks like all you have to do is start out with a background and a dark take two pieces of fabric take a rectangle six inches by 12 inches of each of the fabrics put them right sides together draw a six inch line then draw diagonal lines and so on both sides then all you need to do is just cut them apart you've got your four corners right here and square these up to five and a half inches let's take a look so there's one more unit then we've got to get this striped piece right here comes from strips is the easiest part three inch strips sew them together cut into three inch sections and then all you need to do to finish it is just put a three inch square right in the middle well the monkey wrench is a heavy metal tool the Jews buy the blacksmith and this quilt is symbolized it's time to collect the tools needed for the journey nor now there were physical tools there was tools for constructing a shelter tools for defending themselves as a knife tools for determining direction as a compass oh and you've got to have some food or good loaf of bread you got to have a few coins and put them all together in a bundle so the Monkeywrench quilt begins our adventure of oral family history you let my people go the wagon wheel is the second pattern in the secret quilt code well wagons were the primary source of transporting Runaways plus they have all kinds of secret compartments they could hide all kinds of things and even if they weren't travelling by wagon they were to pack as if they were they were to remember all of the provisions they needed for survival now another secondary pattern to the wagon wheel is this one this is called carpenter's wheel to the slaves the master carpenter was Jesus and so they sang the song about the chariot swing low Sweet Chariot coming for to carry me home if you get there before I do you tell my friends come into just a wonderful song and this one is also a variation of the wagon wheel called the Setting Sun if you can just imagine the Sun setting right behind the Appalachian Mountains as The Runaways were on their way to Cleveland perfect well Sun bonnets were an indicator of social status and a woman that was in higher social status than a slave would wear a Sun bonnet and Sun bonnets make great disguises all you could just pull it forward and kind of look down to the ground very shyly and it would be a great disguise well the story goes that there was a preacher who lived in Oklahoma City Oklahoma and every day he would ride into town and he would have two ladies sitting on the seat beside him wearing Sun bonnets a half an hour later he would return to ladies sitting beside him in Sun bonnets but nobody would even notice that the ladies had dark complexions it's a great story so let's just continue our road to freedom Oh I want to cross over into the bears Park well was the third quilt displayed slaves were to follow the trail of the bear because their fifth their footprints would indicate the best path to food and water well that's good advice especially if you want to eat well most escapes took place in the spring when bears were roaming about after their long winter hibernation well the color of this bears paw quilt is turkey red and it was made from madder root now the color is still as vibrant as the day it was made Montgomery Ward's or sold premium Turkey red for twenty seven and a half cents or you could buy a synthetic red for just nine and a half cents well I believe these brown stripes were read at one time so using quality fabric was important even in the 1860s the bear's paw block is easy to make it has 16 claws in it these are the pause now the claws come from two pieces of fabric they're medium and background and this piece is six inches by 12 inches all you need to do is draw on a three inch grid draw your diagonal lines and so on both sides of the grid and then when you cut them apart square the claws up to 2 and 1/4 inches now the paws are four inch squares so with the paws and the claws you just set them together with the lattice and a square right in the center oh it's just so much fun to do now this new quilt is called Bear Valley it reminds me of the bears traveling the Appalachian mountain range and it is just a perfect wall hanging for a country home now this road map way I'd have a hard time following this road map but this road map shows the Underground Railroad route through the mountains close to the South Carolina area that ran Southwest to Northeast well we're on that trail and jogging west steal away still away to Jesus once they made it through the mountains they were to travel to the crossroads now Cleveland Ohio was the main crossroads or the major terminal into Canada each station had a name and Cleveland was known as hope well when they were delivered the men were called hardware and the ladies were called dry goods well once they reach Cleveland their lives changed drastically the crossroads was the fourth quilt displayed and this one is a beauty now it has circular quilting in the stitches the lady sat at the quilting frame and made an arc with their hand quilting now this pattern is easy to do it's just like a nine patch now you just start with two and a half inch strips make one set with two backgrounds in one dark and then cut them into two and a half inch sections you need to have two per block and then make a second set with two dark and one background only one section this time so the blocks into a nine patch and then measure them and then you set them together with squares cut the same size and side and corner triangles and you will have a crossroads quilt well now you too can read that secret code of the first four blocks let's see we'll see if you've been paying attention the monkey wrench turns the wagon wheel toward Canada on a bear's paw Trail to the crossroads well they're at the crossroads now they need to find a safe place by the Thunder Oh Oh trumpet songs will be in my soul the log cabin quilt is the fifth quilt in the secret code now perhaps runaways were to look for a specific log cabin in Cleveland that was a safe house well research did not uncover it but after all it was a long time ago and this is oral family history or the quilt may have indicated to build a log cabin to weather out the winter well that sounds cozy and safe to me this is my favorite log cabin quilt it's made from one-inch wool strips and the blocks are turned in different directions for a wonderful pattern now I wash this quilt recently it looks much better now well on the plantations in the south quilt washing day was fun for children well first their mother build the wash tub with water and soft soap and then the children got right in the tubs with the quilts and they trumped the dirt out of them what a day well the log cabin block is always symbolized by center square and then the logs in graduated lengths are laid down with like fabric on one half and logs in dark in the second half and usually the center color was red to represent the warm glow or the cabins hearth the hearth fire well in this wonderful old quilt with 1 and 1/4 inch wide strips the center's are red this is a fields and furrows layout and then other colors were also used as symbols GLaDOS Murray Frye in her book stitched from the soul suggested a black center as a safe house something like this what's unusual to see black in the middle of a log cabin block this is a courthouse steps quilt it's a pattern in the log cabin family and all of the center's are red but I want you to notice the one black center now could this quilt hanging in front of a house represent a safe stopping place it could be a true story well then a yellow centre indicated a light or a beacon in the wilderness in Africa the color yellow is used to signify life it also represents a candle in the window William Lloyd still now he was a famous black underground railroad conductor lived in Philadelphia and his family quilt is a log-cabin quilt with a yellow Center well do you know how the Underground Railroad got its name the story goes there was a Kentucky slave that wanted to be free and he made it to the shore of the Ohio River near John rank and safe house now the slave holder was right behind him there was no boat for the slave in the icy water so we just jumped right in then he heard a whippoorwill call he looked up and saw a yellow light the candle in the window at John Rankin's house and you know he vanished right before the slaveholders eyes when the slaveholder went home empty-handed he told everyone an underground railroad came by and picked them up well this is an unfinished log cabin quilt with just three fabrics in it its wool just the red the beige the black and it's the start of the of the barn-raising pattern but since it's not completed we can just look at the back and examine how it was made it was made on a base piece of fabric and the quilt maker used scraps for the base and this is how you do it you start out with a piece of muslin or whatever and you just draw an X right in the center and the center square goes right in the middle of that X then the first light goes right sides to the center you stitch right through the base and then fold it out and then comes the next light you put it right sides together to it stitch right along there and just fold it out and you just keep alternating between light and dark to create the pattern oh it's just one of my favorites the log pad log cabin pattern yes order simplicity and union well certainly the slaves had to unite but it also evokes the spirit of Abraham Lincoln and a sense of Liberty if you get there before I do coming for to carry me home tell all my friends I'm coming the shoofly is the sixth quilt in our secret quilt code now it may have been an actual person who aided escaping slaves or a shoofly might have even been a free black who aided and harbored fugitives well as Ella Williams has little information on the shoofly but remember this whole story is based on oral family history well the fugitives often hid out in case they were known as cathedrals and they also hid out in graveyards especially if they were on the edge of the river or on the edge of town now they might just crouch down low behind a tombstone wait patiently for a signal from a lantern across the way to tell them it was safe to go on in this book journey to freedom a story of the Underground Railroad written by Courtney right the shooflies or the stationmaster's are mr. and mrs. Anderson now mrs. Anderson hung a quilt out on her porch just so that the scaping fugitives would know that this was a safe haven for them mr. Anderson took them into the barn and he settled them down gave some hot stew and biscuits and some blankets and just before they fell asleep they talked about how much longer it would be until they reached freedom in Canada oh this is just a great book to read to children about the Underground Railroad to really enjoy it now this the song the Negro spiritual steal away is a directive for Runaways to freedom and these are the words steal away steal away steal away to Jesus steal away steal away I ain't got long to stay here my Lord calls me he calls me by the Thunder that means you should leave in a rainstorm so the dogs don't catch the scent and the rain washes away the footprints green trees are bending that means leaving the summertime poor center stands at rambling tombstones are bursting hide out in a graveyard poor center stands a trembling my Lord calls me he calls me by the lightning that means that the Lightning will illuminate the landscape they can see just where to go it likes their path the trumpet sounds within my soul I ain't got long to stay here it's very touching song to listen to well in this quilt the shoe fly I use reproduction fabrics I could not find an antique shoofly quilt so we just made this one recently with reproduction fabrics but each block is a different fabric when it's great fun to do and then the blocks are set together with a striped lattice throughout now it's actually a piece square in the corners it's a nine patch with four P squares in the corners and whatever size the P squares are you also cut the center square and the four background squares exactly the same size this is my technique well I went a little bit larger I used a four and a half inch patch this is background and medium placed right sides together two sets of them draw a diagonal line so on both sides so then when you cut it apart and square it up square it to four inches and then you just need to have a four inch center square the 4 inch backgrounds to set the whole block together it's just easy quilt to do well may we praise all of the shooflies along the way that got the runaway safely on their way to freedom this is a good breakpoint now because the Runaways are now safe from the plantation owners and the cruelty that went along with slavery well I'm not mean to Passover the inhumane treatment but I want to focus on the quilts because quilting bees were one of the times when they enslaved women were set free oh it was a rare moment they had to themselves when each woman could be an artist with her scissors and her cloth well this scrap quilt is certainly a piece of art it's a scrap bag quilt in the hands all around pattern and all hands did have to work together to get the fugitives out of bondage why just bought it recently in Kentucky now the block is very interesting it's made of diamonds and squares with a complete eight point star in the center and then the stars are in each of the corners with only eight diamonds each the diamonds are hand beast' it's hard to believe it has very thick batting so the quilter made long quilting stitches well there's no border and there's no separate binding the backing is brought around to the front and it's quite warm very heavy well warped was important because slaves with me masters were only given one quilt or not at all you know historians say if they got one they would only get a new one every three years as Elvis said that her mother and her grandmother showed showed her how to quilt well they would all sit underneath a large oak tree and her parents would tell stories they would hold up a particular quilt and then they would instruct how to sew the pattern then they told how the particular pattern was placed in the story ozawa was a good listener you know she was the only one in the family that paid attention while we're over halfway through the code of quilts from the Underground Railroad and we're fortunate that izella shared her oral family history with us Oh

Channel: Quilt in a Day

Views: 73,827

Rating: 4.7599096 out of 5

Keywords: quilting, eleanor burns, quilt in a day, Underground Railroad (Literature Subject)

Id: lZ7Hp6ZAsTk

Length: 25min 55sec (1555 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2013