Forgotten at the Fair
Quilts at Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition
By
Crickett Harmer
For
Gilded Age Chicago
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Quilting has been an American tradition in women’s needlecraft for over two centuries.
In the Victorian Age needlework was at its height. Quilts made during this time in the Victorian
Age range from the exquisite and elaborate to the meager and utilitarian. Sewing was an
important and integral part of almost all women’s lives. The Chicago’s World’s Columbian
Exposition of 1893 was the pinnacle fine art achievement in this country since its founding.
One would imagine that within the context of these events that a quilting exhibit would have
been a part of the Women’s Building exhibits at the Fair, especially, since the main goal of the
Women’s Building was to highlight the achievements and accomplishments of women
throughout history. This building was designed by a woman (Sophia Hayden) decorated by a
woman (Candace Wheeler) managed by a woman (Bertha Potter Palmer) and filled only with
the work and exhibits of women. Even though the overall Fair itself focused on the evolutions
and progress of the industrial age, the Woman’s Building was solidly determined to embrace
the Arts and Crafts Movement credo of beauty, art and labor, all combined to celebrate the
handmade individualism of personal craft.
Research and consideration of all these positive factors, ought to disclose a significant
presence of quilts at the Fair. In reality, however, there is a striking absence of quilt exhibits or
individual quilts mentioned in conjunction with the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.
Why weren’t quilts mentioned at the world’s first and largest exhibit highlighting the
accomplishments of women? The challenge confronting the writer in this research was the
unverified existence of quilts. Without any solid proof or evidence a “wide net” approach was
taken. The research looked at what was occurring in the quilting world before the fair and what
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had consequently occurred in quilting after the fair in order to get a clear and true feeling for
what might have been occurring at the time of the fair in 1893. In order to capture some
significant events in quilting and world’s fair history for evaluation purposes approximately an
eighty year time span was selected from 1850 to 1933.
A major piece of this patchwork of research was the significant role Candace Wheeler
may have played in the omission of any major exhibition of quilts. Candace Wheeler was
appointed Director of the Bureau of Applied Arts and Sciences for the State of New York in 1892
(Weimann 126). She was eventually selected by Mrs. Bertha Potter Palmer, Director of the
Board of Lady Managers, as the Director of Applied Arts and Color for the Women’s Building.
Her age, experience and involvement with the Arts and Crafts movement gave her a firm focus
on decorative arts. She had the ultimate say in what was and what was not included in every
exhibit in the Women’s Building. Her definitive mission and impeccable conviction of style
made her a key player in this quest.
It was also necessary to contact quilt historians knowledgeable in the craft for their
insight and opinions. Contacted was Xenia Cord, quilt historian and author and President of the
American Quilt Study Group, in Nebraska, Lincoln. She proved steadfast and invaluable in her
conviction that quilting was a thriving leisure art form evidenced by the large volume of
surviving quilts from the time and she was essential in her guidance for direction in the
research for this paper. Merikay Waldvogle, Board Member of the Alliance for the American
Quilt, and noted author about quilts, was cautious by saying “most people have hit dead-ends
when looking for quilts displayed at the 1893 Fair.” She knew of several stories about quilts
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that were known to have been at the fair but to date had not uncovered any proof that they
were actually displayed or exhibited. She and Xenia both suggested focusing on crazy quilts
which were extremely popular and indicative of the styles used at the time. Interestingly,
Merikay’s theory is that quilts were at exhibits at the Fair but that they may have been listed or
described in the souvenir and guide books as something other than quilts, for example, as
throws or coverlets.
There also existed a large deficit of photographic evidence from the Fair due to
the high level of control that the Fair’s public relations department made in restricting
unauthorized photos to be taken. Since it was not possible to comb through pictures of the Fair
to locate evidence of quilts, an effort was made to look at all of the published articles, souvenir
and guide books written about the Women’s Building. Articles in the 1893 Chicago Tribune
were reviewed as they related to quilts and exhibits at the Women’s Building.
Two texts that proved especially helpful were Jeanne Weimann’s The Fair Women for
the information it contained and Maud Howe Elliot’s Art and Handicraft in the Woman’s
building of the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago 1893 for the information it did not
contain (no single mention of quilts).
Sewing in the Gilded Age
It is important to examine how predominant sewing was in a woman’s life in this era.
The Victorian woman was known for her genteel pursuit of domestic leisure pastimes. In a day
when few women were college educated, even fewer held jobs outside of teaching, nursing, or
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charitable social work. The greater majority of middle class women of any means stayed home.
High education for women was minimal at this time. Vassar, one of the handful or college for
women wasn’t established until 1861. The ideal standard for the Victorian woman was a
woman who managed the home and raised the children. She could also display her refinement
and even her moral values in how well she decorated her home. The individual skills that
women were taught would range from simple mending, to making garments for the family and
to the refined art of fancy work. Fancy work consisted of intricate needlework such as fine
embroidery, lace work and complicated knotting white work used for decorative items.
Techniques and traditions were passed from generation to generation with extreme artistic
pride. All women were exposed to the feminine art of the needle either from a homey
utilitarian mending and reworking perspective or from the more social, genteel time consuming
decorative refined work normally available only to the fortunate.
Elizabeth Stone in her 1842 book Art of Needlework wrote “If there is one
mechanical art of more universal application than all others, and, therefore, of more universal
interest, it is that which is practiced with the NEEDLE (sic). From the stateliest denizen in the
proudest palace, to the humblest dweller in the poorest cottage all more or less ply the busy
needle.”
Elizabeth Stone’s words were written in 1842 and would not apply to all women today.
However, in 1892, fifty years after they were initially written, the words could not have held
more truth. In the latter part of the nineteenth century in Chicago the “denizen in the proudest
palace” could have been appropriately applied to Mrs. Bertha Honore Palmer Potter who would
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later become the founder of the Needlework and Textile Guild of Chicago (Ayres 68). The
“humblest dweller in the poorest cottage” would have been any one of the thousands of poor
immigrant women or children in one of the eight hundred licensed sweatshops making
garments in Chicago’s nineteenth ward.
Quilts in the early nineteenth century, forty years before the 1893 World’s Columbian
Exposition
A good portion of the quilts that were made in the early nineteenth century that have
survived are elaborate, heavily appliquéd Baltimore Albums and floral appliqués. These quilts
represented women’s interest in botany, a popular field of study acceptable for women of the
time. These quilts were complete in the density of fine hand quilting, and, more than likely,
survived because they displayed a tremendous labor of love, planning, time and skill. If the
quilts such as those displayed today at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont, were used they
were presented on guest beds in the finest residences. Sadly, immigrant quilts and bed
coverings or middle class patchwork quilts that would have suffered constant use became
soiled and worn with the ravages of time and would have survived the ages only as memories.
Quilt patterns appeared in print as early as the 1830’s (Brackman 4). A popular and
major influence on middle-class women in America in the nineteenth century was the
magazine, Godey’s Lady’s Book. It was published successfully as the first journal for women
from 1830-1898 (Winkler 20). Godey’s Lady’s Book published the first pattern in January of
1835. The technology for creative illustration was difficult in 1835 and published patterns were
sparse until the 1880’s when American periodicals began to influence design.
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The hierarchy of importance in fine art normally ranges from painting, to sculpture and,
finally, to the decorative arts. Historically, textiles have been of minimal interest and
needlework and quilts produced by women even of less interest. Even with the abundance of
needlework and quilting evident during the nineteenth century it would not have been
considered art unless it was of extremely fine quality and workmanship.
Influences of the Arts and Crafts Movement in Gilded Age Chicago
The catalyst for the Arts and Crafts Movement in America was the Centennial Exhibition
of 1876 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The movement’s philosophy is mentioned in this
research because it was instrumental in redefining needlework as a Victorian pastime. English
art critic and philosopher, John Ruskin, and his disciple, William Morris, started this movement
as a reaction against the onslaught of industrialization. Imitating Eastern and European styles
of design, the “craftsman ideal” sought to unite art with labor in order to restore beauty, truth
and morality to the worker.
Jane Addams and residents of Hull House are attributed with bringing the arts and crafts
ideals to Chicago. After their visit to Toynbee Hall, England, Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr
became strong proponents for the movement and the work of William Morris. In Eileen Boris’
book, Art and Labor, she defines the “Chicago Network” by saying “With the largest number of
groups claiming allegiance to the example of Ruskin and Morris, Chicago exemplified the
diversity of the craftsman ideal” (Boris 45). Therefore, Chicago at the time of the World’s
Columbian Exposition and during the Gilded Age was very much influenced by the particular
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design style and philosophy of life, hand-in-hand with all of its skyscrapers, urbanization and
modernization.
The effect that the Arts and Crafts movement had on quilting was an obvious one of
design. However, quilting was also influenced by the huge focus that needlework and
embroidery was receiving. “While quilt work was at an ebb in it’s popularity during the Arts
and Crafts period, the movement fostered achievements that brought about the popular revival
of quilting for decades to follow” (Ayres 194). Obviously, quilting was an ongoing endeavor of
the day, but because of the boom following the American discovery of the Royal School of Art
Needlework, introduced at the Philadelphia Exposition, embroidery became the preferred fad
of the time for women in sewing.
Reformers of the Arts and Crafts movement became artistically selective and “were not
always comfortable with the quality and design of the typical household cloth and textile
production” (Ayres 8). The possibility exists that there was a significant prejudice in the
distinction between everyday crafted items and designed art textiles.
Candace Wheeler, her life as it affected the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893
Along with Jane Addams and Bertha Potter Palmer, Candace Wheeler stood out as an
exception to the Victorian woman mentioned in this paper. She was not content to stay at
home and let her dwellings define her genteel refinement. Wheeler’s story is fascinating and
her connection to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, American textile design and the
Arts and Crafts movement is finely embroidered together. Candace Wheeler has been
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described “as part of the larger story in the saga of American cultural history as well as an
important voice in the development of American art and design” (Blanchard 662). Studying
Candace Wheeler is relevant to this research because she was the Director of Applied Arts and
Color for the Women’s Building.
Candace Wheeler’s most noted achievement was, at the age of fifty, the founding of the
New York Society of Decorative Art after being inspired by the Royal Society’s art needlework at
the Philadelphia 1876 Centennial Exposition. Objectives of the Society were “To encourage
profitable industries among women who possess artistic talent, and to furnish a standard of
excellence and a market for their work” (Wheeler, Yesterdays 216). Empowering women with
wage earning opportunities through needlework was personal to her because her own
grandmother had to support her family with her needle-working skills following the death of
her grandfather. In accepting designs for sale, she maintained a high standard of artistic merit.
Later, she founded a separate organization, the Women’s Exchange, as a more philanthropic
means for women to earn money with less emphasis placed on the artistic standard. As a
philanthropic and well-meaning enterprise, the Women’s Exchange was not without its critics.
“It has raised the standard of decorative and artistic needle-work by incorporating into its rules
a refusal to accept calico patchwork, wax, leather, hair, feathers, rice, spatter, splinter, and
card-board work” (Salmon 9). Even though the artistic standard of the Women’s Exchange was
meant to be more lenient, restrictions were still adhered to concerning the acceptance of
textiles.
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Prior to becoming involved in the Chicago Fair of 1893, Wheeler worked with Louis
Comfort Tiffany as the head of the embroidery and tapestry division of Associated Artists in
1879. Some of her most recognized work in home decoration was on interior projects at the
White House and at the home of Mark Twain in Hartford, Connecticut.
Candace Wheeler strongly believed that fine embroidery was an art. “Wheeler sought a
place for an aesthetic, one that elevated needlework, conventional textiles and women’s
conventional skill, one that lay beyond a utilitarian function” (Blanchard 673). In her effort to
uplift and emphasize embroidery and needlework she may have totally overlooked or even
deliberately excluded quilting.
A textile issue distinct to the Gilded Age that Candace Wheeler did address and had
concerns about was the hygienic issue. Along with a balance of harmony and color, she
addressed the social concern that some had at the time associating cloth with disease and the
smallpox epidemic. She used lighter textiles that let in light and air, such as linen. In order to
keep the home more sanitary, she liked textiles that were easier to maintain and were more
germ free. In her book, Principles of Home Decoration with Practical Examples, she states “Yet,
even individuality of taste and expression must scrupulously follow sanitary laws in the
furnishing of the bedroom. “Stuffy things” of any sort should be avoided”. As quilts were very
difficult to wash at the time and consisted of three layers, one can assume that a quilt was a
“stuffy things”. Here we find another reason to believe that quilts and bed coverings may have
had a less favorable significance to her.
Crazy Quilts and their relevance to the Gilded Age
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No other artifact reflects the Gilded Age of the Victorian woman better than the crazy
quilt. It is significant to focus on this particular style of quilting because of the close connection
and proliferation of the crazy quilt in the Victorian Age. Described as “crazy” due to the
random, erratic, asymmetrical design, the quilts were in fact carefully planned to have just that
visual effect. The patchwork in a crazy quilt would most often contain expensive, high end
fabrics such as velvets, silks, and brocades, in rich jewel tones. Once the background or block
was established, then the real work of embellishment would take place. Embroidered flowers,
quotes, animals, bugs, and symbols were carefully decorated onto the patch with silk thread in
a variety of colors and stitches. These fascinating works of needle-art would be displayed in the
parlor reflecting the elegance, beauty and artistry of the woman of the home. Crazy quilts
being more decorative than utilitarian, seemed to be the vogue while articles during the period
in popular magazines referred to most others quilts as quaint. “Now, I fancy there are few
objects which, by association of ideas are more fertile in recalling bygone times and people
than an old homemade quilt” (Bergen 1). This was how Fanny Bergen in her September 1894
Scribner’s article, The Tapestry of the New World, reviewed the historical role of patchwork.
The embroidery connected with crazy quilting made it acceptable and popular.
The Mission of the Women’s Building
One of this nation’s greatest spectacles and historic events was the Chicago World’s
Columbian Exposition of 1893. The great fair exemplified and defined the progress and the
“march of human civilization.” It demonstrated in a very concise and constructed effort the
higher values of art, education, liberal arts, manufacturing and craft. For the first time, women
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had a managerial decision making body, the Board of Lady Managers. Their appointment
served to emphasize the achievement of women and was embodied in the Women’s Building.
The Board of Lady Managers had one fear concerning the overall effect that the Women’s
Building would have on the general public: that people would say “Don’t go into the Women’s
Building, there is nothing there worth seeing” (Weimann 279). Since the mission was to
emphasize the most credible achievements of women throughout history, the special task took
on grand proportions when validations of those credible achievements also became part of the
mission. Mrs. Potter Palmer, Director of the Board of Lady Managers, was concerned that in an
effort to uplift and highlight the achievements of women that they might also run the risk of
proving just the opposite if the exhibit showed the mundane. Her direction is clear in one of
her letters in which she wrote, “But we want to keep this exhibit very choice. We must keep
the standard up to the highest point. No sentimental sympathy for women should cause us to
admit second-rate things into this gallery” (Weimann 280). Bertha Potter Palmer’s first love
was in the fine arts, and she set a high standard in telling the story of the powerful influence
women had in the development of the country. Candace Wheeler in her autobiography stayed
true to Mrs. Palmer’s mission and said about her work on the Fair, “Our safety lay in not doing
anything unworthy” (Wheeler, Yesterdays 344).
Fernald Fredrick’s article written at the time of the Fair, Household Arts at the World’s
Fair, commented about the Women’s Building.
It might have been expected that under the direction of the Board of Lady Managers
some systematic representation of this important occupation would be found. But no;
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the women of America have preferred to be represented by their books, their paintings,
their societies for inducing other people to become wiser and better by their work as
hospital nurses, by paper lampshades and indescribable things…by anything in fact that
is either pretty on the one hand or mannish on the other, and is remote from everyday
affairs (Weimann 462).
Mrs. Potter Palmer, in her efforts to reach for the exalted, was criticized in the end for leaving
out the items remote from everyday affairs. Those are the same items that she felt might have
compromised the history of women’s achievements and made the exhibit not worth seeing.
One of the interesting quotes from The National Exposition Souvenir book for the
Women’s Building at the fair stated “It is here shown that women, among all the primitive
peoples, were the originators of most of the industrial arts, and that it was not until these
became lucrative that they were appropriated by men , and women pushed aside”
(Weimann,393). Consequently, at the fair the manufacturing of silk embroidery thread was a
two million dollar industry. The interest in manufacturing threads and its marketability are
discussed in an eight-installment article on the History of the Spool in the Chicago Tribune in
October of 1893. When you add the manufacturing of sewing machines in addition to textile
manufacturing, and the thread industry, men had definitely stepped in when things became
lucrative. The increase in production and sales can be credited to women sewing and
embroidering.
Quilting in the early twentieth century, forty years after the 1893 World’s Columbian
Exposition
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In sharp contrast to the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the 1933 Century of
Progress Exposition was also held in Chicago and served as the venue of the most important
quilting event in American History. At this World’s Fair, Sears held a Century of Progress Quilt
Contest. Twenty five thousand quilts were submitted as entries by women competing for the
honor to win the grand prize money of one thousand two hundred dollars. Mrs. Eleanor
Roosevelt was presented with the prize winning quilt. Since that time we have not seen a quilt
show that had such a high number of entries or such a high level of prominence. Quilting had
become successful commercially and attracted the attention of notable public supporters.
The beginning of the twentieth century saw a revival in the popularity of quilt making
due in large part to a woman named Marie Daugherty Webster of Marion, Indiana. Published
in 1915 her book, Quilts Their Story and How to make them, was the first book published solely
about quilts. In her own search for historical information on quilting she wrote “Quilts were in
such general use and were considered as such ordinary articles that early writers about family
life in the colonies neglected to mention them.” Webster’s words provide some insight into the
difficulty of finding written history on quilting before the turn of the twentieth century.
Conclusion
Odd evidence of two quilts did present itself in the discovery. Research did reveal
documented evidence of one quilt in the Woman’s Building and one in the Fisheries Building.
The Chicago Tribune of May 7, 1893 mentions “There is a quilt made by a peasant girl,
embroidered in diamond blocks of shaded reds. Wood carving, woven quilts(?), and laces
illustrate the work done in this country to the north.” The article describing the Exhibits of
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Norway and Sweden focused on exhibits that had been completed by May before the opening
of the Women’s Building. The Fisheries Building was also listed in one of the guide books as
having a waterfowl exhibit complete with an example of an “eider-down” quilt.
Unfortunately, mention of these two quilts did not have the significant prominence that all of
this research suggests that they should have had. The omission of quilts from the Women’s
Building is an obvious one that can be attributed to a variety of factors.
This research did prove that although beautiful quilts were being made including crazy
quilts that fit into the popular craze of the time, quilts were generally ‘forgotten at the fair’.
There were many obstacles that blocked the way for an exhibit at the Fair. These obstacles
included the lack of importance of women’s work, the lack of importance of textiles, the Arts
and Crafts Movements push for highly stylized European and Japanese influenced design,
Candace Wheeler’s promotion of embroidery, Candace Wheeler’s concern with sanitation and
hygiene, and Bertha Potter Palmer’s fear of the common and mundane in her effort to not let
down women and her audience.
The wife of the Illinois Governor, fifty years after the fair, wrote that she remembered
the “beautiful art and craftsmanship” she had seen. She stated that the Women’s Building was
memorable because it was all handmade, and that was “one thing that could never come
again.” It is regrettable that quilting was not displayed and exhibited to a greater degree.
Quilts would have been a notable and wonderful contribution to the accomplishments of
women’s needle-craft history at the World’s Columbian Exposition.
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Works Sited:
Ayres, Dianne and Hansen, Timothy and McPherson, Beth Ann and McPherson II,
Tommy Arthur. American Arts and Crafts Textiles. New York: Harry H. Abrams, 2002.
Bergen, Fanny D. “The Tapestry of the New World” Scribner’s Volume 16, Issue 3; pg
360-370; New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, September, 1894.
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Vision in Gilded Age America” Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis American Quarterly,
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Boris, Eileen. Art and Labor Ruskin, Morris and the Craftsman Ideal in America.
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Elliot, Maud Howe. “Art and Handicraft in the Woman’s building of the World’s
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Works Conferred:
Abbot, Willis John. “Art at the World’s Fair.” Christian Union (1870-1893); April 29, 1893;
47, 17; APS Online, 807.
Alexander, Lynn Mae. Women Work and Representation: Needlewomen in Victorian Art
and Literature. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2003.
Anderson, Nancy Fix. “Threading Lives: Work, Art, and Pleasure in the Worlds of
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Hammond, LA; Southeastern Louisiana University.
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and London: Yale University Press, 2006.
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Present. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.
Crews, Patricia Cox. A Flowering of Quilts. Lincoln and London; University of Nebraska
Press, 2001.
Friedman, Judith Stern. “Stitches of Splendor: The New Craze in Crazy Quilts.” American
Patchwork and Quilting Des Moines, IA; Meredith Publishing Group, Issue 89, December
2007.
Gilbert, James. “Fin de Siècle: A Contest of Cultures.” History Today. London: Jul
1992.Vol 42.
Gordon, Beverly. “Crazy Quilts as an Expression of Fairyland.” Uncovering 2006 Lincoln
NE; American Quilt Study Group, 2006.
Kingsley, Rebecca. A Quantum Book; Arts and Crafts Movement Textiles and Interiors.
Kent, England: Grange Books, 1999.
Kiracofe, Roderick. The American Quilt A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750-1950. New
York; Clarkson Potter, 1993.
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Roby, Mary R. “The Largest Quilt Contest ever Held.” Country Living. New York; April
1994. Vol 17, Iss.4, 50-53.
Rubin, Stella. Miller’s Treasure or Not? How to Compare and Value American Quilts.
London; Octopus Publishing Group Limited, 2001.
Trestain, Eileen Jahnke. Dating Fabrics A Color Guide 1800-1960. Paducah, Kentucky;
American Quilters Society, 1998.
Waldvogel, Merikay and Brackman, Barbara. Patchwork Souvenirs of the 1933 World’s
Fair. Rutledge Hill Press, 1993.
Winkler, Gail Caskey. “Influence of Godey’s Lady’s Book on the American woman and
her home: Contributions to a national culture (1830-1877) Madison, Wisconsin: The
University of Wisconsin, 1988
“What You May Expect to See at the World’s Fair.” Godey’s, May 1893; 126, 755: APS
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Annotated bibliography The Books of the Fairs: Material about World’s Fairs 1834-1916
in the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. Chicago, London: American Library Association,
1992.
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