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When we think of slavery, most of us think of the American South. We think of back-breaking fieldwork on plantations. We don't think of slavery in the North, nor do we think of the grueling labor of urban and domestic slaves. Rachel May's rich new book explores the far reach of slavery, from New England to the Caribbean, the role it played in the growth of mercantile America, and the bonds between the agrarian south and the industrial north in the antebellum era-all through the discovery of a remarkable quilt.

While studying objects in a textile collection, May opened a veritable treasure trove: a carefully folded, unfinished quilt made of 1830s-era fabrics, its backing containing fragile, aged papers with the dates 1798, 1808, and 1813, the words shuger, rum, casks, and West Indies, repeated over and over, along with friendship, kindness, government, and incident. The quilt top sent her on a journey to piece together the story of Minerva, Eliza, Jane, and Juba-the enslaved women behind the quilt-and their owner, Susan Crouch.

May brilliantly stitches together the often-silenced legacy of slavery by revealing the lives of these urban enslaved women and their world. Beautifully written and richly imagined, An American Quilt is a luminous historical examination and an appreciation of a craft that provides such a tactile connection to the past.

Rachel May is the author of An American Quilt and Quilting with a Modern Slant, which was a Library Journal and Amazon.com Best Book of the Year. Her writing has received multiple awards, and she has been the recipient of residencies at the Millay Colony and the Vermont Studio Center. She is an assistant professor at Northern Michigan University.

Carrington MacDuffie is a voice actor and recording artist who has narrated over two hundred audiobooks, received numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards, and has been a frequent finalist for the Audie Award, including for her original audiobook, Many Things Invisible. Alongside her narration work, she has released a new album of original songs, Only an Angel.