| An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery Contributor(s): May, Rachel (Author) |
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ISBN: 1538548283 ISBN-13: 9781538548288 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks OUR PRICE: $31.46 Product Type: Compact Disc - Other Formats Published: May 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | African American - Social Science | Slavery - History | Women |
| Physical Information: 1" H x 5.8" W x 5.5" (0.50 lbs) |
| Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Topical - Black History - Demographic Orientation - Urban - Cultural Region - New England |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: 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. |
Contributor Bio(s): May, Rachel: - Rachel May is the author of 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's an assistant professor at Northern Michigan University and lives in Marquette, Michigan. |