Gloucester County Historical Quilts - A New Book

WOODBURY, NJ — The Gloucester County Historical Society (GCHS) has published a new book about its extensive collection of quilts dating back to the 1700s. Titled Threads Through Time: Quilts of the Gloucester County Historical Society, the softcover 8.5x11 book includes large photographs and descriptions of the quilts and the local people who made and passed them along from generation to generation as family heirlooms.

The 122-year-old Historical Society sits in the center of southern New Jersey — one of the earliest regions settled by European colonists. The Society's collection includes fine examples of quilts in the signature/autograph/friendship, crazy quilts, drunkard’s path, grandmother’s floral garden, Jacob’s ladder, log cabin, nine patch, postage stamp, and yo-yo styles and patterns — just to name a few.

Created by a team at the Historical Society, the book project was funded by a grant from the New Jersey Council on the Arts through the Gloucester County Cultural & Heritage Commission of Rowan College of South Jersey.

Janet Burr, one of the co-authors and a widely recognized authority on the history, materials and techniques of quilts and quilt making, credited the book's highly detailed information to the late Patricia Anne Hrynenko, the former GCHS Collections Coordinator, and the late Jeanne Hagerman, a longtime GCHS volunteer.

“Patricia did an excellent job of documenting the provenance of the quilts,” Burr explained. “She was focused on ‘Where did we get them? How did they go from the maker and pass through generations before we acquired them?’ Jeanne was the one who really researched the physical artifacts themselves. She pored over every quilt with a magnifying glass, recording every measurement and detail of the work.”

Aside from the artistic beauty of the quilts, the accompanying provenance, maker and family ownership details in the book provide valuable information for genealogical researchers and other historians.

The book underscores how regional quilt makers engaged in a craft that was both a practical and aesthetic endeavor, preserving the social and cultural history of the time while reflecting the realities of life and commerce in those earlier eras. For example, some local colonial Quaker families involved in the Free Produce Movement sought to avoid purchasing raw materials or goods produced by slave labor. As an alternative to cotton for their quilts, they used silk, a common item in international trade passing through the port city of Philadelphia. Today, silk quilts — such as those in GCHS' and other regional collections — are rare and luxurious artifacts.

The book is available for sale from the Historical Society website: https://bit.ly/quilt-book

Also: Meet one of the co-authors of the book:
An Evening of Quilt History With Janet Burr
https://www.gchsnj.org/an-even...

Contact: Hoag Levins, HoagL@wharton.upenn.edu
Chair, Publications Committee