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History

As mentioned on the Salem CommUNITY Quilt information page, there has traditionally been a procession upon completion of a new house or building. While we aren't making a new building, we intend to honor this tradition nonetheless. The following is an excerpt from "Less Time for Meddling - A History of Salem Academy and College, 1772-1866" by Frances Griffin.

In the afternoon at one o'clock there assembled in the Saal of the Gemein Haus the members of the Aeltesten Conferenz, the other ministers of the Wachovia congregations and their wives, the girls who live in the Boarding School, the school-girls, and the teaching Sisters. About half past one they marched out in procession, two by two, and proceeded to the new house, in the following order: 1) the Bretheren of the Aeltesten Conferenz and other ministers; 2) the Sisters of the Aeltesten Conferenz and other ministers' wives; 3) the daughters living in the Boarding School; 4) the school-girls; 5) the Boarding School Sisters. As the first Bretheren left the door of the Gemein Haus one choir of trombones played frm the indows of the conferene room:

May God bless your going out, etc.

Another choir of trombones played from the new house as the procession entered it:

Now thank we all our God, etc.

The parents present, and other invited guests, and the musicians, assembled in the sleeping hall of the new house. When the place had been taken by the ministers and their wives, and the boarding and day pupils and their Sisters, all clad in white, had arranged themselves in a double semi-circle, the choir sang, accompanied by a pianoforte and other instruments.

For further information, you can check out "Less Time for Meddling" at the Salem Library!

Looking for more information quilting or embroidery? Check out these books!

The Modern Embroidery Movement by Cynthia Fowler
ISBN: 9781350033320
Publication Date: 2018-02-22
WINNER OF A CHOICE OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC TITLE AWARD 2018In the early twentieth century, Marguerite Zorach and Georgiana Brown Harbeson were at the forefront of the modern embroidery movement in the United States. In the first scholarly examination of their work and influence, Cynthia Fowler explores the arguments presented by these pioneering women and their collaborators for embroidery to be considered as art.Using key exhibitions and contemporary criticism, The Modern Embroidery Movement focuses extensively on the individual work of Zorach and Brown Harbeson, casting a new light on their careers. Documenting a previously marginalised movement, Fowler brings together the history of craft, art and women's rights and firmly establishes embroidery as a significant aspect of modern art.
The romance of the patchwork quilt in America by Carrie A. Hall & Rose G. Kretsinger
Call Number: NK9112 .H3
Publication Date: 1935
The romance of the Patchwork Quilt in America is a volume unique among works on art design. The slow changing of our social patterns has been recorded in many ways, but no one product has so closely reflected the folkways of some portions of American life as has the patchwork quilt.
Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement by Suzi Parron; Donna Sue Groves
ISBN: 9780804040495
Publication Date: 2012-02-01
The story of the American Quilt Trail, featuring the colorful patterns of quilt squares painted large on barns throughout North America, is the story of one of the fastest-growing grassroots public arts movements in the United States and Canada. In Barn Quilts and the American Quilt Trail Movement Suzi Parron takes us to twenty-five states as well as Canada to visit the people and places that have put this movement on America's tourist and folk art map. Through dozens of interviews with barn quilt artists, committee members, and barn owners, Parron documents a journey that began in 2001 with the founder of the movement, Donna Sue Groves. Groves's desire to honor her mother with a quilt square painted on their barn became a group effort that eventually grew into a county-wide project. Today, quilt squares form a long imaginary clothesline, appearing on more than three thousand barns scattered along one hundred and twenty driving trails. With more than eighty full-color photographs, Parron documents here a movement that combines rural economic development with an American folk art phenomenon.
Quilts, Coverlets, and Counterpanes by Paula W. Locklair
Call Number: NK9112.L63 1997
ISBN: 1879704048
Publication Date: 1997-11-24
The bedcoverings in the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA) and Old Salem collections cannot be described by one term alone. This book features thirty-nine quilts, coverlets, and counterpanes--most of which were made and used in the South--that represent the richness and variety of bedcoverings from the late eighteenth century through the nineteenth. Early bedcoverings can be studied from a variety of perspectives, including those gleaned from such documents as newspapers, wills and inventories, and family histories. In an introduction to this beautifully illustrated catalogue, Paula W. Locklair explores what bedcoverings were called, the techniques and fabrics used to make them, and their value in the households of the period. Whether embroidered, patchwork, appliqued, or woven, the bedcoverings highlighted here offer new insights into the lives, talents, and imaginations of American women in the early South. Old Salem encompasses the restored Moravian town of Salem and MESDA, the only museum devoted to the decorative arts of the early South. Both are located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.