January 19th through February 18th are the dates for the Stuhr Museum’s upcoming quilt exhibit, A Stitch in Time! This is the winter textile exhibit on the second floor of the Stuhr Building and features a number of quilts from the Stuhr Museum Collection. Featured this year are “Commemorative Quilts”.
Celebration: Commemorative, Friendship, and Signature Quilts
This year, Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer is celebrating its 40th Anniversary as well as Hall County’s 150th Anniversary. In 1976, the country was celebrating its Bicentennial. As part of that celebration, at least two different Nebraska schools designed and pieced quilts. These commemorative quilts document different stages of our heritage, as well as documenting the Bicentennial itself. One of these quilts also documents different aspects of the history of Stuhr Museum. Another of the quilts on exhibit documents the many award ribbons that Robert Taylor of Taylor’s Ranch in Abbott, Nebraska won in different State Fairs in 1901.
One of the many items that women brought with them during their travels to the west were quilts. A Friendship Quilt may have been one of them. It was made and signed by friends and relatives of the women who were moving west as a remembrance of them. This type of quilt celebrated and commemorated the friends left at home, and became popular during the 1840s. They were also made to celebrate wedding anniversaries, engagements, graduations, and group affiliations, including the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Jolly Neighbors Club, Pleasantville Ladies Aid, and church groups.
Currently seven of Stuhr Museum’s quilts are at the Smithsonian American Art Museum for an upcoming exhibit entitled Going West: Quilts and Community including two of our commemorative quilts. This exhibit will be opened from Oct. 5, 2007 through Jan. 21, 2008. However, if you are looking for connections to the nation’s past, to the community’s past or to Stuhr Museum’s past, come out and see some of the museum’s quilts from January 19th to February 18th, upstairs under the dome.
Stuhr Museum and Hastings Museum members admitted free! For questions regarding this exhibit, contact Leslie Vollnogle in the Collections Department at Stuhr Museum, (308) 385-5316. For additional information, call Stuhr Museum at (308) 385-5316 or visit www.stuhrmuseum.org
