Lesson 10:The Gee`s Bend Quilts

Level: X
DRA: 60
Genre:
Informational
Strategy:
Question
Skill:
Compare and Contrast
Word Count: 2,900
6.2.10
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Online Leveled Books
1031986
H O UG H T O N M IF F L IN
by Ellen Persio
PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITS: Cover Getty Images; 1 Getty Images; 2 PhotoDisc; 5 Getty Images; 7 AFP/Getty Images; 8
Bruno Morandi / Robert Harding; 10 Getty Images; 14 AFP / Getty Images; 17 Getty Images; Bkgrnd Shutterstock
Copyright © by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner unless such copying is expressly permitted by federal copyright law. Requests
for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be addressed to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt School Publishers,
Attn: Permissions, 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
Printed in China
ISBN-13: 978-0-547-02117-1
ISBN-10: 0-547-02117-8
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 0940 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
If you have received these materials as examination copies free of charge, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt School Publishers
retains title to the materials and they may not be resold. Resale of examination copies is strictly prohibited.
Possession of this publication in print format does not entitle users to convert this publication, or any portion of it, into
electronic format.
Table of Contents
In the Spotlight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Story of Gee’s Bend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
A Long Line of Quilters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Opportunity Knocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
New Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Joining the Ranks of Modern Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 2
1/16/08 4:51:46 PM
In the Spotlight
Their story sounds like a Hollywood movie — or
a fairy tale.
For many long years, the women of Gee’s Bend,
Alabama, labored in cotton fields from sunup to sundown.
Too poor to buy cloth, the women used rags to quilt
bedcovers. Some of their colorful bedcovers were sold for
a few dollars or given away. The rest were stuffed under
mattresses and forgotten.
Then one day, an art collector saw a photograph of
one of the quilts. The collector was so dazzled by it that he
traveled to Gee’s Bend and bought the quilt, along with some
others. Then he showed the quilts to art experts. Soon, the
quilts were the talk of the art world and so were the women
quilters. Major museums were hanging the old quilts on
their walls, and people were calling the women artists. The
women felt like they were dreaming.
The Gee’s Bend quilters’ rise to success reads like
a modern-day fairy tale, but it’s much more than that. It’s a
true story, filled with the struggles and courage of a small
band of hard-working women who unexpectedly found
themselves sitting on top of the art world.
3
The Story of Gee’s Bend
Most of the residents of Gee’s Bend share a common
heritage. Their ancestors all worked as slaves on the same
Wilcox County plantation. The 5-by-8-mile strip of land that
is now known as Gee’s Bend once belonged to Joseph Gee,
the plantation’s founder.
Gee built the plantation
house in 1816. Tucked inside
The First African
Americans
Black and white indentured
servants began arriving in
Virginia in the early 1600s.
In exchange for ship’s
passage to America, these
servants agreed to work for
a set period of time. When
their time of service — or
indenture as it was called
— was over, they were freed.
Soon, however, southern
plantations needed more
labor for growing tobacco
and later cotton. Most of the
labor came to be supplied by
enslaved Africans.
4
a bend in the Alabama River,
the horseshoe of rich black
earth proved ideal for growing
cotton. However, to pay off a
$29,000 debt, Gee’s heirs gave
the plantation and its 47 slaves
to a cousin in North Carolina,
Mark H. Pettway. About one
hundred enslaved African men
and women — each given the
last name Pettway — walked
behind the new owner’s
wagon all the way from North
Carolina to their new home in
Gee’s Bend, Alabama.
After the Civil War,
the black slaves of Gee’s Bend
were free, but still tied to
the land as sharecroppers.
Their tiny farms belonged
to white owners. Instead of
paying in cash, their rent
consisted of turning over
a large portion of their
crops. Desperately poor, the
sharecroppers had to buy
supplies on credit. The high
interest rates the white
landowners charged on their
debts made it impossible to get
ahead. With little fear of the
law, the landlords often cheated
and abused the sharecroppers.
For many decades, the people
of Gee’s Bend remained chained
Dawn-to-dusk labors on
cotton plantations left
enslaved women few
opportunities to sew quilts
for their own use.
to this unfair economic system.
Gee’s Bend was an isolated community that had little
contact with the outside world. Cut off on three sides by a river,
the town had only one road in and out. The nearest town was
Camden, and it was 40 miles away. A ferry went to Camden, but
in the days of segregation, few cared to visit the all-white town.
Gee’s Bend was one of the poorest towns in the entire
nation. Like all their neighbors, the quilters of Gee’s Bend had
to focus on providing their families with the necessities of life.
In winter, when the temperatures dropped, their handmade
quilts were piled on beds and hung on the walls of their drafty
cabins to keep out the cold.
5
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 5
1/16/08 4:51:56 PM
Life was tough in Gee’s Bend, and it was going to get
even tougher. In the 1930s, the Great Depression hit the town
especially hard. As businesses collapsed across the country,
many people panicked. In Gee’s Bend, the frightened widow
of a white merchant began seizing all the food and farm
supplies that the sharecroppers had bought on credit. Left with
nothing, families struggled to survive those winters on plums
and peanuts.
Finally, emergency supplies from the Red Cross and
various governmental agencies saved the community from
complete disaster. Soon afterwards, the government made it
possible for the African American sharecroppers to buy the
land they had been working for so many years.
Gee’s Bend, however, remained an impoverished, isolated
community. For the quilters, the isolation had creative benefits.
Cut off from the outside world and its pressures to conform,
the quilters were free to follow their own artistic instincts and
quilting traditions. It would be many years, however, before
their quilts would get the recognition they deserved.
A Long Line of Quilters
The first black quilters learned to sew quilts as enslaved
seamstresses for Southern plantation owners. (The lush tropical
climates of their African homelands made heavy bedding
unnecessary.) To make quilts for their own use, the slaves
stitched together long strips of rags. This method, called string
quilting, enabled them to quickly assemble warm bedding
6
out of sight of their watchful owners, who did not want them
making their own quilts.
Like their ancestors, the women of Gee’s Bend have carried
on the tradition and lore of string quilting. However, they
have veered far away from the orderly patterns of EuropeanAmerican quilts. The Gee’s Bend quilters are more like jazz
musicians who start with a basic melody and then alter it until
they’ve made it their own. This process is called improvisation.
Throughout the improvisation process, the quilters, like jazz
musicians, are making artistic decisions. The final quilt is the
result of this artistic process and by no means an accident.
Many art critics believe the improvisational designs of
the Gee’s Bend quilts reflect African influences that were
retained and passed down to them from their mothers
and grandmothers.
“The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” exhibit at the
Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C.
7
In many African cultures, breaking and recreating
existing patterns and using asymmetrical shapes had special
meaning. People of these cultures believed that unexpected,
irregular shapes drew on ancestral power and that jagged lines
kept away evil spirits. Similar to African weavers, the Gee’s
Bend quilters worked without patterns, often sewing together
unmatched cloth strips to create unpredictable designs.
The large shapes and vibrant contrasting colors so often
found in Gee’s Bend quilts may also have African cultural
roots. In Africa, these features probably developed for practical
reasons. Much like a flag, the bright, bold designs of different
tribes may have served as a way to quickly
identify where a person or group
of people were from.
As these traditions traveled
across four generations of women
to an out-of-the-way Alabama town,
the story of quilting zigzagged
in an exciting new direction.
Compare this West African
weaving to the quilts on the
previous page.
8
Quilting Comes to America
The technique of making a quilt or “stuffed sack” began in
ancient times. The oldest example dates back to Egypt around
3400 B.C.E. In Europe during the Middle Ages, tailors made
quilted bedcovers for the wealthy to sleep under and soft
quilted garments for medieval knights to wear under their heavy
armor. The garments protected the knight’s skin and provided
extra insulation from the cold.
Most historians believe that quilting arrived in the American
colonies with early English and Dutch settlers. Colonial women
living in small cabins usually pieced together their quilts from
cloth scraps, or remnants. This quilting style, called patchwork,
made good use of old clothing.
Pioneer women brought patchwork west as the country
expanded in the early 1800s. In the West, cheerful, inexpensive
calico patchworks became popular. Quilts sometimes provided
extra income for frontier women. A skilled quilter could earn
a few dollars or barter her work for the services of a midwife
or blacksmith.
Affluent American women used imported fabrics for their
quilts. Often embroidered and trimmed with lace, these quilts
served as displays of wealth, and as examples of a woman’s
needlework skills and artistry.
9
Opportunity Knocks
In 1965, Francis X. Walter, a
minister and visiting civil rights
worker, spotted three handmade
quilts airing on a Wilcox County
clothesline. Walter was captivated
by their striking designs. They
were unlike any other quilts he
had ever seen.
Walter was the first person
from the outside world to
recognize the startling uniqueness
and artistic value of the quilters’ work.
The quilters’ descriptions of their
This detail is of a
Gee’s Bend quilt
called “H Variation”
by Nettie Young.
quilting methods could just as easily
apply to a painter’s creative process.
Unlike quilters who traced paper or cloth patterns to draw
and cut out designs, the Gee’s Bend women freely followed
their imagination.
The Gee’s Bend quilters did more than overcome their
poverty and isolation. They turned harsh circumstances into
a fresh style. With no formal training in art, they developed
their own ideas. They saw beauty in yellowed newspapers
covering the gaps in the cabin walls. Ragged scraps had
meaning. For example, one quilter used her deceased husband’s
torn-up denim overalls to make a quilt that would help keep his
memory alive in their home.
10
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 10
1/16/08 4:52:16 PM
Walter was so impressed by the quilts that he offered to
employ several women from Gee’s Bend and the neighboring
town of Alberta. Suspicious of strangers, the women hesitated
at first. Walter’s promise of $10 per quilt eventually closed
the deal.
The quilts sold quickly and at good prices. Walter soon
recognized the potential of the new quilting business. Steady
employment would significantly boost the incomes of the local
women. In March 1966, Walter helped 60 Wilcox County
quilters form a cooperative business, known as the Freedom
Quilting Bee.
As a cooperative, the Bee gave each member an equal say
in decisions, as well as a share of the profits. For the quilters,
even the modest gains of steady minimum wage employment
and job benefits represented a big step forward from
sharecropping. For many quilters, the Bee was a first job out
of the cotton patch.
Quilting Bees
In times of crisis, quilting bees often became centers of female
activism. Before the Civil War, female abolitionists working to end
slavery embroidered anti-slavery slogans at bees. A quilting bee was
also the site of Susan B. Anthony’s first speech on women’s rights.
11
Quilters and others in Gee’s Bend were also active in the
call for civil rights in the 1960s. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
had inspired them. The people of Gee’s Bend marched for civil
rights and tried to register to vote at the courthouse across the
river. As a result, some were jailed. Others were thrown off
their farms. The county government even closed the ferry.
Despite the loss of their only direct route to the outside
world, the people of Gee’s Bend felt triumphant. They had
taken a stand — and they believed a better life lay ahead. The
Freedom Quilting Bee was formed during this era of activism.
In its early years, the Bee held its meetings in each other’s
homes. The Bee nurtured close friendships, activism, and hope.
The Freedom Quilting Bee enjoyed modest success for
more than 20 years. The quilts’ folksy, homespun look had
wide appeal during the back-to-nature sixties and seventies.
Influential people in the fashion industry helped the women
raise money to finance their new business.
History of Gee’s Bend
1816
Civil War ends and
sharecropping
begins.
Gee builds
plantation.
12
1865
1845
1930
Pettway family
takes over
plantation.
Great Depression;
sharecroppers buy
their farms.
Photo layouts in glossy magazines sparked consumer
interest, and contracts from big department stores followed.
Within three years, the business had grown successful enough
to buy a building as its permanent home.
In the view of some Bee members, however, popularity had
its downside. As demand for Gee’s Bend products rose, some of
the methods that had contributed to the originality of the earlier
quilts had to be abandoned. In the old days, no one had used
tape measures or store-bought patterns. Now the “make-do”
techniques that had once been necessities turned into luxuries.
With an abundance of orders to fill, new fabric became more
practical than rags. To increase profits, the women also began
producing smaller items such as potholders and tote bags that
could be quickly sewn by machine.
1965
Martin Luther King,
Jr., visits Gee’s Bend;
quilters active in civil
rights movement.
2002
Quilts are shown at
Houston Museum of
Fine Arts; quilters go
on tour.
1966
1998
Francis Walters helps form
Freedom Quilting Bee;
quilters begin selling to
large department stores.
William Arnett
brings quilts to
art critics.
13
New Beginnings
By the early 1990s, the
world lost interest in the
quilts and in Gee’s Bend.
Tastes had changed. People
wanted sleek home goods
with familiar designer
logos. As the business began
to fail, the women grew
discouraged. Many members
had died, and most of the
surviving quilters were in
their seventies and eighties.
Most of them didn’t have the
heart to keep making quilts.
Then in the late 1990s,
an old string quilt made by
Annie Mae Young opened the
most unexpected chapter in
This Gee’s Bend quilt by Annie
Mae Young was exhibited in
museums around the country.
the lives of the quilters. A photo of the stunning denim and
corduroy design inspired folk art collector William Arnett to
go to Gee’s Bend. When he found Young, she offered to give
him the quilt for free. Instead, Arnett purchased it and six
others for $4,000.
With the support of his nonprofit foundation, the Tinwood
Alliance, Arnett bought 700 quilts and took up the cause of
14
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 14
1/16/08 4:52:32 PM
the Gee’s Bend quilters. The art experts and museum directors
Arnett showed the quilts to agreed with him that the ragged
quilts were major discoveries.
Joining the Ranks of Modern Artists
Since coming to recent public attention, the work of
a group of unknown African American women from a tiny
corner of southwest Alabama has drawn worldwide acclaim.
Many art critics have called Gee’s Bend quilts great modern art.
Their geometrical designs have been compared to the abstract
paintings of famous modern artists. Like the work of these
abstract painters, the quilt designs bring to mind thoughts,
feelings, and moods through colors, shapes, and patterns.
While the quilts’ designs resemble sophisticated abstract
artwork, that’s not where the women got the concepts for their
designs. The Gee’s Bend quilters never studied art in school
and until very recently had never visited a museum. The
quilters like to remind people that their quilts were not made
for museums, but for practical purposes. The designs on their
quilts are purely expressions of who they are and the lives that
they have led.
Today, not everyone agrees that quilts are art. Some people
insist that only paintings and sculpture fit the definition of
“fine art.” In their opinion, quilting is a craft like making
pottery or weaving. A craft requires skill rather than true
artistic imagination. Although crafts may be beautiful, their
main purpose is supposed to be useful.
15
Others claim that there is much more to the
Gee’s Bend’s quilts than simply being bedcovers that
keep you warm on a chilly night. Like a painting by
Picasso, or a symphony by Beethoven, or a poem by
Maya Angelou, the designs on the quilts are art and
the quilters are artists.
Like most art, the quilts have many layers of
meaning. Their designs reveal details of the quilters’
personality and family heritage. Among its many
threads, each quilt also takes its place in the history of
quilting — a tradition that has served many different
functions over its long and complex history.
The first exhibit of the quilts, at the Museum
of Fine Arts in Houston in 2002, was teeming with
visitors. It even broke attendance records. The quilters
then toured the country by bus. They gave talks and
sang gospel songs in packed auditoriums, charming
audiences with their honesty and warmth.
Fortune followed fame. Critical acclaim for the
quilts raised their value as artwork. Gee’s Bend quilts began
selling for as much as $20,000. Contract offers from major retail
companies who wanted to license their designs poured in. The
return of “distressed” and vintage fashions promised a huge
market for the quilts’ worn, handmade look.
In 2002, the Freedom Quilting Bee was reborn as the
Gee’s Bend Quilter’s Collective. Gee’s Bend designs now
appear on scarves, rugs, refrigerator magnets, coffee mugs, and
16
Arlonzia Pettway talks about one of her Gee’s Bend quilts
on display at Boston’s Museum of Fine Art.
postage stamps. The quilters have shared their earnings with
their neighbors by building a community center and teaching
new generations to quilt. The quilters’ lives have improved, but
they are not rich. Their work has always been a labor of love.
17
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 17
1/16/08 4:52:44 PM
Glossary
abstract art (AB strakt ahrt) n. art that doesn’t try to look like
anything real; uses shapes and color
asymmetrical (ay suh MEHT rih kul) adj. unbalanced; uneven
collective (koh LEHK tiv) n. a business set up by a group
of people
geometrical (jee oh MEHT rih kul) adj. using simple forms like
circles and squares
improvisational (ihm prah vih ZAY shun uhl) adj. something
made up or invented with the materials available
insulation (ihn suh LAY shun) n. material used to prevent the
passage of such things as air or sound
remnants (REHM nuhnts) n. things left over
segregation (sehg ruh GAY shun) n. practice of separating
people of different races or ethnic groups in places such as
schools and housing
18
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 18
1/16/08 4:52:46 PM
Responding
TARGET SKILL Compare and Contrast
What are the similarities and differences
between fine art and fine craft work? Copy and
complete the Venn diagram below.
How They
Are Alike
Fine Art
Serves a practical
function, or
purpose
?
?
?
?
?
Craft Work
Write About It
Text to Text Have you read a book or story in
which some sort of discovery changes lives?
Write a brief compare-contrast essay about that
book or story and the Gee’s Bend quilters.
19
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 19
1/17/08 12:57:15 PM
TARGET VOCABULARY
abundance
lore
altered
lush
concept
retains
cultural
sophisticated
heritage
teeming
EXPAND YOUR VOCABULARY
activism
triumphant
affluent
vintage
TARGET SKILL Compare and Contrast
Examine how two or more details or ideas are
alike and different.
Write About It
TARGET STRATEGY Question Ask questions
about a selection before you read, as you read, and
In a famous quotation, Aung San Suu Kyi said,
after you read.
“Please use your freedom to promote ours.”
WhatInformational
freedoms do you
value
most?
Write
GENRE
Text
gives
factsWhy?
and examples
a letter
to the editor of a Burmese newspaper
about
a topic.
explaining the freedoms you have and why they
are important to you.
20
6_021171_LR2_5AL_GeesBend.indd 20
1/17/08 12:57:26 PM
Level: X
DRA: 60
Genre:
Informational
Strategy:
Question
Skill:
Compare and Contrast
Word Count: 2,900
6.2.10
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN
Online Leveled Books
1031986
H O UG H T O N M IF F L IN