New Orleans House Project

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Grandmothers Choice: Getting Ready!

Quilt history maven Barbara Brackman is planning another weekly quilt history blog featuring the fight for women's voting rights.  Each week a new quilt block will be posted, with historical notes on the block and the campaign for women's voting rights, as well as instructions for completing the block.  Called Grandmothers Choice, the quilt block entries will begin on September 1.

Barbara thoughtfully posted an entry this week to help quilters decide on a color scheme for their women's suffrage blocks.  All of her ideas are inspiring, and I'm having a hard time deciding on what colors I'd like to use for my blocks.  

I love the idea of purple, green and white - colors chosen by the English suffrage group Women's Social and Political Union.  

19th Amendment Victory Flag
The Americans chose gold with purple accents for their colors.  Apparently the fabric color we call cheddar would be in keeping with the gold color used at the time and the idea of a cheddar-themed quilt is also tempting!  

Another English suffrage group, the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies, chose red and white for their symbolic colors.  Red and white quilt?  Yes, please!

Barbara also notes that using William Morris-inspired fabrics would be historically correct.  She has created several Morris lines for Moda; the illustration above is from the upcoming line The Morris Apprentice.  This line is not available for purchase yet, but it probably wouldn't be hard to find Morris-type fabrics from previous Moda lines.

Interesting factoids learned while researching this entry:  Tennessee was the deciding state to ratify the 19th Amendment on August 18, 1920.  Even though the law of the land, many states did not ratify the amendment until years later; Louisiana did not ratify until June 11, 1970!  Check out this 19th Amendment Timeline for your state's decision (scroll down).

The title of the new blog, Grandmothers Choice, also got me thinking about my own grandmothers and their participation in the women's voting movement.  My grandmothers were 11 and 13 years old when the 19th Amendment was ratified, so they didn't get to participate in voting in that historic 1920 election.  By the time they were old enough to vote, women's voting rights must have been much less novel.  I wonder what their memories of the whole process might have been?

Are you planning to participate in the Grandmother's Choice weekly block party?  Have you decided on a color scheme?  Were you surprised to see when your state ratified the 19th Amendment?