Underground Railroad Quilts: Quilt Code Facts & Fabrication

Resources about Quilts & the UGRR
Quilt historians hope the controversy about the Underground Railroad Quilt Code would fade out when historians convincingly established that we have no evidence of any such secret codes in quilt patterns two years ago. But stories about the Quilt Code continue to circulate. Check these resources for an accurate history of the role of quilts in the Civil War and in slavery.

The photo on the right is a detail of one by Timothy O'Sullivan, recording people freed in Virginia by the advancing Union Army in 1865. The photo is in the collection of the Library of Congress.

I've written several books about quilts and the Civil War including Facts & Fabrications (on the left). I also have an online club called Barbara Brackman's Underground Railroad in which subscribers can read accurate stories about women and places active in the Underground Railroad movement as they piece new star designs for a sampler. Click here to read more: UGRR Club.

Resources

Leigh Fellner has developed an extensive web page on the topic. Visit her site.

Kyra Hicks' blog Black Threads is a great place to keep connected with African-American quiltmaking past and present. Black Threads.

Kimberly Wulfert's quilt history web page has a comprehensive section. Antique Quilt Dating

Librarian Deborah Foley has written a paper summarizing the problems. Read her Young Readers at Risk: Quilt Patterns and the Underground Railroad

I gave a keynote address at the American Quilt Study Group seminar in 2003 called Rocky Road to Analysis: Interpreting Quilt Patterns. People feel so free to interpret symbolism in antique quilts, whether it's a map in the knots that hold the quilt together or the use of the color red. This paper summarizes my thoughts on the problem---I do see it as a problem---and why observers believe they can "read" the thoughts of a long-dead quiltmaker. Click here: Rocky Road to Analysis.

Did Slaves Make Quilts?
We have a good deal of evidence that slaves made quilts. I gave a paper at Colonial Williamsburg in February, 2009, on what we know about quilts made by women living in slavery. Click here to see a list of quilts you can view on line. Quilts Made by Slaves

Ted Pack's Sermon
Several years ago a correspondent named Ted Pack wrote to ask questions about the accuracy of the quilt code story. Were quilts used as code to guide runaways? He was quite confused when he began to sort out the story, but he organized his ideas in a thoughtful way and finally sent me a copy of his take on the topic, which he delivered as a sermon one Sunday. I still like to read it as a good summary of the whole controversy. To read a PDF click here: Sermon

The WPA Interview Project
The photo to the right is of Georgia Flournoy, a woman who once lived in slavery. During the Great Depression the WPA project interviewed Georgia Flournoy and hundreds of people who had once been enslaved. Not one of them ever mentioned a quilt code.

Read the narratives of the interviews by clicking here: Born in Slavery on the Library of Congress website. You might want to "Browse All by State" to see if people in your state were interviewed.

What can I tell someone who insists the quilt code is historical fact?
Click on the Fact Sheet to read a PDF that I wrote a few years ago for a friend whose quilt guild was quite enamored of the whole tale of quilts as coded messages on the Underground Railroad. This single page sheet summarizes the historical evidence against the quilt code. Fact Sheet.