A Colonial Quilting Party, for Children

In 1937 the School District of Philadelphia offered a line drawing of an old fashioned quilting bee as a coloring sheet in its Bulletin for Teachers for grade 4, which provided source material for studying the “colonial people.” Of the colonial woman, the Bulletin said, “The finished quilt satisfied some of her desire for household decoration, besides making possible the economical use of scraps of cotton, silk, linen, and woolen materials.”[1]  Children, growing up amid the economic downturn, understood through these object lessons of sorts, that saving scraps and making do were desirable and necessary characteristics.

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[1] Source Material for the Industries of Colonial People to Accompany the Course of Study in Industrial Arts – Grades One to Four. (Philadelphia: School District of Philadelphia Department of Superintendence, Division of Industrial Arts, 1937), 35.