Those Baltimore Beauties

I’m back home after a few days away at my mom’s in Graham.

For those of you who are long-time readers of my blogs, you may remember Mom suffers a bit from low hemoglobin and iron.  She’s anemic.  She was diagnosed after a week-long stay at Camp Wesley Long Hospital in 2015.  Now, at 84 years-young and almost ten years since her initial diagnosis, she is frustrated.  My brother and I are equally frustrated.  All we’ve been told from her local doctors is “We’ll give her iron infusions and hopefully that will make things better.” 

And they do.  All for the space of about a week after the fifth (and final) infusion.  Then she begins to feel tired and weak again.   My brother conferred with his wonderful doctors at Chapel Hill about Mom’s condition and was given the name of a doctor in the UNC system in East Towne. An appointment was made – which was part of the reason I was in Graham last week.  We had an 8 a.m. appointment with the doctor, who was 30 minutes away from Graham.  It meant getting up way earlier than Mom or I wanted to, but by 7:15 a.m. we were barreling down 15/501. Eric was driving and Mom was riding shotgun.

I was in the back praying.  There was a lot of traffic and high rates of speed involved.  I figured we needed all the help the Almighty could send our way.

We checked in at 7:45 and by 8 a.m., Mom was holding court with the nurses and the doctor’s assistant.  There were lots of questions and lots of answers, but by 9 a.m., the doctor put a lot of options on the table we didn’t have the day before.  Different iron infusions.  A possible oral medication.  No more endoscopies and colonoscopies.  Blood checks every two months.  We found out if the hemoglobin starts going down, the iron levels follow about a week later. Now we will watch the hemoglobin and get out ahead of the iron levels dropping.  Once the hemoglobin levels drop, she’ll be scheduled for an infusion. 

And those infusions will change, too.  Instead of five small infusions, she’ll be given one large infusion (which will take four-to-five hours to get through) and a different kind.  This type should last longer and start to make her feel better quicker. I am so optimistic.  Mom has always been super-active and taught stained glass art until she was 80.  To see her sit inside her condo, not feeling well enough to go anywhere has been hard on Eric and me and even more difficult for her.  Please send thoughts/prayers/good vibes/positive thoughts etc., as we plunge ahead with this new doctor and a better treatment plan.

_________________________________________________________

This week I’d like to start discussing a type of quilt I love – the Baltimore Album.  To me, as an avid appliquer, Baltimore Albums are the pinnacle of applique.  Those quilts are gorgeous, employ so many small pattern pieces, and their color palettes are stunning.  I’ve made only one Baltimore Album block, but I did fall in love with the process.  I asked for Sue Garman’s Friends of Baltimore quilt pattern for Christmas and have begun the fabric collection process.  In all honesty, more than likely I have plenty of fabric for the applique, but will need some background fabric.

Baltimore Album quilts are indeed “showy” quilts.  The large blocks, filled with appliqued flowers, buds, stems, leaves, fruit, baskets, and nearly anything else imaginable, actually had a pretty short shelf life.  First, let’s look at what an album quilt is, and then let’s discuss what makes a Baltimore Album quilt different.

Album Quilts Vs. Baltimore Album Quilts

Album quilts hit their stride during the 1840’s.  The term comes from autograph albums, which were also popular during this time.  In these books, young ladies would collect signatures and mementoes from friends and family.  An album quilt was similar.  It was a collection of many designs sewn by different women and then joined to form one large quilt.  Some of the block designers even signed their names on their block.  Creating album quilts gave women a chance to socialize and to demonstrate their artistry.  Sometimes album quilts were made as gifts and presented to important people in the community, such as a minister or soldier.  Many times they were also given to mark a special occasion, like a wedding, or as a remembrance when someone was moving away from the community. 

Baltimore Album Quilts were similar – yet different all at the same time.  This distinctive style of applique quilts was first made in the Baltimore, Maryland area of the United States and eventually could be found from New Jersey to South Carolina and as far west as the Mississippi.  They differed a bit from album quilts because their “lifespan” was shorter.  Quilters continued to make album quilts from around 1840 until the dawn of the twentieth century.  Baltimore Album Quilts generally span from 1840 – 1860.  Some quilt historians cut their lifespan even shorter – 1846-1852.  An album quilt’s blocks were generally not as intricate as a Baltimore’s and sometimes only one quilter made a Baltimore Album Quilt.  Many quilters contributed blocks for a regular album quilt, and those blocks could be pieced or pieced and appliqued.  Baltimore’s were all lush applique. 

Baltimore Album Quilts typically feature different blocks in a sampler-style design, or a large center block surrounded by smaller blocks with elaborate applique borders (something which could have been “borrowed” from album quilts).  The block patterns are applique and feature a wide variety of botanicals, patriotic themes, ships, and other common fraternal symbols of the day.  Sometimes the makers would sign their blocks and sometimes more than one woman would create the quilt.  The blocks also were usually heavily embellished with embroidery, silk ribbon, and inking (go here https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2021/09/29/how-the-printing-press-liberated-american-quilters/ for more information on inking).  Baltimore Albums were thought to be the maker’s finest “fancy work.” 

After 1860, interest in the Baltimore Album waned (we’ll discuss why a bit later).  However, in 1983 a quilter named Elly Sienkiewicz published Spoken Without a Word.  The book contained patterns and information about the symbolism and history in these quilts.  She has since published 23 books on Baltimore Album Quilts.  Besides the wealth of her research on these quilts, many of these books also contain CDs with patterns and instructions on how to make the blocks.  Elly Sienkiewicz is the Grande Dame of today’s Baltimore Album Quilts and should receive most (if not all) of the credit for reviving today’s interest in Baltimore Album Quilts. 

Styles of Baltimore Album Quilt

Many quilt historians break Baltimore Album Quilts into three different styles, but before we begin to discuss those, I’d like to back track a little to a type of applique I wrote about in this blog:https://sherriquiltsalot.com/2023/01/18/broderie-perse-the-applique-of-wealth-loop-holes-and-subterfuge/ Broiderie Perse.  Before the birth of Baltimore Album Quilts, America began to import waxed-glazed cottons called chintzes.  These fabrics had deeply saturated colors and precisely printed images of flowers, birds, vines, etc.  This fabric was a bit on the expensive side, but American quilters knew the value of a yard or two of this fabric.  They cut apart the images and then carefully appliqued them to the background of another piece of fabric. This type of applique is called Broiderie Perse (Persian Embroidery). Early makers of Baltimore Album Quilts sometimes employed this technique. 

As quilters, we love to examine the techniques used to make these wonderful quilts, but what really captures our quilty hearts and souls are the blocks themselves.  It is thought the Baltimore Album blocks were inspired by pietra dura works from Europe. 

The pietra duras weren’t necessarily realistic looking, but were delightful to look at.  Baltimore Album Quilt blocks are similar.  They aren’t true-to-life, but they are based on real-life items.  There may be peacocks or eagles with flags in the blocks, but there are no phoenixes or flying dragons.  Human beings may appear, sometimes appliqued and sometimes as inked drawings (indelible brownish-black ink was newly available at this time).  The quilters sometimes used this ink to draw in details or to write sayings, names, dates, or Bible verses.  One Baltimore Album quilt discovered in 2006 included an inked boffo portrait of John Wesley. 

Virtually all original Baltimore Album quilts included two colors:  Turkey Red and “Poison” Green.  These were rich and durable colors which held up to the test of time.  “Turkey” in Turkey Red alludes to the country, not the bird, and “Poison” Green was literally poison.  This particular green contained arsenic in its dye production. To give dimensions to sails, ocean waves, fruit, and birds, quilters could use new fabrics dyed into gradations of dark and light colors then called fondues (we now call them ombres). 

Quilt historians/appraisers/Baltimore Album enthusiasts have divided the quilts into three separate styles.

Style 1 – This is the classic style of Baltimore Album Quilt – more than likely these quilts are the ones which come to mind when Baltimore Album quilts are mentioned.  These quilts are full of ships, eagles, vases of flowers, butterflies, floral wreaths, and fruits.  The fanciest vases are called epergnes (ep-PURNz).  There are also cornucopias, government buildings, flags, soldiers, etc.  These blocks consist of 100 to 175 individual appliqued pieces.

Style 2 – These grew from the German folk tradition of fancy paper cutting.  The blocks are usually symmetrical, often nonpictorial, and sometimes quite difficult to make.  These block typically contain between 10 and 30 pieces.

Style 3 – These are said to be the work of Jewish immigrants from central Europe.  They are in some respects different from other Baltimore Album quilts:

• Entire quilts were made by individuals, not groups.
• They included fabrics like tweed and velvet and colors such as orchid and salmon which appear relatively rarely (if ever) in other Baltimore Album styles. 
• There are more animals.
• They have religious symbols.
• Birds’ nests were one of the most frequently used appliques.  Roses and fruit trees were also used a lot.
• Many were heavily stuffed and embroidered.
• Many reference the Mexican War.

These German-Jewish immigrant women of Baltimore in the 1840’s lived during a time of great change.  First, they had emigrated from a country where they faced an enormous amount of persecution and restrictions which made life for them intolerable.  They landed in many areas of the United States and Baltimore was one of those places.  As Jewish communities spread out, they toed the line between maintaining the “old” ways of religion and life, while also assimilating into a new country with new ideas, new laws, and new traditions.  Jewish women (though largely “cloistered” at this time by Jewish tradition) did want acceptance by the other women of Baltimore.  As a result of this, they formed the Hebrew Ladies Sewing Society in 1855, founded by many women who made the Style 3 Baltimore album quilts.  The society opened the door by which Jewish women entered American society and gave them a respected, and many times admired, position within the Baltimore community. 

With this information in hand, you may wonder if it makes Style 3 Baltimore Albums are overtly religious?  The answer, in my opinion is, it makes Style 3 no more religious than Style 1, because Style 1 is Methodist influenced.  When Baltimore Album Quilts began to reach a popular status, it was primarily because of the Methodist women.  These album quilts were often given as a token of love and remembrance to people who were moving away.  Per Methodist denomination rules, the ministers of Methodist churches generally took a pastorship for only two years before moving on to the next congregation.  Many of the Methodist women would work together to make a Baltimore Album for the departing pastor.  They did this so frequently and became so skilled at the workmanship, that these quilts are still searched for with fervency.  In short, these Methodist Baltimore Album Quilts are considered the best of the best.

It is also interesting to note that some quilt historians/analysts completely dismiss the Jewish element of Style 3 and simply give a description.  This Style 3 is described as “blocks which consist of mostly solid fabrics with 35 to 60 appliqued pieces and are known for their ‘Hot Dog Rose’.” 

It is equally noteworthy to understand that not all Baltimore Album Quilts are truly album quilts.  By definition, an album quilt is comprised of blocks made by more than one person.  So, if a Baltimore has more than one seamstress, it’s a Baltimore Album.  If it was made by only one person, technically  it’s a Presentation Quilt, although we would still call it a Baltimore since it would incorporate one or more of Styles 1-3 (no matter how you defined Style 3). 

A Little More Baltimore Album History

If you begin to really dig up the history of Baltimore Album Quilts, eventually you’ll run into three people:  Mary Evans, Mary Simon, and Dr. William Rush Dunton, Jr.  Parts of their efforts with Baltimore Album Quilts are a bit hazy.  But Dr. Dunton’s is clear as crystal.

Dr. William Rush Dunton, Jr., per the book Old Quilts, was the first person to study and publish about the Baltimore Album Quilts.  A man named Arthur Evans Bramble brought seven quilt blocks to Dunton for him to study.  Bramble claimed the blocks were the work of his late great-aunt, Mary Evans.  Dunton used these to study both Baltimore Quilts and the style of Mary Evans.  Evans used baskets, inked details, triple bow knots (these were kind of her “signature applique”), white roses, rainbow fabrics, etc., — nothing really different from a great deal of Baltimore Album blocks.  However, since Mary Evan’s name wasn’t found on any of the blocks, it was difficult to tag her as the maker with 100% accuracy.  Later, when analyzing Mary Evan’s actual handwritten signature on an application to an Aged Women’s Home against some of the inking done on quilts, it was determined that Mary Evans had worked on about 50% of them. (Lori Triplett/Dana Katzenberg, Curator of the Baltimore Museum of Art).

But….because the stitching varied so much between block, there still was a bit of doubt about Evans being the creator of even 50% of the blocks.  There were obviously other stitchers involved.  This, coupled with the fact Evans had never worked as a seamstress and the discovery of a diary by a contemporary woman named Hannah Trimble, began to cast even move doubt over any claim Evans could have on the blocks.  Trimble’s diary was a written record of the time, and she wrote about going to “Mrs. Simon’s on Chestnut Street, the lady who cut and basted these handsome quilts, saw some pretty squares.”  These findings then threw the onus on a Mary Simon for a great deal of the blocks.  It seemed as if Simon had a good thing going – apparently she was designing, cutting the applique shapes out, and  basting them down on a background fabric.  She then sold them to the ladies of Baltimore to needle turn.

Ah….an early quilt kit enterprise!  Good for her! Way to be one of the first!  You go girl! Right?

Hm.

Not until you read a bit deeper into Trimble’s Diary and she also mentions a Mrs. Silver/Sliver doing the same thing, because a Baltimore Album Quilt was also seen at her establishment.  According to Lori Lee Triplett’s research (Lori Lee Triplett (/blog/authors/lori-triplett), the 1890 Wood’s Baltimore City Directory shows a Mary Evans dressmaker at 144 Hanover Street.  At that same address, Sarah Silver, a dressmaker, and Jane Harrison, also a dressmaker, resided.  Three dressmakers at the same address would account for the differences in stitching.  It also would take into account the ability to take commissions and make more of these quilts than one person ever could.  The completed blocks could have been passed to Mary Simon for trimming, sandwiching, and basting.  Hannah wrote of seeing Mary Simon on Chestnut Street, so it appears Mary worked out of her husband Phillip’s carpet weaving location at 220 Chestnut. 

Add into this once one business owner establishes a popular and well-run business, others will “copycat” it.  There definitely could have been more than one group of seamstresses offering either ready-made Baltimore Album Quilts or supplying the “quilt kits” for women to make their own. 

Now let’s circle back to Dr. William Rush Dunton, Jr.  If you’re in the medical field, this man’s name already be familiar to you.  Dr. Dunton is the father of occupational therapy.  He was also among the first inductees of the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1979.  His dedication to helping those with anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues was matched, if not surpassed, by his passion for textile crafts, and especially for Baltimore Album Quilts.

In fact, while occupational therapists today may be familiar with Dunton’s medical journals, he produced another very valuable work – Old Quilts.  This book was self-published by Dunton in 1946-1947 (and sadly out of print – I couldn’t find it anywhere).  The book details many Baltimore Album Quilts and their associated social histories.  It is one of the oldest histories of this niche quilt style.

It may sound odd that Baltimore Album quilts have anything to do with occupational therapy.  But if you examine what occupational therapy is, it does fit in nicely.  Generally “occupation” can be any everyday task.  For Dunton, occupations were particularly therapeutic because they required some level of concentration that distracted a person from their mental distress.  During his time at Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital, Dunton implemented a large variety of occupations, such as gardening, woodworking, weaving, and quilting.  He observed that the repetitive nature of quilting, the establishment of community as women came together to complete one quilt, and the encouragement of self-expression and creativity all provided unparalleled benefits. 

With all the positivity surrounding Baltimore Album quilts, you have to ask yourself why did they fade into obscurity until 1983 when Elly Sienkiewicz resurrected the genre?  In a word – life.  Events happen…people move.  According to some quilt histories, there was a core group of Methodist women in Baltimore who were primarily responsible for the Baltimore’s popularity. These were young women.  The theory is as time passed and they began families, either they didn’t have time to make these detail-oriented quilts, or they moved away from Baltimore and no longer had access to the “kits” provided by various enterprising business women.

Or…

The market may have become too saturated with “kits” and (like most fads) people grew tired of making the labor-intensive blocks.  As demand waned, the kits gradually stopped being made and the Baltimore’s faded into obscurity until Elly Sienkiewicz.

Or…

It could be a bit of both.  However, what we do know is that by 1860 at the latest, the quilt’s popularity had bottomed out.

So You Want to Make A Baltimore Album Quilt?

I have made one block.  I am no expert, so I’m not even going to pretend to give any advice from me.  However, I did read quite a bit before writing this blog and talked to a few folks who have made Baltimore Albums.  What I will do is offer their suggestions and a warning.

• If you like applique, these blocks can be addictive.  Be prepared to enjoy yourself and want to spend as much time as you can spare on them.
• Choose high quality cotton for applique, quality silk ribbon, elaborate cotton prints for fussy cutting, and 1800’s reproduction fabric. 
• Cotton Sateen is often used for the background.
• The applique can be accomplished using a wide variety of techniques.  Choose the technique which works best for you to get the desired results.
• If this is your first Baltimore, a good pattern or book with detailed instructions for the blocks and borders will be your BFF.
• Pick threads which are fine, such as silk or thin cotton.   The thread can be matched or use a neutral.  The choice depends on the applique technique used.
• Embellishments can include silk ribbon, heavy decorative thread, beads, inks, and textile paints.
• Small, micro-serrated scissors are a must. 

Now for a warning.  I mentioned fondue fabrics in the first part of this blog.  This was a fabric with gradations from light to dark, very much like our ombre fabrics.  However, there is a big difference between the fondues and the ombres and it has to do with the width of the repeat.  Ombres are like typical cotton fabrics with a 44-45-inch width.  The color generally changes once or twice over that width.  A typical Baltimore Album style block is 12-to-20-inches square.  To put shading into some images, such as sails, you will need a fabric that goes from very light to dark in about six inches.  Today’s quilters sometimes mimic fondues with fabric paint to get the small scale of a single block. 

Well.  Bummer.  However, we do have freezer paper and light boxes and glue basting and precision cutting machines and lots of other quilting gadgets which should make our Baltimore Albums a bit easier to construct than those made in the 1840’s.

They should.

Maybe.  I’d say no.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the Baltimore Album quilts.  They are lovely and I would like to make one – even a wall hanging.  Much credit for references for this blog should go to all of Elly Sienkiewicz publications and Lori Lee Triplett’s blog:  https://www.quiltandtextilecollections.com/blog/authors/lori-triplett

Until Next Week, From My Studio to Yours,

Love and Stitches,

Sherri and Felix