The Quilters of Gees Bend USA
The quilting tradition in Gee's Bend may go back as far as the early 1800s, when the community was the site of a cotton plantation owned by a Joseph Gee.
Influenced, perhaps, by the patterned textiles of Africa, the women slaves began piecing strips of cloth together to make bedcovers. Throughout the post-bellum years of tenant farming and well into the 20th century, Gee’s Bend women made quilts to keep themselves and their children warm in unheated shacks that lacked running water, telephones and electricity.
Along the way they developed a distinctive style, noted for its lively improvisations and geometric simplicity.
Books:
The Quilts of Gees Bend: Masterpieces of a lost place by William Arnett
Gees Bend by Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder
Gees Bend to Rehoboth: Women and their quilts by William Arnett
Links: