Autograph Quilt - (Textiles) Autograph Quilts first became popular in the mid-1800s. Indelible ink was available after 1840 and these quilts were inscribed with names and sometimes poetry. Many of the autograph quilts that we see today were signed by family and friends as a remembrance to people, to take with them when they moved out West. They are also called friendship quilts.

Patriotic Autograph Quilt

This quilt was made about 1860 by Mary Hughes Lord of Nashville, Tennessee. The quilt is composed of colored silk hexagons, one and three-quarter inches wide, pieced into rosettes separated by black silk hexagons. In the center is an American flag, the stripes inscribed with the names of Union generals and other luminaries in ink. The centers of some rosettes are similarly inscribed, and there are more names inscribed on the red, white, and blue silk ribbon border. Among the signatures are those of Abraham Lincoln and his son Robert, Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Sheridan, Winfield Scott, Benjamin Butler, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur. The throw was carried by Mary Hughes through the Confederate lines to Cincinnati, Ohio, where her family lived until the fall of Fort Donelson. It was later hung at Lincoln’s funeral.

Division of Social History, Textiles
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution
Behring Center
Gift of Rose H. and William Craige Lord

This is a contemporary Autograph Quilt