Quilts and Human Rights

by Marsha MacDowell, Marsha MacDowell, Beth Donaldson

Quilts and Human Rights offers a new understanding of the history of global human rights as seen through textiles of awareness and activism. Of all the textile forms linked to human rights activities, one form—the quilt—has proved an especially potent and popular form for individuals, working alone or as part of organized groups, to subversively or overtly act for human rights. Through a description of this activity over time and space, Quilts and Human Rights advances awareness of critical human rights suffrage, race relations, civil wars, natural disasters, HIV/AIDs, and ethnic, sexual, and gender discrimination. Quilts and Human Rights pays tribute to the individuals who have used needle skills to prick the conscience and encourage action against human rights violations.  
 

Genres: Nonfiction, History

232 pages, Paperback

Published August 1, 2016

Reviews

[KA · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see the quilts every year at the Tunbridge Fair, and in my ignorance of quilting and textile arts in general, I've judged them to be anodyne examples of a quilter's skill, or a generous gift of time and labor to some lucky recipient. Even knowing of the AIDS quilt, even having seen part of it at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, I hadn't thought of quilting as an activist activity. This book, with its many full-color reproductions of quilts from all over the world, addressing every kind of social injustice imaginable, completely changed my mind. Even the quilts I see at the fair are part of a history of gendered art, a way for women to provide for their families, to celebrate continuity with their forebears, even simply to make beauty. The quilts in this book are even more--a way to raise awareness and often to raise money for causes. Some are beautiful, some are (deliberately) not beautiful, and some are quite shocking, an adjective I never thought could apply to a quilt.

[World Literature Today]

"In this lushly illustrated exhibition catalog, Michigan State University Museum curators Marsha MacDowell, Mary Worrall, Lynne Swanson, and collections assistant Beth Donaldson piece together a history of human rights–related quilt making, quilters’ narratives, and analysis of contemporary textiles. The authors survey quilting history in Europe and the United States, noting textiles made in support of abolition, temperance, women’s suffrage, and civil rights alongside more recent quilts responding to incarceration and violence." - Hadley Jerman

This book was reviewed in the November/December 2016 issue of World Literature Today magazine. Read the full review by visiting our website:

http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2...

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was gifted this book by my daughter and family and it's fabulous. I have a rather large library of quilt books but nothing like this. It mainly makes you so proud to be a quilter but there are some pictures there are hard to see - for example a quilt made for a KKK fundraiser.
This book will make your quilt library complete.