Hearts and Hands: A Social History of Nineteenth Century Women and Quilts (review)

never get in the books." Current historians may well quibble with the poet on this point, but any contemporary American can at least get a notion of that "seething hell" by watching Long Shadows, as Spears with his camera films the exteriors of the rubble of the war and takes a measure of its physical and psychological toll. Ross Spears is a major, though largely undiscovered, talent. His work deserves to be seen by all Americans who want to understand our country better. Jim Welsh Department ofEnglish and Cinema Studies Salisbury State University Editor, Literature/Film Quarterly Hearts and Hands: A Social History ofNineteenth Century Women and Quilts. Produced and directed by Pat Ferrerò. Color, 58 minutes. 16mm. 1987. Distibutor: Ferrerò Films, 1259A Folsom Street, San Francisco, California 94103, (415) 626-3456. $900. for 16mm., $100. for rental, and $600. for video. Hearts and Hands: A Social History ofNineteenth Century Women and Quilts, is an excellent film for introductory courses in women's studies, American history and American studies. Director Pat Ferrerò has made more than a film about quilts, stressing general social history and making use of both quilts and an impressive array of archival material as sources. As the filmmaker herself says, "we have pieced together the primary materials of women's livesdiaries , letters, photographs and quilts—to tell a new story of nineteenth-century lives." The result merges two trends in women's history, as the film crosses the boundaries of "women's culture" and "women's politics," providing information on quilting itself and social ties among women who crafted quilts, in the context of nineteenth century politics and society. 22 Perhaps the greatest strength of this film is its exploration of women's voices in quilts, which have reflected women's interests in larger social and political issues. Often denied the same access to public discourse as men, nineteenth century women expressed their politics in their quilts. From the women of the Lowell mills, to women in slavery, the underground railroad, the Overland Trail and the Civil War, the viewer learns how regionalism, race and social class shaped gender perceptions of the surrounding world. Particularly sensitive to social location, the image of nineteenth century womanhood that emerges is socially diverse and artistically rich. The section on women in slavery and quilting, for example, explains how slave quilts were made from worn out scraps, sometimes left over from sewing mistresses' gowns. These quilts were not only beautiful crafts, they were a necessity, since slaves were only allotted one blanket every three years. But slave quilts also were put to political use. Quilts were hung on the clothes lines of "safe" houses, where runaway slaves were sheltered along the underground railroad. The geometric pattern in slave quilts—Jacob's Ladder or the North Star—represented escape to freedom. Abolitionist women linked themselves to slave women through their quilts, which they sold to raise money for the abolition cause. Quilting as a form of non-violent protest, they signed their work, "may the use of our needles prick the conscience of the slaveholder." Women and their quilts were an integral part of slavery and abolition. Abigal Scott Duniway, one of several women the film historically follows, crossed the Overland Trail and became the first female voter in Oregon, where she donated one of her quilts to raise funds for pro-suffrage candidates. Although Duniway had quilted herself, she eventually rejected the art because she saw quilting as contradictory to her feminist politics. Hearts and Hands emphasizes, through Duniway, the debate over sources of women's power, invoking advocates of domesticity and dissenters against "separate spheres," in the context of the woman suffrage movement. At that time a feminist critique of quilting began, which suggested that sewing was part of women's oppression. But by then quilting had changed. Women in the early twentieth century were buying patterns from magazines and purchasing pre-cut fabric packages for their quilts. As quilting was transformed, its social and political content was lost. Quilters lost the opportunity to bring out their own experiences and opinions in their craft, such as incorporating Sioux designs encountered on the move west, or using freedom imagery to...