A Quilt Bibliography
an incomplete list / a place to start
books from the desk of PLQ
Please consider helping your local library acquire books about quilt history. Many of the volumes on this list are out of print and can be found second hand. Others are essays embedded in wider collections about textiles, queering, feminist critique, Black and Indigenous studies.
Please always read with a critically engaged eye: while I have not included quilt books that are rampantly inaccurate and discriminatory, just because a book is on this list does not mean I full heartedly endorse everything in it or know enough about the specific subject to be its best critic.
if you read one thing about quilts…
bell hooks, “Aesthetic Inheritances: History Worked by Hand” from Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990); reprinted in Belonging: A Culture of Place (New York: Routledge, 2019), 153-161.
Can’t find a book…
Try using WorldCat, a library search engine that compiles library collections around the world. You can see if any libraries near you or in cities you are visiting has a book.
P L Q
B I B L I O G R A P H Y
nota bene: citation is a form of love, respect, and builds a discourse of collective community over individual ego. As a quilter and as a writer cite your sources: amplify the people sitting at the dinner party of cultural history with whom you are conversing.
Arabindan-Kesson, A., Black Bodies White Gold: Art Cotton and Commerce in the Atlantic World. Duke University Press 2021.
Archer, B., The Internment of Western Civilians Under the Japanese 1941-1945: A Patchwork of Internment. F. Cass 2004.
Applebaum, L. and Toledo Museum of Art., Radical Tradition: American Quilts and Social Change. Toledo Museum of Art 2020.
Bacon, L. I. American patchwork quilts. New York: Bonanza Books 1973.
Bailey, J., Many Hands Make a Quilt: Short histories of radical quilting. Common Threads Press 2021.
Banks-Wallace, J., “Talk that Talk: Storytelling and Analysis Rooted in African American Oral Tradition.” Qualitative Health Research, 12(3), 2002, 410-426.
Beardsley, J. et al., Gee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Tinwood Books; Museum of Fine Arts 2002.
Beardsley, J. et al., The Quilts of Gee's Bend. Tinwood Books in Association with the Museum of Fine Arts Houston 2002.
Benberry, C. Always There: The African-American presence in American quilts. Louisville, KY: Kentucky Quilt Project, 1992.
Benberry, C., “African American Quilts: Paradigms of black diversity,” The International Review of African American Art, 12 (3), 1995, 30-37.
Brickell, C. and J. Collard., Queer Objects. Rutgers University Press 2019.
Bryan-Wilson, J., Fray: Art Textile Politics. University of Chicago Press 2017.
Butter, M. et al. Quilt Art: Exhibition Organised by Nottingham Castle Museum 1988. Nottingham Castle Museum 1988.
Callahan, N., The Freedom Quilting Bee. University of Alabama Press 1987.
Cooks, B., “Back to the Future: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, 2002” from Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2011, 135-154.
Eddy, C., Die Welt Der Quilt: patchwork und quilttraditionen aus verschiedenen kulturen und epochen. Haup Verlag 2005.
Finley, C. et al., My Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the Rural South. Metropolitan Museum of Art 2018.
Freeman, R. L., A Communion of the Spirits: African-American quilters, preservers, and their stories. Nashville, TN: Rutledge Hill Press 1996.
German, S. K., “Surfacing: The Inevitable Rise of the Women of Color Quilters Network,” In L. Horton (Ed.), Uncoverings, San Francisco: American Quilt Study Group, 1993, 137-168.
Gioni, M. et al., Faith Ringgold: American People. Phaidon Press Inc.; in Association with New Museum 2022.
Grudin, E. U., Stitching memories: African-American story quilts. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Museum of Art, 1990.
Hicks, K. E., This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces. Quilt Histories Exhibition Lists Annotated Bibliography and Timeline of a Great African American Quilter. Black Threads Press 2009.
Hine, D. C., “Quilts and African American Women's Cultural History,” In African American Quiltmaking in Michigan. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998, 13-18.
Holstein, J. et al., Abstract Design in American Quilts: A Biography of an Exhibition. First ed. Kentucky Quilt Project 1991.
hooks, b. “Aesthetic Inheritances: History Worked by Hand” from Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1990); reprinted in Belonging: A Culture of Place, New York: Routledge, 2019, 153-161.
Houldsworth Gallery, Faith Ringgold: Paintings & Story Quilts 1964-2017. Pippy Houldsworth Gallery 2018.
Huff, M. E. Johnson and Carole A King. Alabama Quilts: Wilderness through World War II 1682-1950. University Press of Mississippi 2020.
Jones, J. Welsh Quilts., Seren 2016.
Jones, C., When We Rise: my life in the movement. Hachette Books 2016.
Klassen, T., “Polk's Fancy: Quiltmaking, Patriotism, and Gender in the Mexican War Era,” Uncoverings (27): 2006, 59-89.
Klassen, T., “Representations of African American Quiltmaking: From Omission to High Art,” Journal of American Folklore, 122(485), 2009, 297-334.
Leon, E., “Arbie Williams Transforms the Britches Quilt,” exhibition catalog, Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, November 2-December 10, 1993.
MacDowell, M. et al., To Honor and Comfort: Native Quilting Traditions. Museum of New Mexico Press in Association with Michigan State University Museum 1997.
MacDowell, M. et al., Quilts: Conscience of the Human Spirit: The Life of Nelson Mandela : Tributes by Quilt Artists from South Africa and the United States. Michigan State University Museum in Association with the Women of Color Quilters Network 2014.
Margolies, P. and NAMES Project., Always Remember: The Names Project Aids Memorial Quilt: A Selection of Panels Created by and for International Fashion Designers. Simon & Schuster 1996.
Mazloomi, C., Spirits of the Cloth. New York, NY: Random House International, 1998.
Mazloomi, C., Textural Rhythms: Quilting the jazz tradition. West Chester, OH: Paper Moon Publishing, 2007.
Mazloomi, C., Quilting African American Women's History. Cincinnati, OH: Paper Moon Publishing, 2008.
Mazloomi, C., And Still We Rise: Race, culture, and visual conversations. Schiffer Publishing 2015.
Mazloomi, C., Visioning Human Rights in the New Millennium: Quilting the world's conscience. Schiffer Publishing, 2019.
Mazloomi, C., “Quiltmaking for Social Justice” in We Are the Story: A Visual Response to Racism, West Chester, OH: Paper Moon Publishing, 2021, 4-5.
Morris, C. E., Remembering the Aids Quilt. Michigan State University Press 2011.
Parmal, P. A et al., Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories. MFA Publications Museum of Fine Arts Boston 2021.
Plummer, S., Diasporic Threads: Black Women, Fibre, & Textiles. Common Threads Press 2022.
Prichard, S., Quilts 1700-2010: Hidden Histories Untold Stories. V & A Publishing ; Distributed in North America by Harry N. Abrams 2010.
Rinder, L. et al., Rosie Lee Tompkins: A Retrospective. University of California Berkeley Art Museum·Pacific Film Archive 2020.
Ringgold, F., We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold. 1st ed. Little Brown 1995.
Ringgold, F. et al., Dancing at the Louvre : Faith Ringgold's French Collection and Other Story Quilts. University of California Press 1998.
Ringgold, F. et al., Faith Ringgold: Politics. Weiss Publications 2022.
Ringgold F. et al. Faith Ringgold. Serpentine; Glenstone ; Verlag Der Buchhandlung Walther Und Franz König 2022.
Ruskin, C. et al., The Quilt: Stories from the Names Project. Pocket Books 1988.
Smucker, J., Amish Quilts: Crafting an American Icon. Johns Hopkins University Press 2013.
Smucker, J. et al., Amish Abstractions: Quilts from the Collection of Faith and Stephen Brown. Pomegranate Communications: In Collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco 2009.
Tompkins, Rosie Lee et al., Something Pertaining to God : The Patchwork Art of Rosie Lee Tompkins. Shelburne Museum 2007.
Turner, P. “One More River to Cross”, from Crafted Lives: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
Walker, A., In Search of our Mothers Gardens: Womanist prose. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1983.
Walker, A., “Everyday Use,” from In Love and Trouble: Stories of Black Women (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973); reprinted in Everyday Use, edited and with an introduction by Barbara T. Christian, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994, 23-35.
Warren, E. et al., Bisa Butler - Portraits. First ed. Art Institute of Chicago 2020.
Enjoy a curated list of children’s books about quilts from my friend & fellow quilter, Tenille. Ask your local library to add these books to their shelves.
Tenille’s Children’s Patchwork Library
Bronzeville Boys & Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks + Faith Ringgold
Reuben and the Quilt by P Buckley Moss
The Quiltmaker’s Gift by Jeff Brumbeau
The Quiltmaker’s Journey by Jeff Brumbeau
The Patchwork Bike by Beneba Clarke
The Josefina Story Quilt by Eleanor Coerr
Quilt Block History of Pioneer Days by Mary Cobb
The Quilt Story by Tony Johnston + Tomie dePaola
The Patchwork Quilt by Valerie Flournoy
The Sun Is So Quiet by Nikki Giovanni + Ashley Brian
Sewing Stories: Harriet Powers’ Journey From Slave to Artist by Barbara Herbert
Freedom Quilt by Candy Grant Helmso
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt by Deborah Hopkinson
Under the Quilt of Night by Deborah Hopkinson + James E Ransome
Charles and His Gee’s Bend Quilt by Tangular A Irby
Faith Ringgold: Narrating the World In Pattern & Color by Sharna Jackson
The Quilt by Ann Jonas
The Arabic Quilt by Aya Khalil
Stitchin and Pullin: A Gee’s Bend Quilt by Patricia McKissack
The Little Ghost Who Was A Quilt by Riel Nason
Cloth Lullaby: the Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois by Amy Novesky
The Quilt by Gary Paulsen
The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco
Little Red Riding Hood by Jerry Pinckney
Sewing School: Quilts by Anne Petronis Plumley + Andrea Lisle
The Promise Quilt by Candice Ransom
Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold
Auntie Harriet’s Underground Railroad In The Sky by Faith Ringgold
Cassie’s Word Quilt by Faith Ringgold
The All-Together Quilt by Lizzy Rockwell
I Sang You Down From The Stars by Tasha Spillett-Sumner
The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map To Freedom by Bettye Stroud
The Tortilla Quilt by Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
The Tamale Quilt by Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
The Pinata Quilt by Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli
The Secret To Freedom by Marcia Vaughn
Mother Earth and Her Children: A Quilted Fairy Tale by Sibylle Von Olfers
Nana Akua Goes To School by Tricia Elam Walker + April Harrison
The Kindness Quilt by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Kids Making Quilts For Kids by ABC Quilts
Dr. Sharbreon Plummer’s bibliography…
Looking for resources about quilts and Black Feminist material culture studies? Buy Sharbreon’s zine Diasporic Threads & enjoy her amazing resource bibliography on her website. Learn about the arts/crafts divide discourse, diaspora, and intersectional feminist theory.
On my instagram page @publiclibraryquilts where I share favourite nonfiction volumes, grassroots art publications, and zines. Please get in touch if you’d like to send me a book to read and promote.