That's a beautiful quilt and I would machine quilt it (maybe because I have a long arm). Better done and useable than forever put away.
Maybe this will give you an idea of the time period. I have 120 blocks that were made by my great-grandmother. My grandmother showed them to me a long time ago, they were kept in her hope chest. When I received them after my parents passed away, I opened the bag and there were the pattern pieces cut out of a newspaper called Home and Farm in Arkansas. There was a date in one of the articles of 1936.