Wonnie

So.....if none of the quilts survived....and if no one wrote anything down....and they dismissed everything the blacks said as "just stories"... and the symbols on fences and trees were not meant to be permanent since the info changed sometimes frequently and have long since disappeared...where did these "professional" historians get their information....or is it.....afterall...just supposition.

Maggiem

The Underground Railroad itself is VERY well documented. There is a wealth of fascinating information available, beginning with the eye-witness account written by William Still, the "Father of the Underground Railroad" himself, of the 800 people he personally rescued and how the UGRR functioned. His account, based on the meticulous records he kept during the period when the UGRR functioned, was published after the Civil War.

William Still's account of how his Railroad worked is rich in detail, and includes exactly how the various helpers and rescuers communicated with one another, but there is no trace of 'quilt blocks' in it. Not one trace. Harriet Tubman writes in great detail about how the Railroad functioned, and doesn't mention quilt blocks either... nor do the hundreds of existing Oral History reports collected from in the 1920s and 1930s from the ex-slaves and runaways themselves.

The true history of slavery in the US, the struggle against it, the actual legislation which encouraged people in the North to help 'recapture' runaways, the very real bravery and dignity of the blacks is extraordinary and deserves all our respect. For me as a historian, it is a disservice to Black history to allow modern, pretty myths about quilt blocks to substitute for real facts and knowledge about the period.

Sharbank

My grandmother born in 1881 told about quilts made by slaves that told stories. That was way before 1990 myths. When my grandmother sewed quilts she would emphasize that every quilt should tell a story that would be understood by the person who would use the quilt. My grandmother's aunt had a hotel along the Ohio River in the 1800s and gave refuge to persons traveling north to escape slavery. I never heard her say that quilts were used as markers of any kind but it does make sense. Desperate people find ways to reach their destinations. My older sister remembers the quilt stories my grandmother told also. The difference is that my sister didn't want to hear about any of it. She thought grandma was a little nutty. Now she thinks grandma was pretty smart. So it is like any other subject, some will believe and others will not. Of course, in the future it may not be so mythical.

sniktasemaj

My mother who lived through the great depression and my grandmothere certainly belived it. They lived on a farm and had hobos come through.

ghostrider

Actually, it's the total LACK of information that best proves the idea as myth. No mention is made anywhere, written or oral, prior to 1987...more than 175 years after the beginning of the underground railroad, yet at the height of interest in women's studies and in African-American quilts.

There is no documentation that the 'quilt code' ever existed...no oral history, no journals, no diaries, no letters, no drawings, no songs, no poems, nothing...before it was first briefly mentioned (with no source documentation provided) in a video about women and quilts in 1987. http://www.ugrrquilt.hartcottagequilts.com/

Perhaps calling it 'folklore' would be more PC than 'myth'?

ptquilts

Knowing how quilters like to get inspiration from all sources, what if the neighbor of the person with the UGRR quilt made one just like it, and hung it outside? :-o

shivrs2000

All of you check out the book by Barbara Brackman "Facts & Fabrications" Unraveling the History of Quilts & Slavery

Lara122

without machines, or rotary cutters -- how long do we think it took those women to make a block? a quilt? wouldn't the info being communicated be much more transient?

Wonnie

The working class didn't make Baltimore quilts; they didn't have the time. They made utilitarian quilts put together quickly. I have a quilt top my Grandmother made for me that never got finished and the piecing stitches are huge. Many of them were just knotted which did not take much time either. I don't necessarily feel that the absence of information makes a truth.

be a quilter

So what. "they all" said Jesus was a minister of satan and crucified Him. They couldn't get more wrong on that one!! Opinions are just that, opinions NOT facts. It would be great if people stopped trying to pass opinions as facts and just admitted they don't really know. There obviously were signals of some kind to help move all the people through unsafe territory.