Art Student Mary Hallock Foote's Civil War

 

Sampler quilt inscribed

 "School of Design 

Engraving Class 

Cooper Union"

I loaned this quilt made at the Cooper Union school in New York, probably during the last year or two of the Civil War, to the DAR Museum where it was exhibited in Sewn in America last year.

I fortunately know a bit about it and have guessed a lot.

The quilt is 54" by 88" wide. Sanitary Commission guidelines asked for long, narrow quilts to fit hospital beds.

https://barbarabrackman.blogspot.com/2019/06/cooper-union-sanitary-commission-quilt.html

Gulielma Field (1814-1875) who taught wood engraving also knew how to quilt. Alice Donlevy, one of her students, recalled:

"Under her guidance many patchwork quilts were made during the Civil War, in an upper room in the Cooper Institute, where the students of the Art School came to quilt for any half hour they could spare after lesson times....Every student that I remember had to learn to quilt."

I recently came upon a biography of one of the engraving students at the school. Mary Hallock spent the last year of the Civil War learning wood engraving at the Cooper, as she called it. Mary, a Quaker from Milton, New York moved to the city, boarding with relatives, making life-long friends at school and learning wood engraving techniques, a new periodical illustration technique thought to be an appropriate occupation for females. (Some accounts tell us she was there after the war but most say 1864-1865.)

"The Female School of Art was a school for the instruction of respect­able females in the arts of design, and, in the discretion of the Board of Trustees, to afford to respectable females instruction in such other art or trade as will tend to furnish them suitable employment." 

Mary A. Hallock Foote (1847-1938) in the 1870s 

about the time of her marriage to Arthur DeWint Foote

"Afternoon at a Ranch"

Mary's 1889 wood engraving for Century Magazine

Mary became a skillful, well-known illustrator and her time at the Cooper Union is often mentioned. In his 1882 History of Wood-Engraving in America: "Mrs. Foote (then Miss Hallock), the best of our designers on the wood began her art studies [at the Cooper-Union.] Credit for her skills are assigned to male teachers rather than Gulielma Field or the other women. 

The wood engraving classes were small. In 1864 Robert O'Brien was listed as teacher and 11 students were noted. (Cannot find the 1865 report.)

"1864 Drawing and Engraving on Wood. ROBERT O’BRIEN
Miss Bianca Bondi, Laura E. Brower, Frederica Barnes, Abbie Crane, Miss Sarah B. Denroche, Alice Donlevy, Sophia A. Grant, Emelie Hueter, Miss Frances Ketcham, Amelia Van Horn, Rhoda A. Wells. —11." ,  In the same school Miss Curtis, Miss Gibbons, and Miss Ledyard had their first lessons." William J. Linton

I list these women because I like to think a few of them might have made the unsigned blocks in my quilt.

Illustration by Mary Hallock Foote

See more about Gulielma Field and the Civil War quilt here:

https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2016/12/stitching-soldiers-quilts-at-cooper.html

Petticoat Press #1: Olivia's Chronicle for Emily Edson Briggs

 

Petticoat Press: Block # 1 Olivia's Chronicle by Jeanne Arnieri

Our 2025 pieced Block of the Month is Petticoat Press. This celebration

of women journalists reporting on the Civil War will include a

free pattern posted on the second Wednesday of each month in 2025.

Emily Pomona Edson Briggs (1830-1908) "Olivia"

1906

The first block Olivia's Chronicle recalls Emily Edson Briggs who wrote for the newspapers during the Civil War under the pen name Olivia. Her specialty was Washington society and fashion but she also expressed opinions on politics---the ever-fascinating subject to Washingtonians.

Harper's Weekly

A White House levee (reception) early in the war

Olivia's Chronicle by Becky Brown

"What's Black & White & Red All Over" seems to be our favorite joke.

Emily arrived in the capital when the war began as so many new government employees did. Ohio-born, she was married to John R. Briggs who had a history of work in midwestern newspapers. He'd obtained a job as clerk for the House of Representatives. The Briggses had one young son John.

Washington changed as young men went to war. The Treasury Department replaced them with female clerks, horrifying conservatives who believed it was the edge of the slippery slope to equality (It was.) Emily was outraged to hear their opinions that women were too inept to do the work and wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Chronicle expressing her contrary ideas in eloquent fashion. Editor James Forney was impressed and hired her to write for his Chronicle and Philadelphia Press.

James Forney

The President's enemies called him "Lincoln's Dog."

Olivia's Chronicle by Elsie Ridgley

Elsie is using my Moda William Morris reproductions.

Our Ebony Suite collection from last year is perfect for the

color theme of "Black & White & Red All Over."

Olivia wrote on a variety of topics; she visited the White House often and became friends with the Lincolns.

Olivia's piece on "Assassination Night" was collected in a post-war compilation of news clips.

 Olivia's Chronicle by Denniele Bohannon

During the last year of the war Emily was pregnant with her second son but Arthur L. Briggs died soon after birth.

Library of Congress HABS

The Maples or Maple Square, an 18th-century house where Emily lived after the war. 

Her husband died here soon after they bought the house, which is still standing.

Emily had a long and distinguished career in journalism.

Becky Collis's block in William Morris Ebony Suite and

a period madder red.

The Block

Blues from my Morris Manor collection for Moda

BlockBase # 2302.5 is unnamed in BlockBase.

Most of the blocks using this 4X seam structure do not seem to have published names, so we'll enjoy naming them for our Press Women. This one pieced of a single triangle is in BlockBase but with no published source. We'll call it Olivia's Chronicle.

Here's our Facebook group. Post your pictures on PetticoatpressQuilt

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570543959924 

Further Reading: A collection of Emily Edson's Brigg's columns was published in 1906 as The Olivia Letters

https://books.google.com/books?id=WlKtbzjZ1c0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=female+treasury+clerk+civil+war+emily+briggs&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjsu8Wyut6HAxXukIkEHTzXGL4Q6AF6BAgJEAI#v=onepage&q&f=false

You can buy a PDF of all 12 patterns at my Etsy shop for $12.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1836924572

The Herrick Sewing Circle---An Abolition Quilt

 

Chester County History Center Collection

Feathered star block in the center of a crib quilt stitched

by the Herrick Sewing Circle of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

https://mycchc.org/exhibits/changing-exhibits/

The quilt is on display at the Chester County History Center until early March.

Charlene Bongiorno Stephens posted these pictures.

The quilt was donated many years ago by Francis Darlington Brinton (?-1951)

and Deborah H. Brinton, Quakers with a long family history in the area.

One would guess the Herrick Sewing Circle was a group of Quaker friends.

Photo by Stephanie Armpriester, Brandywine Conservancy

The Brintons, collectors on a grand scale, bought this family home built in 1704.

Their collections are a good part of the History Center's holdings today.

1960, Philadelphia Enquirer

Harriet Newell Trefethen Skillings's Civil War

  

Name quilt organized as a fundraiser on Peaks Island, Maine

in 1875, ten years after the Civil War.

https://www.fifthmainemuseum.org/2023/01/05/harriet-trefethen-skillings-the-peaks-island-sewing-circle-their-signature-quilts/

Harriet Newell Trefethen Skillings (1821-1903) lived her long life on the islands in Casco Bay, east of Portland, Maine

 Peaks Island is about 30 miles from Portland, a half hour by ferry today.

In 2023 the local Historical Society, the Fifth Maine showed the quilt top above, which had been found in a thrift store, traced to the island and to Harriet's supervision in 1875. 

Harriet's tourist home Oak Cottage. The family believed the house was begun in 1864.

 (1819-1902)

After marrying Robert Franklin Skillings in 1842 she left her Trevethen family home on House Island and moved to Peaks, where she gave birth to nine children. When the Civil War began Harriet was about 40 with several surviving children including a couple of boys too young to join any Maine regiments. Her last child, born in 1864, she named Lincoln.

1880 Census Peaks Island.

Lincoln Skillings and brother Henry are still at home.

Harriet and Robert were active in creating a church on the island with this quilt and another playing a role in the fundraising. During the Civil War she'd worked with a sewing group as so many other women did. In 1873 she reorganized the Peaks Island Sewing Circle with the goal of building a parsonage for the New Brackett Church, a Methodist-Episcopal group. The Sewing Circle owned the house and leased it to the minister. To build their treasury they made at least two sampler tops.

The one pictured was found at a Massachusetts flea market and traced to the island.

Harriet's attributes in a memorial poem.

 .

Civil War Fundraiser from Newlin Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania

"Liberty

1862"

https://mycchc.catalogaccess.com/objects/13873

Museum cataloging notes: "According to old card, 'Made by women of Newlin Township in 1864 and chanced off at Fair for sick in field hospitals in Civil War. Said to have brought $200.00 Quilt was presented to the late Hugh E. Steele, then owner of the Laurel Iron works, in whose home the quilting had been done by wives of the mill operators.' "

West Chester Record, June 4, 1864

The Great Central Fair was held in Philadelphia's Logan Square in June, 1864

The applique---a standard wreath design

I've been digitizing patterns for traditional applique.

Here's one that's close to the Chester County wreath.

Anna (Hannah) Baldwin Rakestraw Steele (1819-1895) must have hosted the quilting parties for the wives of her husband's employees....

some of whom lived in the workers' housing near the iron mill

on the West Branch of Brandywine Creek.

Mortonville, home of the Laurel Iron Works

The Steeles were members of the local Doe Run Presbyterian Church

Read a post about a visit to the Great Central Fair here:
https://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2017/11/a-day-at-philadelphias-great-central.html

Washington Whirlwind #12: Windblown Square

 

Washington Whirlwind #12 by Jeanne Arnieri.

 Windblown Square recalls the Lincoln family's life after the White House years.

Heritage Auction

Thomas "Tad" Lincoln at about 14 in 1867

Mary Todd Lincoln left with youngest son Thomas "Tad" for company tried to establish a life as the widow of a martyred and idolized President.

Early 1870s

Spiritualism continued to offer some solace in her windblown years. Charlatan photographer William H. Mumler captured her with this photo superimposing Lincoln's spirit on her portrait. Gullible people like Mary always ready to believe in alternate realities took this kind of "evidence" as Spiritualist gospel.

Never satisfied in one place very long Mary began her new life in Chicago, where eldest son Robert lived, buying a house at what is now 1238 West Washington Boulevard, east of Union Park. 

Chicago

Windblown Square, the plan by Becky Brown

After a restless year she rented it out and traveled to Europe. She never returned to live in the house but continued to store trunks and boxes there. She also brought much baggage with her on extended visits to Europe beginning in October, 1868. Being both a hoarder and a woman never content for long in one spot is a bad combination of disorders. And now we can add severe depression to that list of mental problems.

"I am so miserable, I feel like taking my own life. My darling boy, my Taddie alone, I fully believe prevents the deed....I am positively dying with a broken heart and the probability is that I shall be living but a very short time."       Mary Lincoln to Elizabeth Keckly, January 12, 1868

Thomas "Tad" Lincoln in Frankfurt, Germany at 16 in 1869.

He spent about 2 years in a German boarding school.

Tad looking like a German student with a buzz cut. As a former special education teacher I fret about him in German schools. He was hard to understand in English and had an obvious learning disability....

How did German boarding school go?

Tad, about 1870. 

Mary and Tad returned to the U.S.in 1871.

July, 1871

Tad's health deteriorated and Mary worried about a cold he'd caught on the ocean voyage in the winter of 1870-1871. In another devastating blow, Tad died of a lung disorder a few months later.  

Windblown Square by Denniele Bohannon

Mourning cockade

Mary's history of bereavement as widow of an idolized American martyr should have made her a sympathetic figure in the public eye but as they say about those with narcissistic personalities: She was her own worst enemy. Once obsessive about clothing she spent her post-war years obsessing about finances. Although she had adequate resources she publicly hounded Congress for a pension and complained about the generous amount once it was granted. Anxious about her money she pinned securities, bonds and cash to her undergarments, behavior that alarmed her only surviving son attorney Robert who realized it was public knowledge and she was in danger of being attacked. He hired a bodyguard to follow her in secret. 

Lincoln Financial Group

Mary Lincoln's stationery 1867

"A piece in the morning Tribune, signed 'B' ...says there is no doubt Mrs. L is deranged and had been for years past and will end her life in a lunatic asylum." 

Mary Lincoln letter to Elizabeth Keckly, October 9, 1867

Windblown Square by Elsie Ridgley 

Bellevue Place

If public opinion deemed her insane Robert agreed and had her institutionalized for what he believed to be her own good in 1875. She spent three months at Bellevue Place Sanitarium in Batavia, Illinois, working to free herself, persuading sister Elizabeth and her husband Ninian Edwards to accept responsibility for her, now "restored to reason." 

After one more lonely trip to Europe, she spent her last years in the care of the Edwards relatives who gave her a home in Springfield. Mary occupied her days sifting through her fabrics in her trunks and boxes---dress silks and laces a widow could never wear; draperies for houses she did not live in. She died in July, 1882.

Windblown Square by Elsie Ridgley

We'll give Julia Taft Bayne the last word. In closing out her memoir of the Tafts and the Lincolns she wrote of the assassination's effect on the former First Lady:

"Mrs Lincoln was not fitted to withstand a violent blow to her emotions. If....she could not stand even the sight of Willie's playmates, what would be the result of [that] awful shock....She literally went wild with sorrow. I do not believe her mind ever fully recovered its poise."

Julia with Calvin Coolidge in 1928

Julia, our reporter on the Lincoln family, grew up to marry Congregational minister John Strawn Bayne from Illinois in 1869. They had four sons and a daughter during their midwest postings. Brother Horatio II "Bud" became an accountant and died in Rockford, Illinois in 1915. He was said to look much like their cousin William Howard Taft, President from 1909 to 1913 (a rather distant cousin.)  Halsey "Holly," also went into banking and died in 1897. Youngest brother William lived in Chicago.

Do read Julia Taft Bayne's Tad Lincoln's Father, on which this year's BOM was based. It's been reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press's Bison Books.

https://books.google.com/books?id=F5UaW8odX0kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=tad+lincolns+father&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi70Ij4mcP9AhUGHTQIHUwIB50Q6AF6BAgEEAI#v=onepage&q=tad%20lincolns%20father&f=false 

The Block

Uh oh! I've been so distracted lately I forgot to post the actual pattern.

Sorry!

1875

http://civilwarquilts.blogspot.com/2023/01/mary-lincoln-had-fabric-problem.html

Washington Whirlwind, all 12 blocks by Elsie Ridgley

And Jeanne Arnieri

The story of the Lincoln White House and Tad and his mother turned out

to be a lot sadder than I expected. I think if Tad were living today we could do

a lot for him---Special Education and surgery might have made his life happier and longer.

 His mother, whom I have always been curious about, is a different story. She looks to

have been a classic Narcissist with a personality disorder that seems incurable.

Hope next year's BOM's are more cheerful!

I think you will enjoy the pieced Petticoat Press.