Okay, this one is one of my favorite historical quilting books.

"Hearts and Hands:  Women, Quilts, and American Society" by Elaine Hedges, Pat Ferrero, and Julie Silber is the companion book to the Programme "Hearts and Hands" which was part of "The American Experience" series on Public Broadcasting here in the states, unfortunately it aired in 1988 so a bit before I got hooked on quilting.

Here's the cover:





Here's an excerpt from the back of the book:

"Discouraged from writing, nineteenth-century American women made needles their pens and quilts their texts to record their struggles and their joys.  Women also used quilts and other textiles to help create for themselves a new, more public role in the abolition of slavery, the Civil War, the westward expansion and pioneer experience, temperance, and suffrage."

As well as the chapter titles:

    1    Quilts as Women's History
    2    The Domestic World of Women
    3    From the Home to the Factory
    4    The Plantation Mistress and the Female Slave
    5    Quilts and the Westward Movement
    6    Pricking the Nation's Conscience
    7    Temperance and Suffrage:  Politicizing the Quilt

The book is jammed with pictures and images of the period and a good number of quilt photos. If you are interested in the historical and social aspects of quilting then this is worth that read.

Christopher picked this book for me out of the blue.  I really like it.

Best,

Fiona