I N D I A N A S TAT E M U S E U M A N D H I S T O R I C S I T E S
CROSSROADS EMPLOYEE NEWSLETTER MAY 2023
Flags and Our Collection
A question regarding Flag Day (June 14) and what flags the museum owns led Curator of History Mary Figueroa to examine the collection. There, she found this striking, politically themed pieced quilt from the 1860s. “It looks like a modern quilt,” she said. “The maker was ahead of her time and obviously very talented.” Through the Mimsy system the museum uses to manage and catalog the collection, Figueroa discovered the quilt’s fascinating backstory. It was made in the 1860s and 1870s from silk and dyed political ribbons by a New Albany, Ind., teenager named
Margaret Frentz, who was 13 when she started work and 22 when she finished. In the interim, Frentz also was granted a patent for an improved corset fastener.
The ribbons were all dyed fuchsia using Perkins dye, one of the first synthetic dyes. Chemist William Henry Perkins invented the product when he was trying to discover a treatment for malaria, and fuchsia went on to become popular through the 1870s as a color for dresses.
As for the quilt, its center motif is an American flag with seven fuchsia stripes formed of dyed political ribbons, alternating with pieced stripes in a Broken Dishes pattern variation. The star field is formed of additional political ribbons dyed a pale blue, 36 white silk stars appliqued to the ribbons and edged in red chain stitch.
Figueroa said that while Frentz’s quilt obviously takes some liberties with the design of an American flag – something that might anger purists – “maybe using political ribbons counteracts that a bit because she’s showing the people behind the country and the flag.”
The political ribbons forming the stripes and the field represent Abe Lincoln, H[annibal] Hamlin, S[tephen] A. Douglas, John Bell, Ed[ward] Everett, and J[ohn] C. Breckinridge. They were all candidates for the presidential and vicepresidential elections in 1860. The entire blue star field is formed of Lincoln/Hamlin ribbons. Below the flag is a gold silk rectangle with a smaller fuchsia silk rectangle appliqued over it, embroidered "1876," with a printed ribbon depicting Franklin Pierce and W.R. King outlined in cream chain stitch in the center. Directly below it is an entire ribbon listing O.H. Strattan for County Clerk, also dyed fuchsia.
“I do think, though, that it’s interesting to use this as an example for Flag Day,” she said, “because when we think about the flag, we think about Betsy Ross and the legend behind that flag and how women were so often the ones designing flags and making them. We think of the great men who started the country, but symbolically, women were charged with creating these artifacts that then go on to symbolize our country.” Flag Day celebrates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress. And while “there are other quilts in the collection that depict American flags,” Figueroa said, including one made after 9/11 from children’s T-shirts that were in the area of the Twin Towers, “this one seems a little bit more joyous.”