A New Deal For Quilts by Janneken Smucker

I stumbled upon this book as I try and read a lot of books about modern quilting in general (which is not what defines this book nor the quilts shown within) and quilting in general--this I would categorize as the History of Quilts. I did not know this, but might have surmised it if I had thought about it for half a minute, but during the Great Depression there was a large resurgence in quilting--quilts were used not just for bed, but because so many people became homeless during that time, they were used to delineate makeshift dwelling, and served as door and window cover for people living in broke down sheds and abandoned buildings. The photos in the book are as telling as the narrative, and are largely taken by government workers. They show quilts made by women and the women making them in some instances--there are black women and white women. There are poor women and middle class women. There are women living outside and those living inside. It was a time of making do with what you had, but some of these quilts were just exquisitely designed and pieced out of things that they had and things that they repurposed. They were an ode to scrap piecing, and fit beautifully into the throw nothing away philosophy of modern quilting.