They told stories and pictured everyday events, and yet they were useful; they required a great deal of work over a long period of time, but they were to be found in almost every household.

Because most bedrooms were unheated, quilts were obviously essential, the best way to keep warm on a winter’s night; but then, plain blankets would have done that almost as well. More than just a useful object, the quilt was also an indigenous art form, an expression of the yearning for beauty combined with utility that was so typical of the United States in the nineteenth century.

Moreover, because quilts were often made by a group of women, they served as a pretext for a gathering, a time to exchange gossip, as well as developing a feeling for the life of the community. The quilting bee was not exactly a party, but it was a lot better than isolated sewing. It probably was one woman, though, who shaped the appliqué and embroidered the Constitution quilt on the opposite page. Most probably made in the 1870s, it is a virtual repository of all its anonymous maker held dear, from the latest fashion to biblical themes, all, of course, centered around the frigate Constitution itself, used both as a decorative element and as the emblem of America’s destiny at sea.

Adam and Eve can be seen here, and the expulsion from the Garden, and Noah’s Ark, but also a proper wedding with the bride in white, and a mother holding her baby, and a little girl with her cat. Patriotic symbols abound: eagles, George Washington, crossed flags, but also flowers and fruit, meant to denote abundance. We may deduce that the maker’s husband belonged to at least two fraternal societies—their emblems are present, too, and the multicolored border tells us that she was fond of birds.

This blend of the religious, the patriotic, and the practical is, in fact, the direct expression of the way America saw itself then. To celebrate on a quilt the ever-growing wave of prosperity was nothing new: in the 1840s a quilt maker in upper New York State created a vast and complex composition (now at the Cooperstown Museum) hailing all the manifestations of commerce. It was, after all, part of a certain Protestant ethic to believe that the Lord rewards those who strive, especially if they are also virtuous; and the United States—so vast, so richly endowed, so free—was the very place for His children to prosper, an attitude neatly symbolized by the beehive at the upper left corner of the Constitution .

At the same time, quilts also performed an essential aesthetic function. Artworks as such were rare, and illustrated publications were largely confined to black and white; so, across the country, in cities and on isolated