Harriet Powers was an African-American slave, folk artist, and quilt maker. She was born in on October 29, 1837 in Athens, Georgia. For most of her life she lived in Sandy Creek. She had her first child at the age of 18, and would later have eight more with Armstead Powers her husband. It is believed that Powers was a part of the plantation owned by John and Nancy Lester.
Black women slaves learned needlework either from their mistress or other older black slaves. Most women made the quilts to keep their families warm at night. Powers used traditional techniques in her quilts to record local legends, Bible stories and astronomical events on her quilts. One of the panels on Powers quilts illustrate the "dark day" of May 19, 1780 (which is now known as dense smoke over North America caused by Canadian wildfires) and the November 13, 1833, as the "night of falling stars" that convinced many terrified Americans that Judgment Day had come, but was later identified as the Leonid meteor storm. Two of her quilts are on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC; Bible Quilt of 1886 and Pictorial Quilt of 1898. …show more content…
She put her first quilt on display at a cotton fair in Athens. Powers never had intentions of parting with the quilt, but she ran into financial difficulties and sold the quilt for 5 dollars. The woman who purchase the quilt from Powers recorded the meaning of each picture and added in her own personal notes about the quilt. The quilt was later put on display at the Smithsonian Institution. Information about the second quilt is still unclear. One account suggests that it was commissioned by the wives of faculty members of Atlanta University, who had seen the first quilt at the Cotton States Exhibition in Atlanta in