...modern times, a quilt is generally thought of as a decorative bed covering. However, the term actually originates from the sewing method. Quilting is the act of stitching through three layers of material, generally a top, a middle filler layer of down, flax or wool, and then a bottom layer. Stitching the layers to hold them together provides more insulation and warmth (History). ”One of the most universal fabric arts is quilting.” (Bonnice) In addition to providing a layer of warmth for beds, quilts were also hung over windows and doorways to help keep out the cold weather (Johnson). At first, the stitching on quilts was just a rough tying together of the material. (Lewis, p 2). The tufted quilt is tied in enough places to keep the filling from shifting and bunching (History) This method was not extremely durable, and since European women were already practiced embroiders, they began to use those techniques on quilts as well, to hold the filler materials in place better. (Lewis, p 2) Like other household goods, quilts were brough by the colonists when they came to settle here in America. (Lews, p 10) The colonists only had the fabric material they brought with them to use. Quilts were functional items, as the women did not have time for the artistic traditions of quilting which they had learned in Europe (Johnson). As these household goods wore out, blankets were patched, and even combined with old cothes and other blankets as filler material in a new quilt. (Johnson) Fabric...
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...compared to Dee. The value of Maggie to society is not that she is less confident, but that she has a strong understanding of her heritage and family history that she would pass on to future generations. On the other hand, Dee is seen as a person who has lost her heritage and has become superficial in material things and bigger ideas than her family. Walker shows the portrayal of Maggie and Dee's value of family history when the family quilt is mentioned. The quilt, "had been pieced by Grandma Dee than Big Dee and me [Mama] had hung them on the quilt frames on the front porch and quilted them" (75). This illustrates the importance of the quilts history it has in the family. Walker also gives light to how Maggie would cherish and use the quilts and add to them just as the past women in her family. Whereas Dee only wants the quilts to hang up, ignoring the importance of using the quilt and adding to it has to the...
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...down heirlooms and others may just share stories. Quilts are another easy way to keep something from your family history going. We see how quilts are able to store these family histories in the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. And also in the story “The Keeping Quilt” By Patricia Polacco. Both of these authors use quilts to represent and keep their family heritage alive. While reading the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker you are easily able to figure out that the daughter Dee who has come back home to visit is looking for family heirlooms. Dee or the name she has now changed it to, Wangero, has decided that she wants things with family heritage. On page 320 paragraph 58 you see that Dee now wants the family quilts that have been passed down. “Mama,” Wangero said sweet as a bird. “Can I have these old...
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...In the Dee goes the foot of her mother’s bed and bed, found two quilts made by her aunt, and grandmother. The quilts contain small pieces of garments worn by her grandmother and can be traced all the way back to the Civil War. Dee asks her mother for the quilt, but her mother has already promised them to Maggie when she marries. Dee states that “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use” (Johnson & Thomas 153). Her mother says that she hope that Maggie does use them and how Dee didn’t want to take them when she went to college. Dee saying that they are priceless and should be hung not used (153). Mrs. Johnson see heritage as something that should be practiced everyday and used in everyday life while Dee sees heritage as art and it should be used as decoration of the family history. At the end of the story Dee states that Maggie and Mrs. Johnson don’t know their own heritage which is ironic because it’s Dee who doesn’t. Mrs. Johnson and Maggie know the traditions and history behind the quilts one because she puts her ancestor’s memories to everyday use and hopes that Maggie does the same (Gruesser...
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...from them is their history - one of unbearable struggles and unique beauties. Unfortunately, as time progresses, some African Americans lose sight of their heritage while others hold onto it with dear life. In the case of Dee and Maggie, from the Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, Dee loses sight of her true heritage trying to conform to the telegraphic past of idealized Africa, while Maggie holds on to her heritage by remaining true to her immediate past. The short story begins with Dee coming home from college. Now, she is more informed about her heritage and beginning to conform to an image to fit the African culture....
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...Name Tutor Subject Date Everyday Use Alice walker in her short story “Everyday Use” teaches on heritage and inheritance. A quilt is made up of patches of cloth intricately stitched together to make the final product. Symbolically, an individual's perception of the world is constructed out of different influences, circumstances and events, which dictate how one responds to the world. Mama as the narrator in “Everyday Use” tell us of the conflict of two worlds personified by the daughters. Dee is infuriated by what she sees as a past of oppression in her lineage and has created a new heritage for herself while rejecting her true heritage. She is obstinate to her family name and takes up a new name Wangero (158), which she believes best portrays her African heritage, however, like her African jewelry and clothes it is meaningless. She does not fully understand Africa; therefore, her conception of true heritage is false and empty. Additionally, Dee considers her heritage to be of the past and dead, instead of something ongoing and living. She wishes to have the family quilts and the carved dasher, but Dee considers them to be old artifacts not suitable for practical use but for display. She alienates herself from her own history through rejection of her true heritage and adopts a constructed heritage. The family quilts and the carved dasher symbolize heritage and inheritance and are the epicenter of conflict in the short story. Maggie, on the other hand, is nature portrayal...
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...contrasting family views on what they perceive to be heritage. The idea is that a quilt is a part of this family's history. They aren't just parts of cloth put together to make a blanket. The quilt symbolizes their ancestors' lives and tells a story with every single inch of cloth. Understanding the reasoning of why the author wrote this story is very important; valuing the culture and traditions of your family is extremely meaningful. This is shown by the mother’s thoughts on the quilts, “Both of them were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell's paisley shirts. And one teeny faded blue piece about the size of a penny matchbox that was from Great Grandpa Ezra's uniform that he wore in the Civil War. (367-368)"In the story, Walker presents Maggie, who is the younger sister, as an example of heritage in terms of passing it on through the generations with knowledge and respect. Maggie unlike her older sister knew how to sew and appreciated personally and emotionally on how much time and effort where put into the quilts whereas Dee sees the quilt valued only for financial and aesthetic reasons. Maggie and Dee have very different ideas about what constitutes their heritage and for Maggie, the family heirlooms are filled with the presence of the people who made and used them. Dee on the other hand is angered by what she views as a family history of oppression. Because of this Dee has constructed a new heritage for herself...
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...Proclamation, the black Pettway’s continued to live as they had during slavery in their shotgun shacks and working the land all the while continuing their tradition that had been passed down from the generation of the motherland creating their quilts Like their ancestors, the women of Gee’s Bend used the quilting technique of string quilting to make quilts faster, this often involved stitching together long strips of rags. Much like their African ancestors, the quilters worked without patterns and used irregular shapes. . Callahan describes how the women organized a quilting bee headed up by Estelle Witherspoon, who was the driving force behind the development of the bee. Mary Boykin Robinson, was the director of the day care center which was attached the Freedom Quilting Bee’s sewing center. Nettie Pettway Young and China Grove Myles were also listed as founding members of this organization and are known for their unique quilting style known as “pine burr...
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...Assignment Artifact: antique quilt from rural Appalachian village in West Virginia from 1890, currently on display in the Heritage Farm Museum of cultural artifacts in Huntington, West Virginia. Appalachian Quilts For this assignment I have decided to focus on quilts and their cultural and historic importance. One in particular caught my eye, which is a multi-colored antique quilt that I discovered while researching the Appalachian people of rural West Virginia. While there are many different cultural artifacts that are a part of the history of the Appalachian people, this is one that has deep roots in that often times quilts get passed down from generation to generation. It is a patchwork quilt that was first started by the grandmother of a coal miner, Leanne Thomas in 1890 who left the quilt unfinished in order for her children to add patches to it and then continue the tradition. The colors featured are cream and red. The prints used also feature yellow, blue, orange, purple, green, black, tan, and brown. It is hand-sewn with triangle pieces that are attached together with pieces of yarn. The quilt has an abstract geometric pattern that is made by altering the direction and placement of both blocks and rows. Each particular patch was said to signify an important event such as a birth or death that occurred, as well as to represent a member of the family. This specific quilt is unique because it was said to be one of the original quilts created with both synthetic dyes...
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...Walker utilizes symbolism to highlight the dispute between two different points of view of, or approaches to, the African-American culture, showing that culture and heritage are parts of daily life. Through the use of symbolism, there are three of which I will refer to, one being the quilts, the tangible objects of the family heirloom, the yard, which she emphasis on and its physical characteristics, and then there’s the name changing, when Dee changed her name to a traditional African name, Wangero. The quilts were the most compelling symbol in the story. They signified pieces of living history, documents in fabric that chronicle the lives of the many generations and the struggles, such as war and poverty, which they faced. The quilts served as a testament to the family’s history of pride and trials. With the drawbacks that poverty and lack of education placed on her life, Mama sees her personal history as one of her few treasures. Her house embraces the handicrafts of her extended family. Instead of acquiring a financial inheritance from her ancestors, Mama has been given the quilts. For her, these objects have a sentimental value that Dee, despite claiming her desire to care for and preserve the quilts, is unable to fathom. Mama’s yard represents a private space free of the woes and defects that have permeated Mama’s life. The yard comes into view in the first and last sentences of the story, associating the events and bookending the action. The yard has been precisely prepared...
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...their heritage and identity. Throughout the story. Dee goes back and forth on being proud and rejecting her heritage. For example, when she decides at dinner that she wants the butter dish, she shows that she respects her heritage because she knows that her uncle carved that with from a tree they used to have. However, she wants it for the wrong reason, saying that she will use it only for decoration. Another example is when she wants the quilts that Mama has. She states that she wants them because of the generations of clothing and effort put into making the quilt, showing her appreciation for her heritage. The fact that she changes her name, though, from Dee to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo disrespects her heritage because "Dee" is a family name that can be traced back many generations. The story is full of symbols: One is the quilt (Whitsitt). The quilt itself is a very meaningful item in the sense that it has history on it; it...
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...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....
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...person, idolizing an African culture that predates her family history. Maggie and Mama see heritage to be a part of everyday life, yet Dee believes it to be a form of art. Even when Dee was young she always imagined leaving the farm, and doing something more with her life. She was gifted with style, wits, and the determination to get out. Her character is strong, independent, and never afraid. As she finally receives her wish of getting out, she goes to college, only to come back feeling superior to her family. Rather than wanting to be a part of her heritage, Dee created a new "look" for what she believed her heritage to be. Upon Dee's arrival, she informed Mama of her...
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...Family Ties or Societal Knowledge: Take it or Leave it Set in the rural south during segregation in 1960s, Alice Walker visibly notes the theme and importance of heritage in her short story, “Everyday Use.” Walker presents a family with different perspectives of the definition of culture. There’s Maggie and Mama as “backwards” and uneducated, but they understand their history and heritage, meanwhile Dee has the education and sophistication but is clueless of the actuality of true family history. Walker deems the importance of heritage, suggesting that passing down tradition through generations keeps the bond alive; but these characters choose to dismiss or celebrate their heritage despite the attempts to work for a middle ground in order to balance the extremes. Ultimately, Maggie's roots are deeply and firmly planted in the cultural soil of her family's traditions, unlike Dee who was always ashamed, hating her rural traditions and upbringing. Dee sees her roots from a disconnected view of admiration. Dee’s perceived by the complex, materialistic, modern way of life where heritage is valued by its trendiness. While Maggie and Mama, on the contrary, represent the simple practice way of life where culture holds personal substance. Both have different approaches to life and virtually opposite of one another. Dee knows it is okay to want the best and is described as a confident and fearless young woman: “At sixteen she had a style of her own,” and “hesitation was no part of her...
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...important to them to remember, honor or appreciate about one’s life is truly up to each individual. For Momma in the short story "Everyday Use", her legacy came in the form of an heirloom, quilts that were left behind by her mother. When you leave behind your most prized possession...
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