1840 Eliza Hussey's Masonic Symbols Quilt`
date: label: Date made
content: 1840
name: label: quilter
content: Hussey, Eliza Rosenkrantz
notes: label: Description
content: Eliza Rosecrans Hussey personalized her pieced wool-and silk-star quilt with symbols of the Masonic Society. The embroidered motifs are interspersed between twenty-five blocks pieced in a variation of the “Feathered Star” pattern. Another silk quilt in the Collection was also made by Eliza, and was embroidered with symbols and inscriptions of the Odd Fellows. Edward Simmons Hussey, her husband, was an active member of both the Masons and the Odd Fellows.
label: Description
content: Eliza, born October 14, 1816, in Pennsylvania, went with her family to Indiana as a young child. She married September 17, 1835. Edward Simmons Hussey in Carlisle, Indiana. They lived in various Indiana towns while Edward worked as a merchant, hotel manager, book keeper, and express agent.
label: Description
content: By 1860 they had settled in Brazil, Indiana, where Eliza worked as a milliner. There they raised their family of ten children. Eliza, after some years as an invalid, died March 23,1880. Her carefully designed and crafted quilts are a reminder of the importance of benevolent societies such as the Masons and the Odd Fellows in the developing towns and cities in the Midwest in the first half of the nineteenth century.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: Indiana
topic: label: Subject
content: Freemasonry
label: Subject
content: Benevolent Associations
label: Subject
content: Quilting
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Textiles
label: See more items in
content: Domestic Furnishings
label: See more items in
content: Quilts
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Mrs. Lucia K. Englehart
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 1981.0680.01
label: catalog number
content: 1981.0680.01
label: accession number
content: 1981.0680
objectType: label: Object Name
content: quilt
label: Object Type
content: quilts
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: fabric, wool, silk, cotton, velvet (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: thread, cotton, silk (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: filling, cotton (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 75 in x 73 in; 191 cm x 186 cm