Freedom Quilting Bee
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Freedom Quilting Bee
The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Rehobeth, Alabama, that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women as a way to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution. History The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative with members located throughout the Black Belt of Alabama. Black women created the cooperative in 1966 as a way to generate income for their families. The women began selling their quilts at the suggestion of Father Francis X. Walter, a priest who was returning to the area as part of the Selma Inter-religious Project. He received a seven hundred dollar grant and traveled through the Black Belt looking for quilts to present at an auction. After the first auction in New York City, the quilts gained critical acclaim and popularity, prompting the craftswomen to organize an official quilting cooperative. The Freedom Quilting Bee, as an alternative economic organization, ...
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Quilting
Quilting is the term given to the process of joining a minimum of three layers of fabric together either through stitching manually using a needle and thread, or mechanically with a sewing machine or specialised longarm quilting system. An array of stitches is passed through all layers of the fabric to create a three dimensional padded surface. The three layers are typically referred to as the top fabric or quilt top, batting or insulating material and the backing. Quilting varies from a purely functional fabric joinery technique to highly elaborate, decorative three dimensional surface treatments. A wide variety of textile products are traditionally associated with quilting that includes bed coverings, soft home furnishings, garments and costumes, wall hangings, artistic objects and cultural artefacts. A wide range of effects can be employed by the quilter that contribute to the final surface quality and utility of the quilted material. The quilter controls these effec ...
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Rehobeth, Alabama
Rehobeth is a town in Houston County, Alabama, United States. Rehobeth, originally named Sanders, began as a crossroads community in the 1890s; however, it was not until 1996, that the town was incorporated. Rehobeth is part of the Dothan Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the time of the 2010 census, the population was 1,297, up from 993 at the 2000 census. Geography Rehobeth is located in western Houston County at the geographic coordinates of (31.12296, -85.45271 decimal degrees). It is bordered to the north by the city of Dothan and to the northwest by the town of Taylor. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Rehobeth has a total area of , of which , or 0.41%, is water. Demographics 2010 census As of the 2010 census, there were 1,297 people in 485 households, including 388 families, in the town. The population density was . There were 528 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 95.9% White, 1.5% Black or African American, 0.8% A ...
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African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/ Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not s ...
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Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded on August 10, 1846, it operates as a trust instrumentality and is not formally a part of any of the three branches of the federal government. The institution is named after its founding donor, British scientist James Smithson. It was originally organized as the United States National Museum, but that name ceased to exist administratively in 1967. Called "the nation's attic" for its eclectic holdings of 154 million items, the institution's 19 museums, 21 libraries, nine research centers, and zoo include historical and architectural landmarks, mostly located in the District of Columbia. Additional facilities are located in Maryland, New York, and Virginia. More than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states,States without Smithsonian ...
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Black Belt (region Of Alabama)
The Black Belt is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. The term originally referred to the region's rich, black soil, much of it in the soil order Vertisols. The term took on an additional meaning in the 19th century, when the region was developed for cotton plantation agriculture, in which the workers were enslaved African Americans. After the American Civil War, many freedmen stayed in the area as sharecroppers and tenant farmers, continuing to comprise a majority of the population in many of these counties. The physical geography of the "Black Belt," as related to the history of this cotton-dependent region, refers to a much larger region of the Southern United States, stretching from Delaware to Texas but centered on the Black Belt of uplands areas of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. In the Antebellum and Jim Crow eras, the white elite of the Black Belt dominated Alabama state politics well into the 1960s, a trend that has continued to the current day. As ...
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Bloomingdales
Bloomingdale's Inc. is an American luxury department store chain; it was founded in New York City by Joseph B. and Lyman G. Bloomingdale in 1861. A third brother, Emanuel Watson Bloomingdale, was also involved in the business. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1930 under then-president Samuel Bloomingdale. In 1994, the Macy's department store chain joined the Federated Department Stores holding company. In 2007, Federated Department Stores was renamed Macy's, Inc. As of October 29, 2022, there are 54 stores (56 boxes) including 32 department stores (34 boxes, all full line), 1 Bloomies, 1 furniture/other store and 20 outlet stores (There are a total of 35 stores) with the Bloomingdale's nameplate in operation throughout the United States. Its headquarters and flagship store are located at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue in the New York City borough of Manhattan. History 1980s–1990s The retail market boomed in the 1980s. New ...
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Sears
Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began as a mail ordering catalog company migrating to opening retail locations in 1925, the first in Chicago. In 2005, the company was bought by the management of the American big box discount chain Kmart, which upon completion of the merger, formed Sears Holdings. Through the 1980s, Sears was the largest retailer in the United States. In 2018, it was the 31st-largest. After several years of declining sales, Sears's parent company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on October 15, 2018. It announced on January 16, 2019, that it had won its bankruptcy auction, and that a reduced number of 425 stores would remain open, including 223 Sears stores. Sears was based in the Sears Tower in Chicago from 1973 until 1995, and is currently headquartered in ...
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The Quilts Of Gee's Bend
The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River. The quilts of Gee's Bend are among the most important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the history of art within the United States. Arlonzia Pettway, Annie Mae Young and Mary Lee Bendolph are among some of the most notable quilters from Gee's Bend. Many of the residents in the community can trace their ancestry back to enslaved people from the Pettway Plantation. Arlonzia Pettway can recall her grandmother's stories of her ancestors, specifically of Dinah Miller, who was brought to the United States by slave ship in 1859. History Just southwest of Selma, in the Black Belt of Alabama, Gee's Bend (officially called Boykin) is an isolated, rural community of about seven hundred inhabitants. The area is named after Joseph Gee, a landowner who came from North Carol ...
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Willie Abrams
Willie Abrams (1897–1987), also known as Ma Willie, was an American artist. She was a member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, along with her daughter Estelle Witherspoon, and is associated with the Gee's Bend quilters. Some of “Ma” Willie’s quilts are in the permanent collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco. Biography “Ma Willie" Abrams was born in 1897 in Wilcox County Alabama, where she was raised by her grandmother. “Ma” Willie was one of the oldest participating members until her death in 1987. She began quilting at the age of twelve, with the guidance of her grandmother. While she did know how to use a sewing machine, she normally chose to work by hand. “Ma” Willie and her husband Eugene Abrams were tenant farmers, which they continued until the Quilting Bee provided them with an alternative way to earn a living. “Ma” Willie would mostly craft bonnets for the Bee, which were to be sold for $2 a piece. When ...
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Estelle Witherspoon
Estelle Abrams Witherspoon (January 20, 1916 – December 24, 1998) was an American artist and civil rights activist. She was a founding member and longtime manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Rehobeth, Alabama, that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women as a way to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian In ..., and is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting group, alongside her mother, Willie "Ma Willie" Abrams. She participated in the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, alongside Lucy Mingo. She was arrested in 1971 for participating in an un-permitted march for school desegregation. References Gee's Bend quilters 1916 births 1998 deaths 20th-century textile artists 20th-century women textile artists 20th-century American artists 20th-century American women artists 20th-century African-American artists {{US-artist-stub ...
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New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid digital subscribers. It also is a producer of popular podcasts such as '' The Daily''. Founded in 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones, it was initially published by Raymond, Jones & Company. The ''Times'' has won 132 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any newspaper, and has long been regarded as a national " newspaper of record". For print it is ranked 18th in the world by circulation and 3rd in the U.S. The paper is owned by the New York Times Company, which is publicly traded. It has been governed by the Sulzberger family since 1896, through a dual-class share structure after its shares became publicly traded. A. G. Sulzberger, the paper's publisher and the company's chairman, is the fifth generation of the family to head the ...
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1966 Establishments In Alabama
Events January * January 1 – In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bédel Bokassa takes over as military ruler of the Central African Republic, ousting President David Dacko. * January 3 – 1966 Upper Voltan coup d'état: President Maurice Yaméogo is deposed by a military coup in the Republic of Upper Volta (modern-day Burkina Faso). * January 10 ** Pakistani–Indian peace negotiations end successfully with the signing of the Tashkent Declaration, a day before the sudden death of Indian prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri. ** Georgia House of Representatives, The House of Representatives of the US state of Georgia refuses to allow African-American representative Julian Bond to take his seat, because of his anti-war stance. ** A Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference convenes in Lagos, Nigeria, primarily to discuss Rhodesia. * January 12 – United States President Lyndon Johnson states that the United States should stay in South Vietnam until Communism, Communist aggression there is e ...
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