From rags to riches: Amish quilts and the crafting of value
Author(s):
Smucker, Janneken Lysbeth
Format:
Thesis
Degree granted:
Ph.D.
Publisher:
Ann Arbor : University of Delaware, 2010.
Pages:
484
Language:
English
Abstract:
By examining the relationship of Amish quilts to the individuals who made, bought, sold, exhibited, and preserved them during the last half of the twentieth century, my dissertation investigates intersections of art, craft, fashion, globalization, and consumer culture. I argue that both Amish and non-Amish individuals, influenced by understandings of theology, Modernism, connoisseurship, nostalgia, “Amishness,” consumerism, and authenticity, crafted the value—monetary, aesthetic, emotional, and cultural—of Amish quilts during this era. In the 1970s old Amish quilts became status symbols within the art world because to art enthusiasts’ modern eyes, they looked like abstract paintings when hung on walls. Part of the appeal stemmed from the quilts’ origins within a seemingly exotic American subculture that was simultaneously otherworldly and evocative of America’s own pre-industrial past. When antiques dealers came knocking on Amish doors in search of quilts, families were eager to sell rather than continue to own an object the outside world considered a valuable work of art. Soon Amish entrepreneurs found additional ways to benefit from the newfound interest in their bedcovers; they made new quilts to sell on the retail market. Following the Vietnam War, Hmong refugees arrived in the United States with their own needlework skills. Some of these immigrants soon found piecework in cottage industries making quilts sold to tourists visiting Amish settlements; but rather than market these as Hmong-made quilts, businesses promoted them as Amish-made. With the commercial success of new quilts, multinational corporations also attempted to gain a share of the market by outsourcing Amish-style quilts for production in factories in China. Concerned consumers wanted assurances that the quilts they bought were in fact made by Amish quilters, rather than Hmong seamstresses or Chinese factory workers, valuing “Amish” as a seal of authenticity. Quilts, considered a quintessentially American form of cultural production, became a flash point in the Buy America campaigns of the 1990s, indicative of both increasing globalization and hyper-consumption.