House or Schoolhouse, about 1920
Cottons
Probably Kentucky
78 x 71 in.
Collection of Eleanor Bingham Miller L2010.42.30

The House or Schoolhouse pattern, popular beginning in the later nineteenth century, typically consisted of a grid of smaller, identical houses rather than the large, central image seen here. The quilt's subject evokes idealized memories: the old home place, school days. Quilts, from their design to their production to their veneration by later generations, are freighted with memories, both real and ideal.