An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery

by Rachel May

When we think of slavery, most of us think of the American South. We think of back-breaking fieldwork on plantations. We don't think of slavery in the North, nor do we think of the grueling labor of urban and domestic slaves. Rachel May's rich new book explores the far reach of slavery, from New England to the Caribbean, the role it played in the growth of mercantile America, and the bonds between the agrarian south and the industrial north in the antebellum era-all through the discovery of a remarkable quilt.While studying objects in a textile collection, May opened a veritable a carefully folded, unfinished quilt made of 1830s-era fabrics, its backing containing fragile, aged papers with the dates 1798, 1808, and 1813, the words "shuger," "rum," "casks," and "West Indies," repeated over and over, along with "friendship," "kindness," "government," and "incident." The quilt top sent her on a journey to piece together the story of Minerva, Eliza, Jane, and Juba-the enslaved women behind the quilt-and their owner, Susan Crouch.May brilliantly stitches together the often-silenced legacy of slavery by revealing the lives of these urban enslaved women and their world. Beautifully written and richly imagined, An American Quilt is a luminous historical examination and an appreciation of a craft that provides such a tactile connection to the past.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Civil War, Book Club, African American, Biography, Quilting

1 pages, Audio CD

Published May 1, 2018

About the author

Rachel May is the author of An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family & Slavery (Booklist starred review), The Experiments: A Legend in Pictures & Words, a collection of sewn images and fiction, The Benedictines: A Novel, and Quilting with a Modern Slant, a Library Journal & Amazon.com Best Book of 2014. Work has been recently published or is forthcoming in 1913: A Journal of Forms, The Volta, New Delta Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Cream City Review, Indiana Review, Sleepingfish, Word for/Word, The Literary Review, EOAGH, and other journals.

She's an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Northern Michigan University and has been awarded residencies at the VCCA, The Vermont Studio Center and The Millay Colony.

“With precise stitch and complex patterning, Rachel May pieces together an intricate story of a family, the people that family enslaved, a writer, and a country. With as much lyrical beauty as the quilts themselves, May ties together the myriad ways the treatment of enslaved people is sewn into the fabric of our country. This book gives long-overdue credit to quilt-making and May deserves much credit for stitching this beautiful book together.”

- Nicole Walker, author of Egg, Micrograms, Quench your Thirst with Salt


"In An American Quilt, Rachel May is able to draw out the entire story of southern slavery and northern complicity from a remarkable discovery--a quilt top created in Charleston, South Carolina, in the 1830s, and a notebook containing a cache of letters associated with it. From these materials, May weaves an extraordinary account of the families of the quilt makers--a Rhode Island woman descended from slave traders and the slave-holding husband who had brought her South to live. She also is able to invoke the lives of the enslaved population whose labor produced the cotton of which the quilt top was made--which fueled the rise of the New England textile industry. This is a terrific story, well researched and beautifully written, that both reveals the history associated with the quilt top and traces the author's efforts to unearth it."

- Joanne Pope Melish, author of Disowning Slavery: Gradual Emancipation and 'Race' in New England, 1789-1860

"An American Quilt cleverly weaves together the disparate fields of material cultural, northern industrialization, mercantilism, trade and slavery. Through deeply a researched history of quilter Susan Crouch, May reveals the multifaceted economic and personal relations between northern textile manufacturers and southern enslavers. Moreover, May reminds us that the handmade quilts of white antebellum slave-holding and non-slave-holding women carry unlikely histories, including those of enslaved African Americans whose labor and stories are usually unacknowledged or overlooked in traditional accounts of American quilting."

- Christy Clark-Pujra, Associate Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; author of Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island (NYU)


“May follows the footsteps of Linda Lipsett and Cuesta Benberry, who revealed a more thorough picture of the contribution the African American quilt maker. These stories need to be shared over and over again and Rachel May does so brilliantly, intelligently, and with care. The history of enslaved people and today’s on-going racism is not glossed over in this deeply researched and beautifully written text. An American Quilt is a major contribution to the multilayered and complex history of quilt making in America.”

- Roderick Kiracofe, author Unconventional & Unexpected (among other books on the art and history of quilts) & art collector

"Do yourself a favor and suggest An American Quilt for your book group or quilting bee because it’s the perfect read to discuss with quilters and bibliophiles alike.The breadth and details in this book are as fascinating as the true story that forms the skeleton of

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rachel May, an Assistant Professor at Northern Michigan University, was shown an 1830s hexogen quilt top with backing papers that revealed a glimpse into its history. In ornate handwriting were the dates 1798 and 1813 and the words rum, casks, West Indies, shuger.

Fascinated by this quilt, May, a quiltmaker and author of Quilting with a Modern Slant, researched the quilt's heritage and historical background. It took her on a six-year journey deep into a history we have conveniently forgotten, the economic roots of New England wealth based on the slave trade and slave labor.

Family letters and genealogical research helped May create an understanding of the Crouch-Williams-Cushman family behind the quilt, raising questions about racism throughout American history.

The makers of the quilt top were Susan McPherson Sibley Williams (1813-1902), whose mother rented a room to Brown University medical student Hasell Wilkinson Crouch (1809-1836). Susan married Hasell and they moved to Hasell's native Charleston, South Carolina. The couple worked on the hexagons together. One hundred years later, Susan's grandnephew Franklin discovered the top. He created a notebook with sample fabrics, some noted as "probably for slave gowns," and transcribed the family letters.

friendship sloop schooner invest fame dear sister maintained Havana Barbados barrels seaman Carolyna Newport government incident kindness

Susan's two brothers went South to begin their careers. One brother became committed to the Confederate cause, defending the economic advantage, and luxurious life, based on an enslaved labor force. Wasn't the North an abolitionist mecca? How could Susan not have seen the human suffering behind the "servants" who cared for her family's needs? How did a Rhode Island family, transplanted to the South, so readily adapt to the role of slave owners?

What shocked May was the realization that the North was complicit with slavery.

I remembered the song Molasses to Run to Slaves from the musical 1776 which we had seen performed live in Philadelphia during the Bicentennial. It was my first understanding of the Triangular Trade.

Who sails the ships out of Guinea
Ladened with bibles and slaves?
'Tis Boston can boast to the West Indies coast
Jamaica, we brung what ye craves
Antigua, Barbados, we brung bibles and slaves!
Molasses to rum to slaves
Who sail the ships back to Boston
Ladened with gold, see it gleam
Whose fortunes are made in the triangle trade
Hail slavery, the New England dream

With the names of the enslaved women--Minerva, Eliza, Jane, and Juba--and references in letters and historical documents, May imagines their lives. She traveled across the country to understand the world they lived in, visiting historic sites and forgotten places. It was an emotional journey, soul-wracking. Throughout the book, she mixes a deep understanding of American history with her research to construct fictionalized stories of the woman's probable lives.

In the end, May concludes that we each must decide how to live in a country built on genocide, enslavement, land theft, and racism. She urges us to consider how we participate in injustice today. What stories should we be telling? What choices should we make to not support modern businesses built on enslaved labor and modern indentured servants working in horrific conditions? How do we respond to human trafficking today?

An American Quilt is more than the story of a quilt or genealogy research on a family or even a recreation of the lives of enslaved persons. May questions the foundations of our heritage, the misconceptions we hold, and challenges us to reevaluate how we today participate in supporting unjust economic systems.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

[Patricia Dumas · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just don't know how this book passed publication muster.

I enjoyed the history... the quilt piece descriptions, and the expanded story of the Crouch family, but, If I were an African American, I would try not to roll my eyes at Ms. May's understanding of African American history.

Imagining the actions and thoughts of people in this book is absolutely distracting and quite annoying. It fills up pages.

The book flys all over the place. People's names that are cited from research just appear, without explanation. Things just are written in this book; often without proper reference.

I admire all the intense research Ms. May did.. the stories, although just plopped in, are interesting. But, the writing is often immature, and sloppy.

I'm not making this a racial thing, but, I, as a white woman would never attempt to briskly explain slavery as May does. Never. Even tho I read a lot about Black history, I would never feel I could explain it aptly because it wasn't my experience. I am always humbled.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book started with great promise but by page 70 I was having my doubts. I read further, until page 130-something, and then let it go. I'm not exactly sure what "creative nonfiction" is supposed to be. I can understand taking some liberties with primary sources and making up stories/ connections/ feelings based around them, but some of the statements just got a little too ridiculous and far fetched and, well, pointless in some cases. Most surprising was the fact that the quilt wasn't really used as a strong vehicle upon which to tell this "creative nonfiction" story. I think May's fascination with the people she was researching and writing about may have been better served had she written a novel with an accompanying appendix about the quilt. All seven members of my book group panned the book. We all thought it was a great idea but poorly executed.

[Kristi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book. But... the book seemed like it was supposed to be about the enslaved women whose story came to light through researching the quilt. But it really wasnt. it was about a white family who originated in the north, but a branch of the family moved south. One member of that branch owned slaves along with her husband. And so we get the story of the interconnectedness of the northern and southern economies.

The author tries to refocus on the enslaved people... but ultimately the book suffers from insufficient material for what she hoped to accomplish, and terrible overall organization.

I tried to push myself further and finish reading. But I finally had to give up.

[Ann Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

We seem to have arrived at a new time in our national reckoning with the sin of slavery. I'm thinking of Confederate monuments, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Isabel Wilkerson, the $20 bill, the new Legacy Museum in Alabama, the new National Museum of African American Culture in D.C. and much more. Rachel May's book makes an excellent contribution to this discussion.

The non-fiction book is anchored by an unfinished quilt, found in Providence, Rhode Island, that was begun by a Rhode Island woman, Susan Crouch,who had married and moved to Charleston, South Carolina in the decades before the Civil War. May researches three generations of the Crouch family, and all she can find of the enslaved women--Juba, Eliza, Minerva, and Jane--who shared homes and lives with Susan and her family. She paints vivid pictures of not only the day-to-day lives of the residents of Charleston, black and white, enslaved and free, but also of slavery as it existed in New England and of the tight economic and personal bonds that existed between the slaveowners of the south and the textile manufacturers of New England. Even as she stands in judgement of Susan's abolitionist sisters, who benefited so much from the slave trade they derided, May does not shy away from the moral complexities raised by contemporary parallels. What does it mean to wear clothes made by women working under terrible conditions in factories in Pakistan? Does it help them or hurt them to buy clothes from thrift shops instead?

I also appreciated that May shares the times her own assumptions are challenged by those she meets. I was struck by her consistent use of the term "enslaved peoples" instead of "slaves" and she tells us of the time she was caught up short and corrected when she used the latter term. At another point she is remarking to an African-American colleague that there should be more historical markers about the slave trade in Providence, only to be told that markers to African-American perseverance would be appreciated more than those marking their oppression.

The book is not perfect, of course. Like anyone who has done a tremendous amount of research, May sometimes includes extraneous bits that might better have been omitted. While the book is much richer for her chapter about Harriet Powers, an amazing African-American quilter and folk artist born into slavery (and yes, there are photos of the quilts), there was probably no need to mention, even in passing, the guy recreating the microscope Charles Darwin brought on the Beagle. More startling is the lack of an index. There are pages and pages of notes, appropriate for this scholarly work, but more than once I found myself wanting to flip to the index so I could remind myself who a particular character was or to look up a particular topic. But these are minor flaws in an essential book.

Highly recommended.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Never judge a book by it’s cover. I knew this was nonfiction and centered around a quilt belonging to families with roots in Rhode Island and South Carolina. I didn’t expect Rachel May to attempt to blend the history of slavery with textile history with her beliefs and personal forays into these subjects. The final product is part scholarly investigation, part genealogy, part personal experience and lots of speculation. My main criticisms that the “what if, perhaps, imagine, picture this” passages seemed to go on too long and some of the historical threads seemed pulled to support the author’s opinions about slavery and slave holders. She’s right - it wasn’t a good or honorable thing to own people, but a better editor would have helped her craft a more concise novel that made all of the same points.

[William M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing

This kind of book gives creative nonfiction a bad rep. May's knowledge of quilts is expert, but it was spread thinly and chaotically across a narrative that, I guess, was supposed to be evocative but quickly became annoying. I applaud her efforts to show how slavery tainted New England as much as South Carolina, and I sympathize with her difficulty in finding concrete records about the enslaved people. But she would have been better served to simply develop a fictional narrative to bridge the gap in facts, rather than engage in sophomoric speculation. I am surprised The New Yorker recommended such an amateurishly written book.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I was pleasantly surprised at the ease of reading what looked like a heavily academic historical book. Definitely a fascinating way to learn about history. My only qualm is that at times it was very repetitive. The author foreshadows, presents info, recaps and then sporadically returns to and repeats situations along the way. But then my mind did think about how that just continues to draw the whole story together as if a continuous thread was woven throughout the whole book. Fits well with the quilt theme.

[Jacqueline Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not an easy read to put it nicely. It was not well organized or well written. Somewhat repetitive, incoherent. Switched from historical facts to imaginings of thoughts and feelings of researched individuals. Not really the story of an unfinished historical quilt but rather a commentary on slavery.

[Joan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Abandoned. I’m glad I started the book, but lost interest before I finished. It’s an important topic that is well worth bringing to people’s attention, but I thought there was way too much speculation about possible scenarios, people’s feelings, etc. And it was often repetitive.

[Jacque · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too long-400 pages. Could have been trimmed by half. The author goes off on way too many tangents-clearly found lots of interesting material and wanted to include everything.

[Heidi Minor · Rating 3 out of 5]

As one who enjoys quilts this book reached out to me. Little did I know that the author would delve so throughly into the makers. Quilt top and notebook gave clues of the time but after much research and visitation Rachel May interlaces fiction and non-fiction for a read into the years before the Civil War and it's aftermath. Rachel May points out how the economy of the North and South benefited from trade that far too often was the work of the enslaved. "And the more I learn about the past, the more I notice about the present."

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially drawn to this book because it sprang from the discovery of a particular quilt, and because I anticipated a story of digging into the history of the person who made it. It's so much more than that. Rachel May was "sidetracked," if you will, from the story of the person who made the quilt to the stories of the people she and her family enslaved in early 19th century Charleston, South Carolina. Because the paper hex patterns used to shape the cloth were never removed, the words written there provide not only subjects for investigation but also a view of the scope of the family's business ties between Rhode Island and the south.

Because so little information exists, she has to do a lot of imagining, as she acknowledges at the start, and while that makes for compelling reading, it's a little unsatisfying. She did manage to find more than you'd think, by searching archives of slave sales as well as death certificates, but it's frustrating that the existence of these people was so circumscribed that they barely existed in the eyes of the people owned them.

The most interesting thing about this book to me, as a New Englander, was the information about how, despite the north's stance as anti-slavery, its economy was so entwined with that of slave states. For example, buildings at Brown University were built with northern timber that was shipped to Charleston to be turned into boards by enslaved people and sent back to the north - this was cheaper than making them locally with paid labor. The cotton milled in the New England mills was picked by enslaved people and sent north for milling, allowing the New England economy to grow. Slavery really was at the root of the economy of the entire nation. This fact needs to be more widely known and accepted. Her original question, How could a woman from the north marry into the south and become so comfortable with owning people, is thus easily answered - because racism and the idea of owning inferior beings was part of their lives anyway.

After the war, when the economy of the south was utterly wiped out, one brother, who had remained there and become totally assimilated to the southern viewpoint, was angry about everything including the freedom of so many African Americans around him, and actually wrote to his family in the north that his best hope was that they would be exterminated like the native Americans had been. For many white people this still seems to be the hope.

My one complaint about the book is that I think it could have been better organized. I felt like she hopped around from interesting topic to interesting topic with only a loose organization, which led to some repetition. It might have had even more impact if it had been based on a tighter outline, chronological or otherwise.

News I can use from this book: African American historians of slavery prefer "enslaved people" to "slaves" and I can totally see the difference and will do my best to use that language from now on.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that is all over the place. For some that is a deal breaker but for me it is simply an acknowledgment that this is how my mind grapples with the fact of slavery in the United States. It had its tentacles into everything and is relentless in its timelessness. It seems like it impacts every aspect of world history from the 15th century to our present day. I am not even sure that we could have market driven capitalism as we know it without the Atlantic slave trade. Among other things An American Quilt gives us a vivid idea of how the ordinary capitalist functioned in the mid 19th century Atlantic coastal south and the north.

This is the story of the white Crouch-Williams-Cushman family and some of the people (without surnames) whom they owned. It is mostly incomplete because even with the help of professional genealogists most of what can be known for certain about enslaved people is through receipts, adverts, bills of sale etc. in a word the documents of capitalism. It is as if a famous person dies and all we have to remember that person by are some credit card statements...no speeches, no actions, no family etc.

Rachel May is a creative writer and this is a work of creative nonfiction. This means that she has had to use her imagination as well as research to create the narrative of the enslaved peoples' lives. She frequently repeats paragraphs and at first it seemed annoying. As I became engrossed in the story the repetition began to feel like a natural revisiting of parts of the narrative I had glossed over or hadn't fully appreciated.

The narrative began with unfinished 19th century quilt tops which can be appreciated as craft, handiwork and folk art. Studying the cotton, the thread and even the cotton batting leads you inexorably into the world of slavery and the Atlantic and domestic slave trade. At the end of the book I found myself intensely interested in all the members of the families both free and enslaved. They were people and they were real.

The book reminded me that things have provenance. Antebellum furniture would have been made with wood cut by enslaved people. Cheap t shirts are sewn in sweatshops in Bangladesh. No matter the value that we place on an antique, it is always a historical signifier.

[Nann · Rating 5 out of 5]

(I listened to the audio edition, splendidly narrated by award-winning voice artist Carrington Macduffie.) I am a quilter and a quilt history enthusiast. I checked out May's previous book, "Quilting With a Modern Slant" and enjoyed her combination of artist/practioner interviews, technique, and theory. A reference to quilt history led to my discovery of this book. Quilt history -- in this case, an unquilted hexagon quilt in the archives at Brown University -- is only the beginning. The fabric hexagons were basted over pieces of letters. May used the clues in the letter fragments to trace the story of the quilt's makers, Susan and Hasell Crouch. Rhode Island-born Susan married South Carolinian Hasell and they settled in Charleston. They owned four enslaved women and additional housemen. In retelling their story May writes about the evolution in her own attitude toward slavery, with growing awareness of 21st-century slavery. She avoids being polemical; her thoughtfulness helps the reader to consider the larger issues as well.
P.S. The audio edition includes a CD-ROM with a PDF of the Crouch quilt.

[Tima · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the deep-dive into history. Ms. May did an excellent job with the research, the story timeline, and relevant facts surrounding the main characters.

However, I really disliked the navel-gazing, "what-if" editorializing/alternate history the author repeatedly takes when trying to fill in the gaps of history. The fact that there WAS no record of the people while enslaved and after emancipation is THE POINT. Your vision of what someone would do (holding a baby, saying prayers before bed, grooming) is laden with your own perception of what someone would do at that time based on the plethora of white middle class American artifacts at that time. That creative license took away (hence, my 3 star review) from your efforts.

[Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I quilt and like history, so I expected to enjoy this book. I listened to the audio book, narrated by Carrington MacDuffie. The narration was very good: clear, easy to understand. The book seemed to be well researched but the speculation, presuming, imagining, etc. added to the facts was too much. What was based in fact was lost among all the surmising, wondering, proposing. It would have been a bit easier to take if there were, say, one imagined scenario for each situation, but, no, there were always three: "Imagine a. Imagine b. Imagine c. We'll never know." And I'll never know as I could not bear to finish the book.

[Sheryl Lanciano · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have liked this book better if she had stuck to interpreting the clues and facts of the quilt and left out her imaginary descriptions of the people who made it. I could also have done without the rantings about slavery. Yes, I think we can agree that it was a horrible part of U.S. history. But not all black people were paragons of goodness and not all white people were evil.

[Erica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had so much potential but the storytelling fell short. I was very disappointed. I loved the idea of this book, the execution lacking.

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

So when I stumbled upon this book at my library, the online description of it made it seem like it was a novel. Then I got the book in my hands and went, "This is not a novel..." As the author explores the history of a white family and their slaves, she does embellish the slave stories a bit, since that's all she can really do - imagine what their lives must have been like.

The impetus of the book was a quilt that someone showed May, made by a husband and wife back in the 1830s. I thought perhaps there was going to be something more to the quilt, that maybe it was a map to help enslaved people to freedom (something that I recently discovered could have been a real thing). However, the quilt just spurred May on to learn more about the white husband and wife and their lives, and the lives of their slaves.

I did appreciate the juxtaposition of white versus black lives in Charleston, South Carolina during slavery and the Civil War, especially in the chapter where the white family has to call on a doctor to help their sick son. May writes about all that was done to help the child - the father was a doctor, too - and then branches off to write about how poorly the medical profession treated black people.

If you can make it through all 400+ pages of this book, you might learn a thing or two. May certainly made some interesting points that I had never thought about before.

from p. 102 - "Stephanie M.H. Camp writes that 'By the antebellum period, planters has so thoroughly assimilated ideas that reduced enslaved people to their bodies that they often referred to them by their parts: "hands" was a common term and "heads" was not unfamiliar...Women slaves...were as one with their farming tools and called, simply, hoes."

from p. 185 - "On the street, in their homes, this white man was given license to kill the black man whenever he desired; how could he be trusted to administer medicine, to heal, when his hands were the ones that whipped, burned, slapped, punched, and tightened the rope for the lynching?"

from p. 313 - "We don't give Hitler any qualifiers, no 'but's', no excuses nor calls to look at 'both sides' of his character and actions, as if he's redeemable. [Andrew] Jackson set the tone for the way the US government would treat indigenous nations and individuals, with violence both rhetorical and physical that resonates into the present moment, into every second of this present moment. The current US president [Donald Trump] cites Jackson as one of his heroes."

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm sorry I couldn't give this a higher rating, because the genealogy and history combined with the story of an heirloom quilt are really fascinating for me. And the author has done a tremendous amount of research in archives and museums to track down the story of Susan Crouch's quilt, begun by her in Charleston, South Carolina in the 1830s and added to in the 1930s by a grand nephew, who also recorded some of its oral history. More of its history is actually stitched into it as temporary paper templates for the not-so-square putting together of hexagon pieces of fabric. May soon learns that Susan, from northern state Rhode Island but married to Hasell from South Carolina, ran a household with enslaved assistance. May covers the history of New England's manufacturing and trading wealth--all based on southern cotton and Caribbean sugar cane made into rum--all based on slave labor. But at 400 pages, the book is disorganized and meandering. She wants to cover all the history of New World slavery, and all the history of injustices to Native Americans rather than keeping a focus. Much of what she covers becomes repetitious. Her own lengthy imagining of scenes interrupts the informative narrative, and for the second 200 pages, hoping to find the kernels, I skimmed, which is something I never do if I've committed to reading anything. The section of color photos is very welcome, and the many black and white photos throughout the text add to the narrative. But again--not all photos were explained and I was annoyed that the ones of Susan as an elderly widow were not explained until several pages later. And just what is "Gee's Bend" style quilting? She refers to it as though we are all well-versed quilters, with no other explanation that I could find. Covering similar topics, I much more enjoyed "The Manor: Three Centuries of a Slave Plantation on Long Island" and "Jefferson's Daughters." I did learn and also feel May's passion to reveal and right the injustices of the past which cast their shadow still today, so I really wish the book had been more tightly edited.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical examination of the evil known as slavery…

My thanks to my contacts at Pegasus Books, Iris Blasi, Katie McGuire, and Maia Larson, for my review copy of this book. You ladies rock!

Slavery is the indelible stain on American history, especially in the South. But slavery did not begin in America, nor did it end when slavery was abolished. Slavery has a long dark history and spans the globe. There are still slaves in the world today.

Along with the enslavement of the Negro race came prejudice and mistrust. Those seeds were sown in hatred, and they bring forth violence and unrest still today.

In this book, a strange quilt is discovered that seems to tell a tale of escape from slavery. The author leads the reader through the world of slaves and slavery through the story of this quilt.

People tend to forget that slavery was an American thing, not just a Southern thing. People worked as slaves in the Northern factories, their hire being paid to their masters. House slaves were not much better than the ones toiling on the plantations, and some were perhaps worse.

In giving descriptions of the woes suffered by individuals trapped in the claws of slavery, the author pulls no punches. Slavery isn’t something that can be polished or painted with glorious colors. It is a blight upon humanity and the only way to expose it is simply show it for what it is.

I give the author kudos for the bravery to write this account. There will no doubt be readers who may wish the story was different, but the truth is often raw and naked.

Of course, there is a dash of light in the darkness as the various members of the quilting family gain their freedom. It serves to show that things can change, even if it takes a long, long time.

I give the book a solid four stars…

Quoth the Raven…

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really, really wanted to love this book but I really struggled to finish it. The subject is amazing and the author makes a lot of great points about the continued impact of slavery on the economies of the Northern and the Southern portions of the United States. She spends significant time talking about how slavery is incorrectly taught in modern elementary schools and that impact on modern racism. Historically, the book is a giant sprawling narrative that touches on almost every aspect of life in the pre-Civil War era from the worms in the soil to the Trail of Tears. The problem is her enthusiasm and fascination with the families at the center of this story combine with a lack of records to lead her to spend a large percentage of the book speculating about the thoughts, feelings and actions of her subjects. There’s little qualification to these speculations so the author’s imaginings intertwine with the actual events in a way that I personally found frustrating. Many of the speculative narratives she creates are compelling and she would probably write a successful and enjoyable historical fiction novel. The author has good intentions and bravely owns she does not always handle things perfectly, but like many other reviewers I found myself wishing she had simply written two books instead of stuffing her imaginings into her non-fiction book.

[Krenner1 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This author-professor noticed quilt pieces in a museum archive that designated parts were made from "slave cloth." Her intellect, curiosity and nose for research lead her to plunge into tracking down the story of the family who made the quilt, and branch out into the entire panorama of the family's uneven history with the enslaved. The author herself is from New England, and through the years researching this book, she realized how Northerners were not the abolitionists they claimed to be since their trade with the south for cotton, lumber and sugar--all slave-driven industries--contributed heartily to the growth of slave trade. I made the mistake of listening to the audible version of this nonfiction book. Although the narrator is lovely, you need the print version to follow photo references to the quilt and family. Many letters from one sibling to another are included, which is a little dry listening and better to view. For the history buff or quilter or scholar of the enslaved, this is a rich read.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

May speculates on the words and thoughts of those whose experiences are not hers to tell.

She is a white woman pretending to intimately know and understand the experience of being enslaved. It’s tone deaf.

The writing is sub-par but passable. It’s noticeable when she quotes other authors. You mentally note a good line as she’s making the attribution in the narration.

The book jumps around and is difficult to follow.

I appreciated learning the history of osnaburg fabric. She neglected to mention that this fabric is sought after still today by many white women for the construction of baby carriers—too interesting to skip over that tie between races and generations.

I lost the quilt angle shortly after the book began and only recaptured it a couple times. To that end, the book isn’t what I expected. Too much verbose, exploitative prose and not enough meat for me.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took me months to finish. I started an e-version during COVID when no access to library, but I have not reached that happy place of reading on a Ipad for books. Anyway, I never finished it. Then libraries opened up and I requested a print version. I have literally had this book renewed about 6 times. I finally finished.

There are so many things to say about this book. One, AMAZING amount of research! Honestly I don't know how author could keep track of so many people and places (she states in her Note from the Author) that this is a work of "creative nonfiction") - but so much research was done.

I have no memory now of how I was lead to this book. It was not an easy read, dealing with our country's history of enslavement and atrocities towards our Native Americans. I will say that this book almost covered 'too' much, so my solution was to read in small doses.

[MaryEllen Clark · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating exploration of several generations of families associated with a "hexie" quilt that has survived and been preserved for several hundred years. The papers used on the back of the quilt as templates are vintage documents which give clues to the individuals who moved from Rhode Island to Charleston before the Civil War and what subsequently happened to several generations of that family as well as the enslaved people from that household. The book has very detailed sections about textiles and women's work using primary source documents. Also looking at slavery and the Civil War and the effects of both on the primary characters in this book - north and south, black and white. The author travels to several states, Cuba, the Caribbean to see, feel and touch places associated with this story. Very compelling reading!

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was disappointed in this book - to my surprise. The author, a quilter and historian, has explored the construction and story of a quilt in the archives of her university in Rhode Island. May is intrigued by the story of the husband and wife who have sewn it (and their great nephew who inherited it and explored its story) and uses historical records (and the letters that the family has packed with the quilt) to follow the lives of their enslaved household help. This is very interesting and I certainly learned a lot about the lives of those enslaved in the South (particularly North Carolina and South Carolina) and the North. But I found her speculation and asides about what might have been unneeded and irritatingly speculative.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very detailed history about families and their thoughts on slavery while being slave owners themselves. The quilt took the author to that moment in time. I thought she was creative with adding how things may have been or how the people thought at that time. This is how she filled in the gaps when she found bits and pieces of the families. Letters were interesting.

Editing was confusing. A couple of times the book referenced to a couple of images, but I did not find them. Also, it would be helpful to have all captions under all the images. I didn’t follow the images with what I was reading always. Sometimes hard to follow story line with all the characters although there was a tree. Family tree could have been charted a bit more clearly.

A bit repetitive and a lot of jumping around.

[Sadie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s not often that a book will bring me to tears. Rachel May’s lyrical history tracing her own family roots in American mercantile and slavery is one of the most moving histories I’ve read. Her style is reminiscent of Isabel Wilkerson, she uses detailed research to tell a story that reads like fiction. The everyday pieces of domestic life: a quilt, a dress, a cup of rum, a bolt of cloth- these are the building blocks of her masterpiece. I highly recommend this book to everyone who loves history, and is prepared to face hard truths. If you are a quilter...than you have to read it!!!