"Flying Geese" variation
Artist: Florine Smith (American, 1948 - 2022)
Date: about 1975
Dimensions:
85 3/4 × 60 in. (217.8 × 152.4 cm)
Medium: Corduroy
Place of Origin: Gee's Bend Quilting Community, Boykin, Alabama, United States
Classification: Textiles and Fiber
Credit Line: Purchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott and gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation
Object number: 2021.26
Description"Flying geese" is a long-established quilt pattern, inspired by the migratory patterns of birds. Folklore has it that escaped enslaved people would use encoded quilt patterns to help find their way to freedom along the Underground Railroad. This lore says that the "flying geese" pattern was a signal to follow the direction of the flying geese and other birds and they migrated north in the springtime. This pattern adopted a renewed significance during the Great Migration in the early to mid-twentieth century.
Not on view