By: Virginia Gunn
Nineteenth century women regularly exhibited quilts, entering them in community fairs where thousands of visitors admired them. Extant fair records challenge quilt historians because of incompleteness, recording inconsistencies, imposed categories, time-lag responses, changing definitions, and gender reporting. However, analysis of three sets of Ohio records (Ohio State Fair, Wayne and Summit County Fairs) from 1850-1900 suggest fair records may help us sort out quiltmaking myths/realities and understand overall trends/changes at grassroots levels.