Free Lesson: Quilts and Underground Railroad
- Students will learn about the use of quilt patterns as symbols for slaves escaping across the Appalachians on the Underground Railroad.
- Using the book, Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad (1998, Tobin and Dobard), students will choose a quilt pattern.
- Students will make a quilt pattern pillow. Rather than actually quilting, students will be appliquéing a quilt pattern to a felt backing).
- Upon completion, pillows will be displayed and a brief story written by each student on how their pattern is significant and why they chose it. It is important to explain that the process of interpreting quilt patterns as slave symbols is hypothetical and has been contested and supported alternately by different historians.
