Marie Webster
Marie Webster | |
---|---|
Born | Marie Daugherty July 19, 1859 |
Died | August 29, 1956 | (aged 97)
Nationality | American |
Known for | Quilt designs |
Spouse | George Webster Jr. |
Marie Daugherty Webster (July 19, 1859 – August 29, 1956) was a quilt designer, quilt producer, and businesswoman, as well as a lecturer and author of Quilts, Their Story, and How to Make Them (1915), the first American book about the history of
Early life and education
Marie Daugherty was born on July 19, 1859, in Wabash, Indiana, to Minerva Harriet (Lumaree) and Josiah Scott Daugherty. She was oldest of the family's six children. Her father was an entrepreneur, bank president, and civic leader in Wabash. During her childhood, Daugherty learned the art of fine handsewing from her mother.[2][3][4] She was educated in the Wabash public schools, graduating from Union School in Wabash in 1878. Daugherty's parents discouraged her from attending college and she had no formal art training. Although needlework became a favorite pastime of hers, she did not start designing quilts until the age of fifty.[2][5]
Marriage and family
Marie Daugherty married George Webster Jr. of Marion, Indiana, on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1884.[2][5] Their only child, a son named Lawrence Burns Webster, was born on October 29, 1884. He became a Harvard-trained mechanical engineer and married Jeannette Scott.[6][7]
Marie and George Webster established their home in Marion where they spent most of their fifty-four years of married life. Marie was devoted to her family, active in social and volunteer projects, and enjoyed reading, sewing, and amateur theater, while George became a banker and was active in civic affairs, including service on Wabash's school and library boards.[2][5] The couple built a Colonial Revival-style home in Marion in 1902.[8]
The couple also traveled in the United States and in Europe until George's severe rheumatoid arthritis forced his retirement from the bank around 1910 and ended their travels.[5][9] Around 1909 Marie took up quilting while caring for her ailing husband. George Webster died in 1938.[3][8]
After her husband's death, Webster and her sister, Emma Daugherty, stayed in the Webster home in Marion. The Websters' son, Lawrence, and his family lived nearby.[10] In 1942, Webster and her sister relocated to Princeton, New Jersey, to join Lawrence Webster and his family.[11]
Career
Early quilt designs
In 1909 at the age of fifty, Webster made her first appliquéd quilt of her own design, adapted from the traditional "Rose of Sharon" pattern using shaped pieces cut from colored fabrics and sewn to a background fabric. Webster's friends encouraged her to send the quilt to the
Exposure to her quilt designs in the Ladies' Home Journal, with a circulation at that time of about 1.5 million readers, brought Webster and her quilts national recognition. As her quilt designs became well known, requests for her patterns also increased. With her son, Lawrence, making the blueprints for her patterns and her sister, Emma Daugherty, helping make the full-size, tissue-paper patterns, Webster created kits to keep up with the demand. The kits initially sold for fifty cents each and included instructions, pattern templates, and a picture of the completed quilt.[3][7][14]
Quilt book
In 1912,
Entrepreneur
The mail-order business operating out of Webster's home expanded after her quilt book was published in 1915, increasing the requests for her quilt patterns. Around 1921, the popularity of Webster's appliqué quilt designs led her to form The Practical Patchwork Company with two friends, Ida Hess and Evangeline Beshore, and her sister, Emma Daugherty. Webster operated the mail-order business out of her home with her cofounders and the additional assistance of her family members. The company, whose motto was "A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever," specialized in selling her original designs in kits that included packaged patterns, instruction sheets, and precut fabric quilting pieces. It also marketed Webster-designed, partially completed quilts and shipped them throughout the United States. The company promoted its offerings in its published catalogs (the initial four-page catalog was entitled The New Patch-work Patterns), through advertising in periodicals, such as House Beautiful, and through occasional sales to retail shops. Webster created the designs, she or others in the business appliquéd the pieces, and other quilters were contracted to do the quilting.[4][11][15] By 1930 the company's catalog included thirty-three of her designs.[7]
Influences and inspiration
Webster designed dozens of quilts and became a leader of the early twentieth century quilting revival.
Webster frequently used a palette of soft, muted pastels and modern designs that were less elaborate and more realistic, as opposed to the stylized forms and bright colors of the late Victorian era. Her appliqué quilt patterns became especially known for their beautiful, mostly floral designs, done in pastel colors.[16] These qualities also made her designs unusual for that time. Her quilt motifs were typically inspired from nature, especially flowers from her garden, with popular pattern such as "Iris," "Poppy," "Daisies," "Sunflower," "Poinsetta," "Morning Glory," "Pink Rose," and "Grapes and Vines."[3] Webster's modern quilting designs and her patterns, published in women's magazines and in advertisements for her mail-order quilting business, inspired adaptations from other quilt designers, patternmakers, and quilt producers, although they did not always attribute her for the original design idea.[9][15]
Later years
During the 1920 and 1930s Webster wrote articles for periodicals; however, she did not create any new designs for a time after her husband died in 1938, and friends and associates ran the business. When she was about seventy years of age, two of her quilts were featured in Needlecraft, a home arts magazine.[17] Webster and her associates continued to operate the Practical Patchwork Company from her home in Marion, Indiana until she retired at the age of eighty-three in 1942. Webster and her sister, Emma Daugherty, left the mail-order business in Indiana to join her son and his family after they moved to Princeton, New Jersey.[4][11]
Death and legacy
After suffering a stroke from which she never fully recovered, Webster died in Princeton, New Jersey, on August 29, 1956, at the age of ninety-seven.[10][18]
She is remembered as a pioneer in the design, production, marketing, and selling of quilt patterns, as well as a quilt lecturer and author of Quilts: Their Story and How to Make Them, America's first full-length book on the history of quilts.[3][15] Webster also ran a quilt pattern-making business from her home in Wabash, Indiana, for more than thirty years. Several sources recognize the influence that Webster's appliquéd quilts had on quilting designs of the twentieth century.[9][19]
Webster was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame in 1991. Her former residence on South Washington Street in Marion, Indiana, where she lived from 1902 to 1942, it the present-day home of the Quilters Hall of Fame. Also referred to as the Marie Webster House, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1993.[5][20][21]
Webster's quilts have been featured in museums and galleries in the United States and in Japan, beginning with an exhibition at Marshall Field's galleries in Chicago, Illinois in 1911. "Marie Webster Quilts: A Retrospective," a traveling exhibition, was shown in the 1990s at the
Published works
Notes
- ^ Webster's quilts featured in the January 1912 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal included "Poppy," "Morning Glory," "White Dogwood," and "Sunflower" designs. The August 1912 issue featured her baby quilt designs: "Pansies and Butterflies," "Sunbonnet Lassies" (also known as "Keepsake"), "Daisies," "Wild Rose," "Morning Glory Wreath," and "Bedtime." See: Imami-Paydar, "Marie Webster Quilts" in American Quilt Renaissance.
- ISBN 978-1-4099-1131-9.
- ISBN 0-9620811-5-9.
References
Citations
- ISBN 9781610604635. Retrieved 10 August 2014.
- ^ a b c d e Perry 1991, p. 30.
- ^ OCLC 40896230.
- ^ a b c Gugin & St. Clair 2015, pp. 366–67.
- ^ a b c d e Newton & Weiss 2004, p. 204.
- ^ Newton & Weiss 2004, pp. 204, 367.
- ^ a b c d e f g Perry 1991, p. 31.
- ^ a b c d Newton & Weiss 2004, p. 206.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Marie Webster exhibition illustrates flowering of a quilt revival". Spencer Museum of Art Newsletter. Lawrence, Kansas: Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas: 1 and 4. Summer 1994.
- ^ a b Gugin & St. Clair 2015, p. 367.
- ^ a b c d Newton & Weiss 2004, p. 207.
- ^ a b Waldvogel, Merikay. "Marie Webster:The 20th Century's First Trendsetting Quilt Designer" (PDF). Vintage Quilts (Spring 2001). PRIMEDIA Enthusiast Group. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 22, 2006 – via McCall's Quilting.
- ^ a b c d Benberry 1990, p. 34.
- ^ Newton & Weiss 2004, pp. 206–07.
- ^ a b c d Benberry 1990, pp. 32–33.
- ^ "The Project Gutenberg eBook, Quilts, by Marie D. Webster". Retrieved 10 August 2014.
- ^ Benberry 1990, p. 35.
- ^ Newton & Weiss 2004, pp. 207–08.
- ^ Perry 1991, p. 28.
- ^ "The Quilters Hall of Fame:Welcome!". Retrieved June 2, 2010.
- ^ "Indiana State Historic Architectural and Archaeological Research Database (SHAARD)" (Searchable database). Department of Natural Resources, Division of Historic Preservation and Archaeology. Retrieved April 3, 2019. Note: This includes Jill S. Mesirow and Dr. Page Putnam Miller (June 22, 1992). "National Historic Landmark Nomination Form: Marie Webster House" (PDF). Retrieved April 3, 2019. and accompanying photographs.
- ^ Newton & Weiss 2004, p. 336.
- ^ "Exhibit in Japan Features 3 Honoree". Quilters Hall of Fame Newsletter. 224. Marion, Indiana: Quilters Hall of Fame: 4. Spring 1998.
- ^ "Textile and Fashion Arts". Indianapolis Museum of Art. Retrieved 2010-06-02.
Bibliography
- Benberry, Cuesta (July 1990). "Marie D. Webster: A Major Influence on Quilt Design in the 20th Century". Quilters Newsletter Magazine. 224.
- Gugin, Linda C.; St. Clair, James E., eds. (2015). Indiana's 200: The People Who Shaped the Hoosier State. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 978-0-87195-387-2.
- Newton, Judith Vale; Weiss, Carol Ann (2004). Skirting the Issue: Stories of Indiana's Historical Women Artists. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN 0-87195-177-0.
- Perry, Rosalind Webster (Spring 1991). "Marie Webster: Marion's Master Quilter". Traces of Indiana and Midwestern History. 3 (2). Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. Retrieved April 5, 2019.
Further reading
- Perry, Rosalind Webster; Frolli, Marty (1992). A Joy Forever: Marie Webster's Quilt Patterns. Santa Barbara, California: Practical Patchwork. ISBN 9780962081170.
External links
- "Moments in Time: Meet the Quilters: Marie Webster," "Century of Quilts: America in Cloth" website, PBS
- Practical Patchwork
- Works by Marie Webster at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Marie Webster at Internet Archive
- Works by Marie Webster at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)