Ingalls Library & Museum Archives

The earliest known American-made patchwork quilt is a handscreen, a type of small fire screen. That this little quilt still exists is incredible, author Lynne Zacek Bassett calls it, “merely a battered ghost.” It was stitched by Deborah Clark, wife of Parson Clark of Salem Village sometime between 1730 and 1750, in a community still wracked by sorcery. She placed at the center of her patchwork star a square of silver brocade — this tiny patch of brilliance must have held significance for our Calvinist parson’s wife, perhaps part of an inherited costume? Who cares…one might ask. That textiles were the most valued possessions women owned, either imported or created by an individual or group, is a significant part of New England’s history. Needlework schools and quilting groups produced valued wives, the proof often on display for wife-seeking husbands to admire. Recently acquired, Massachusetts Quilts: Our Common Wealth is a most unusual catalog of the history of this needlework, from the exhibition of the same name at the New England Quilt Museum. We learn more about the owners and their communities of such objects, rather than their patterns. My recent visit to the American Textile History Museum in Lowell, MA, revealed the power of cloth. The textiles are lovely, but the machines are genius. Recently renovated, this museum has charming period rooms and deafening mill machines. And lastly, both the book and the museum remind this reader of the complicated history between the textile industry and slavery, conjuring up ghosts that haunt us still.

Recently added to the Ingalls Library, via the continuing generosity of John C. Bonebrake, is this volume, Buckminster Fuller to Children of Earth, by noted architect, designer, and thinker, R. Buckminster Fuller, with photographs by Cam Smith.   Written in a matter of fact tone, the book juxtaposes Fuller’s folksy truisms against black and white photography.  It is at the least an historical document of early seventies environmentalism.  And while some of the writing is far less enlightening than Fuller’s seminal works, it is hard not to take some wisdom from lines like, “Nature has no weeks.  There is no Monday, Tuesday, Friday in nature.”  PS3511.U6617 B8 1972

The Museum Archives is pleased to announce an exciting new website feature.

Over the years the museum has grown and changed its physical footprint with three additions (1958, 1983, 1971) and the current expansion project. To illustrate these changes the Museum Archives has created three interactive maps that include both current and historic gallery information. The maps can be found here, or on the library website, under Search Collections.

Additional maps will be added as new sections of the complex open. Images of galleries over time, both the permanent collection and special exhibitions, are available in the Museum Archives.

Steadfastly modernist architect Charles Gwathmey died Monday in New York City.  He is best known in the art world as the architect responsible for the renovation and addition to the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Guggenheim Museum in 1992.  Other notable museum buildings in his portfolio include the American Museum of the Moving Image, the International Center of Photography, as well as an addition to the Fogg Museum, among numerous others.  His firm, Gwathmey Siegel also worked for numerous celebrity clients, building residences, in addition to his commercial work.  The Ingalls Library holds several volumes on his work.