Sunbonnets
Maker Unknown
Possibly made in Pennsylvania
c1912-22
72” x 72”
MSUM #2001:160.9
Photo by Hossein Montazaran, all rights reserved Michigan State University Museum

Sunbonnet girls, characterized by the shape of their large, obscuring bonnets, populate this quilt. The girls are seen at work and play in blocks marking the day, the month, and the season and the scenes are adapted from illustrations by Bernhart Wall, whose work appeared on postcards and in children’s schoolbooks. Wall’s figures can be identified by a distinctive flounce on the girls’ bonnets near the back of the neck. Wall produced days-of-the-week and months-of-the-year card series for Ullman Manufacturing Company in 1905 and in 1907 his designs were featured in the book Little Susie Sunbonnet and How Her Year Was Spent, A Story for Little Tots by Uncle Milton.

By Mary Worrall from Redwork: A Textile Tradition in America, exhibit.