Presidents Quilt196488 x 72 "Wool with painted cotton canvas appliqué and cotton flannel backGift of Marta Amundson; great-granddaughter of Clara J. Martin2015.2.10Show Crazy Quilt with applique, hand painted, American presidents from Washington through Kennedy. Presidents are identified with hand embroidery of their names and number.1554035001Clara J. Martin TextilesCopyright for this work is under review.
Christopher Preissing ©Mount ClemensMount ClemensUnited StatesMichiganTextilesMount Clemens
Created in 1964, Clara J. Martin’s Presidents Quilt (1964) commemorates President John F. Kennedy the year following his assassination, which occurred on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, TX. This event continues to be a searing cultural memory for many Americans—one that has led to five decades of conspiracy theories, investigations into the private lives, and pop-cultural speculations. Kennedy was the first "television president," and his image broadcasted into homes across the country cultivated a distinctly intimate relationship with his everyday constituency—voters experienced his image and voice in their living rooms so, in a way, he became a part of the family. Today, this relationship with celebrity is so commonplace we take knowing details about public figures for granted, but in the 1960s, this widespread media access cultivated a 70% approval rating—an unprecedented number that continues to be the highest in American history.
The First Family, wife Jacqueline and daughter Caroline, garnered a great deal of public admiration as well. In Martin’s quilt they are featured alongside JFK—the only family represented of the 35 US presidents. According to the John F. Kennedy Library and Archive (Boston, MA), Jacqueline received 45,000 letters of condolence the first day mail was delivered to the White House following the assassination. In eight weeks time, the number had grown to 800,000, and a year and a half later, the number of letters exceeded 1.5-million. The letters came from every state in the union and were written by a diverse cross-section of Americans, representing myriad cultural, educational, social, economic, and political backgrounds. The loss was deeply personal and reverberated nationwide—even in Mt. Clemens, Michigan—evidenced by Martin’s creative piecework and detailed applique portraits highlighted in Presidents Quilt.
Long before suffrage, generations of women took up a needle and thread as a way to express their political ideas. Presidents Quilt, a crazy quilt appliqued with the painted, pieced, and embroidered portraits of every president of the United States, lies within this rich tradition of engaging politics and patriotism through art.
A banner across this quilt proudly proclaims "Clara J. Martin Age 82 July 14, 1964." Martin had a hard life. She received little formal education and had no occupational training. After her husband was incapacitated and no longer able to work, she took to tailoring, alterations, and mending; she cut hair; and anything else she could do from home to support her family. Between 1916 and 1919, she is listed among the charitable recipients for boarding of up to two children. Her hardships did not prevent her engagement with and participation in the democratic process. Her unique textile is constructed in the irregular crazy quilt fashion, popular when Martin was born in 1882. It includes portraits, hand-painted on canvas, of the thirty-five presidents who held office until 1964. Martin herself had lived through fifteen presidential cycles and was eligible to vote in ten of those elections after women earned the vote in 1919. John F. Kennedy is featured most prominently; he and Lyndon Baines Johnson are the only two whose presidencies are not numbered. Kennedy is also the only president portrayed with members of his family: his wife, Jacqueline, and daughter, Caroline, on her pony, Macaroni. Rather than the date of his assassination, Martin has chosen to note April 13, 1963, when Kennedy received a telegram informing him that Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy had been arrested while demonstrating in Birmingham, Mississippi, and placed in solitary confinement. An earlier date in April of that year appears with Jackie Kennedy’s portrait: On April 9, 1963, she had taken part in a ceremony awarding honorary citizenship to Winston Churchill—two events that seem to have held meaning in Martin’s memories.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Presidents Quilt," exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org19641964 2015 2 1
Created in 1964, Clara J. Martin’s Presidents Quilt (1964) commemorates President John F. Kennedy the year following his assassination, which occurred on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, TX. This event continues to be a searing cultural memory for many Americans—one that has led to five decades of conspiracy theories, investigations into the private lives, and pop-cultural speculations. Kennedy was the first "television president," and his image broadcasted into homes across the country cultivated a distinctly intimate relationship with his everyday constituency—voters experienced his image and voice in their living rooms so, in a way, he became a part of the family. Today, this relationship with celebrity is so commonplace we take knowing details about public figures for granted, but in the 1960s, this widespread media access cultivated a 70% approval rating—an unprecedented number that continues to be the highest in American history.
The First Family, wife Jacqueline and daughter Caroline, garnered a great deal of public admiration as well. In Martin’s quilt they are featured alongside JFK—the only family represented of the 35 US presidents. According to the John F. Kennedy Library and Archive (Boston, MA), Jacqueline received 45,000 letters of condolence the first day mail was delivered to the White House following the assassination. In eight weeks time, the number had grown to 800,000, and a year and a half later, the number of letters exceeded 1.5-million. The letters came from every state in the union and were written by a diverse cross-section of Americans, representing myriad cultural, educational, social, economic, and political backgrounds. The loss was deeply personal and reverberated nationwide—even in Mt. Clemens, Michigan—evidenced by Martin’s creative piecework and detailed applique portraits highlighted in Presidents Quilt.
Long before suffrage, generations of women took up a needle and thread as a way to express their political ideas. Presidents Quilt, a crazy quilt appliqued with the painted, pieced, and embroidered portraits of every president of the United States, lies within this rich tradition of engaging politics and patriotism through art.
A banner across this quilt proudly proclaims "Clara J. Martin Age 82 July 14, 1964." Martin had a hard life. She received little formal education and had no occupational training. After her husband was incapacitated and no longer able to work, she took to tailoring, alterations, and mending; she cut hair; and anything else she could do from home to support her family. Between 1916 and 1919, she is listed among the charitable recipients for boarding of up to two children. Her hardships did not prevent her engagement with and participation in the democratic process. Her unique textile is constructed in the irregular crazy quilt fashion, popular when Martin was born in 1882. It includes portraits, hand-painted on canvas, of the thirty-five presidents who held office until 1964. Martin herself had lived through fifteen presidential cycles and was eligible to vote in ten of those elections after women earned the vote in 1919. John F. Kennedy is featured most prominently; he and Lyndon Baines Johnson are the only two whose presidencies are not numbered. Kennedy is also the only president portrayed with members of his family: his wife, Jacqueline, and daughter, Caroline, on her pony, Macaroni. Rather than the date of his assassination, Martin has chosen to note April 13, 1963, when Kennedy received a telegram informing him that Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy had been arrested while demonstrating in Birmingham, Mississippi, and placed in solitary confinement. An earlier date in April of that year appears with Jackie Kennedy’s portrait: On April 9, 1963, she had taken part in a ceremony awarding honorary citizenship to Winston Churchill—two events that seem to have held meaning in Martin’s memories.
Stacy C. Hollander, "Presidents Quilt," exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org