In Honor of Harriet Powers: Mother of African-American Story Quilts (Part 1)

Harriet Powers was an important quilting foremother! Do you know about her contributions to the quilting arts? In honor of Harriet Powers and Black History Month, we are introducing a two part series on Harriet Powers and the quilters of today who are keeping her memory alive. 

With thanks and appreciation to the PSSMQG - Home Princeton Sankofa Stitchers, curated by Juandamarie Gikandi and the Houston International Quilt Festival. 

Harriet Powers created folk art quilts using appliqued images in cloth to convey the stories of the Bible and other legends. Two of Harriet’s quilts have survived to the present day, including the “Pictorial Quilt” of 1898, shown above. Its fifteen panels contain vignettes drawn from Bible stories and historical events.

Born enslaved near Athens, Georgia in 1837, Harriet Powers learned to sew as a child. She married at the age of eighteen, and after emancipation, she and her husband saved enough to buy a small farm in Clarke County. She became known as a quilter when she exhibited her first quilt at the Athens Cotton Fair in 1886.  

Photograph of Harriet Powers, c. 1901, via Wikipedia. 

At the recent International Quilt Show in Houston, TX, our attention was drawn to the Special Exhibit of renditions and re-creations of Harriet Powers’ quilt blocks, curated by Juandamarie Gikandi for the Princeton Sankofa Stitchers Modern Quilt Guild (PSSMQG).   

The word “Sankofa” means reaching back to the past in order to move forward, to create, educate, and to engage in philanthropic projects.  The guild members have done an outstanding job of re-creating Harriet Powers’ blocks. Here is one of the quilts from the Houston exhibit:

Adam and Eve in the Garden, by Rose Mary Briggs, quilted by Susan Ezzo 

 

This block shows Adam and Eve, the sun, the rib from which Eve was made, God’s merciful hand and all seeing eye, plus the serpent which tempted Eve. The quilt was inspired by “Adam and Eve” in Harriet Powers’ Pictorial Quilt (top row, 4^th block from the left.) 

Rose Mary Briggs writes, “Inspired by Harriet Powers’ vision, I reinterpreted Adam and Eve in the Garden through a contemporary lens rooted in my church upbringing. Hand stitching and applique techniques, drawn from Powers’ work, honor her West African roots while emphasizing the enduring relevance of the creation story through modern fabric and symbolism.”   

Briggs' design source was “A Pattern Book from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; based on an applique quilt by Mrs. Harriet Powers."

Image credits: Photos of Adam & Eve in the Garden were taken by Quilt Inspiration at the 2025 Houston International Quilt Festival.  Photos of Harriet Powers and her Pictorial Quilt are from Wikipedia.