Jacqueline L. Tobin

I came to this book cold turkey, never having heard of it before or the controversy it created. The authors make it clear in the several prefaces and forwards that this is a book about a story told to them by an elderly woman, which supposedly taught that quilting patterns had secret meanings and were used as means of communication for the Underground Railroad. The authors could find had no facts to back it up. It is all their own theory based on her tale. Then they repeated themselves throughout the book on and on not only with their suppositions, but with other details. This book could have been a fine pamphlet to present at an historical fair or something. It is peppered throughout with words and phrases such as; "we believe" "possible" "could have been" "could it be?" "might it?" "most probably," and many more. They had more ways of saying "we are guessing" than I've ever read before. I get it, they had no facts to back up their story, but they had already told us that. A lot. I think their theory could have been more interestingly presented in the form of historical fiction rather than trying (and failing) to present a scientific paper. The more they elaborated on their theory, the less probable it sounded to me.

Quilts seemed like a very awkward method of communicating important information which by its very nature could change from moment to moment. The leaps of logic they made interpreting the designs on the quilts also seemed improbable, and the fact that it was all so secret that only a few knew the meanings and most of them had been lost seemed impractical if you were trying to move people secretly without talking. How were they supposed to know what it all meant?

As I was reading about how the authors got this tale (from one woman who had not been alive during slavery, but she had been a school teacher and a very intelligent lady), I wondered if the lady was having a bit of fun with the author. Ozella McDaniel Williams could have been telling snippets of her own family history, but no one in her family was interested or participated or contributed.

Giles R. Wright wrote a critique of this book that summed up my thoughts in an intellectual and scholarly way. He even mentioned his doubts about the sincerity of Ms. Williams, though for the benefit of doubt, she certainly may have heard the tale she told from her family, and perhaps it even happened in her family. Personally, I think quilts are an excellent way to preserve the history of ones family in symbols.

I did enjoy the authors comparing African symbols with American and African American quilting symbols and Masonic symbols and all of their meanings, which seem to be similar. It was an interesting read.… (altro)

This book had such promise and started out so well and then fell so flat.

The premise of the book is the story of Ozella and her ancestors, as told to the author in Ozella's quilt booth at a vendor's market. It's the story we want to hear when we pick up the book and the author tells us she has now heard the story. Just when we think we are going to hear the story as Ozella told it, which would have been what gave this book strength and potency, we veer off instead into what the authors made of the different little pieces of the story instead of hearing the actual story as it was told.

This weakened the book and left me as the reader feeling as if the story was still being kept hidden. There was a lot of conjecture and research presented instead and whilst it was interesting at times and I did learn some things that were fascinating, I still found myself feeling like what I really wanted was to hear Ozella's story retold from that moment when Jacqueline was sitting at her feet surrounded by quilts for three hours. If the authors had done that and *then* presented their research, this book would have been much more satisfying and impactful to read. Instead, it felt like the story was kept secret with just little pieces of it exposed here and there.

It had potential but didn't deliver.… (altro)

This book is a breath of fresh air in terms of presenting oral histories as valid, and folk history as usable in an academic setting. Forms of record-keeping which are not written using methods recognized by dominant cultures, whether academia, today, or the former empires of England, Spain, etc, are almost always discounted, or destroyed, as the Quipus of the Incan empire.

These quilts are essentially, it sounds, like an updated form of Quipu (Khipu) made from fabric rather than strands of yarn or twine cordage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quipu

Page 29 made me think of the strain sometimes found between differing cultural interpretations and valuations of oral history and what makes a fact a fact, or something 'obvious,' well, obvious. In other words, the academic methodology versus intuitive oral tradition. As a phd student, I was horrified at the first presentation I attended by a fellow doctoral student. She presented her preliminary findings based on two years of research, and I found myself thinking that if any of my family could see this, they would all tell me I was wasting my time and money in doing research, if I would end up presenting findings as blindingly obviousl as hers. But, as on Page 31, the fear of ridicule forces one to follow a methodology that can be at odds with what one's gut instincts say are obvious. And when those two ways of thinking clash, it is the dominant culture that wins.

Thanks to these many authors for making non-dominant cultural histories valid again.
Shira Destinie
Willaim-James-MEOW Date: 27 August, 12014 H.E.… (altro)