Spring Quilts

Though the weather here in D.C. may disagree, according to the calendar springtime is here! For some, that may mean cleaning out your closets, boxing up your sweaters and folding up your winter comforters to make room for your spring quilts. Quilting has a long and storied tradition among Native American women where quilts can often hold both cultural and ceremonial significance. NMAI has an important collection of beautiful quilts, made even more comprehensive after the 2007 acquisition of Plains quilts collected by Florence Pulford. Pulford collected quilts for more than twenty years, working with Native quilt artists living in Fort Belknap and Fort Peck and on other Montana and North Dakota reservations. In addition to purchasing quilts directly from the artists, Pulford often snapped pictures and recorded audio interviews about life on the reservation which are now a part of the Florence Pulford collection.  Many of the photos and audio recordings in this collection highlight the work of particular quilt-makers and their processes, including Ella First Kill Brown (A'aninin),  Frances Weasel Woman Fox (A'aninin), Artie Crazy Bull (Sioux), Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson (Assiniboine) and Regina Brave Bull (Yanktonnai Nakota/Dakota).

“Sunny Spring Day” by Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, Assiniboine (Stoney). National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (26/6319). Photo by NMAI Photo Services.

“Spring Green Star” by Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, Assiniboine (Stoney). National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (26/6337). Photo by NMAI Photo Services.

A member of the Red Bottom band of the Fort Peck Assiniboine, Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson created both quilts featured above. Jackson was not only a prolific quilter but a well-respected artist among her peers. The long lasting friendship between Jackson and Pulford is well documented in the Florence Pulford collection through both photographs and oral interviews captured on audio-cassette. Almira and Florence kept up a strong correspondence up until Florence's death in 1989 at the age of 65.

Theodore (Teddy) Jackson, Florence Pulford and Almira Buffalo Bone Jackson, 1977. Florence Pulford Collection, Folder 44. National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (P36323).

For more information on this spectacular quilt collection you can read this article published in Smithsonian Magazine. For more information on the Florence Pulford collection of photographs and audio recordings you should contact the NMAI Archive Center. Happy spring!


Rachel Menyuk
Archives Technician, NMAI Archive Center