Garth's Auctions
Corner of an Emaus, Pennsylvania quilt dated 1909.
The style and strip pattern pieced of solids sometimes called Joseph's Coat is
a Pennsylvania regionalism.
In the summer of 1909 Emaus in Lehigh County
celebrated its fifty-year anniversary with a
Golden Jubilee celebration that included the biggest
parade the small Moravian town had ever seen.
They hired decorator W.I. Hipple of Reading
to dress the town. Mr. Hipple used a lot of bunting,
red and white, probably some blue for the national
colors and undoubtedly some gold for the Jubilee theme.
Emaus a few decades later
"The 4,000 residents of Emaus readied the town for the Aug. 1 to 7 celebration (Jubilation Week). Nearly all buildings were decorated — homes, town hall, schools, businesses, playgrounds, etc. Lights, streamers, banners, and other decorations adorned the streets and buildings 'in colors never before seen.'”
We've seen those colors before. Someone saved the left over decorating
cottons and made a quilt out of it.