Overshot : The Political Aesthetics of Woven Textiles From the Antebellum South and Beyond

Woven coverlets have appeared in several guises within the history of folk textiles. Created on four-harness looms, coverlets made in the nineteenth-century American South typically featured colored wool and cotton threads woven into striking geometric patterns. Although they are not as well known as other textiles and domestic objects, "overshot" coverlets were, and continue to be, significant examples of material culture that require tremendous skill and creativity to produce. They also express currents of conformity and dissent. In addition to being pleasing to the eye and hand, "overshot" coverlets have advanced a variety of social and political ends. At times exhibited in slave quarters along the seaboard in Georgia and South Carolina in association with plantation properties, they also appear in piedmont areas attached to the antebellum yeomanry, in the context of nationalist craft revivals, and in white-box contemporary art. With Overshot , Susan Falls and Jessica R. Smith analyze what we can learn by examining the exhibition and interpretation of these materials within American public history. By showing how geometric overshot coverlets can be understood in relationship to the global economy and within politicized cultural movements, Falls and Smith demonstrate how these erstwhile domestic, utilitarian objects explode the art/craft dichotomy, belong to a rich narrative of historical art forms, and tell us far more about American culture today than simply representing a nostalgic past, particularly with regard to ideas about race, class, nationalism, women's labor, and the separation of private versus public spaces. "In the decades preceding the Civil War, coverlets became popular in rural white American households. Often woven by itinerant professional male weavers at the specification of women for use in their homes, these coverlets represent a distinctly American tradition that reflects a rich legacy of folk textiles. Examples of these coverlets are exhibited in both northern and southern states, although in different contexts. They are sometimes exhibited in slave quarters along the seaboard in Georgia and South Carolina in association with plantation properties, as well as in piedmont areas in association with the antebellum yeomanry. These southern textiles are particularly interesting not because of their uniqueness within American textile production in the first half of the 19th century, but because they are most often attributed, in the context of the museum display, to everyday African American slave use, and sometimes to slave production. There is a distinct contrast between the aesthetics of slave house textiles (which are usually bold, hand spun, artisan woven overshot with double weave undulating geometrics) and those of the plantation houses (which tend to be associated with polychromatic European imported printed and woven designs). What can we learn by examining the exhibition and interpretation of these textiles within narratives of American history? This book seeks to answer that question through the examination of these critical questions: How do these textiles arrive in museum collections? How does their placement in slave and servant quarters position them within a history of African American enslaved people's material culture, when in fact they might have been cast offs from an owner? And, finally, in investigating the politics of contemporary exhibition practices, how do appearances resulting from mode of production shape the production of history? Through these explorations, Falls and Smith contend that these exhibits can tell us far more about America's lifestyles today than they might accurately represent the past, particularly with regard to ideas about race, class, gender, the value of women's work, and the separation of private versus public spaces"-- Provided by publisher Woven coverlets have appeared in several guises within the history of folk textiles. Created on four-harness looms, coverlets made in the nineteenth-century American South typically featured colored wool and cotton threads woven into striking geometric patterns. Although they are not as well known as other textiles and domestic objects, "overshot" coverlets were, and continue to be, significant examples of material culture that require tremendous skill and creativity to produce. They also express currents of conformity and dissent.0In addition to being pleasing to the eye and hand, "overshot" coverlets have advanced a variety of social and political ends. At times exhibited in slave quarters along the seaboard in Georgia and South Carolina in association with plantation properties, they also appear in piedmont areas attached to the antebellum yeomanry, in the context of nationalist craft revivals, and in white-box contemporary art.0With 'Overshot', Susan Falls and Jessica R. Smith analyze what we can learn by examining the exhibition and interpretation of these materials within American public history. By showing how geometric overshot coverlets can be understood in relationship to the global economy and within politicized cultural movements, Falls and Smith demonstrate how these erstwhile domestic, utilitarian objects explode the art/craft dichotomy, belong to a rich narrative of historical art forms, and tell us far more about American culture today than simply representing a nostalgic past, particularly with regard to ideas about race, class, nationalism, women's labor, and the separation of private versus public spaces Woven coverlets have appeared in several guises within the history of folk textiles. Created on four-harness looms, coverlets made in the nineteenth-century American South typically featured coloured wool and cotton threads woven into geometric patterns. Susan Falls and Jessica Smith analyse what we can learn by examining these materials.