Announcing the 2017 Symposium
July 27 – 29, 2017
Over the course of three days in July, we will gather in Harrisonburg and its environs to consider Friction, Fray, and Fabric: Textiles in the First World War at the 2017 Symposium offered by the Virginia Quilt Museum. Participants will have the opportunity to gain multiple perspectives of the (first) Great War. Visits Thursday and Friday to Dynamic Aviation in Bridgewater, the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum in Staunton, and the Crossroads Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center in Harrisonburg will set the stage for both the friction and the fray, through the lens of a soldier, a president, and a pacifist. Then on Saturday, fabric will take center stage with a view through the lens of its war-affected manufacture and needful purposes.
Symposium Events/Locations/Speakers:
Thursday: Kim McCray (VQM Director), Dynamic Aviation, Bridgewater, VA (talk about Dwight Eisenhower – his WWI service and Valley ties, and tour of America’s first Air Force One)
Friday: Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum, Staunton, VA (tour)
Crossroads Valley Brethren-Mennonite Heritage Center, Harrisonburg, VA (tour)
Phil Kniss (Pastor), Parkview Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, VA (talk)
followed by Nancy Bassett (pianist/sing-along)
Saturday: Speakers at Asbury United Methodist Church (next door to the Museum)
· Madelyn Shaw, Curator of Textiles at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution – “Shortages and Substitutes: American Textiles and the Great War”
· Neva Hart, Quilt Historian – “A Red Cross Quilt from Sugar Grove”
· Jackie Pamenter, Greene County, VA Historical Society – Greene County Red Cross quilt
· Sue Reich, Keynote Speaker
“World War I Quilts”
Image caption/credit: Inspired by Dec 1917 Modern Priscilla Magazine pattern, detail of 1918 Red Cross Quilt from Central Ohio from Sue Reich Collection
Contact information: vqmevents@gmail.com www.vaquiltmuseum.org 540-433-3818
