Title: Sunbonnets
Artist(s): Maker Unknown
Dimensions: 72" x 72"
Date Made: ca. 1912-22
Place Created: Possibly made in Pennsylvania
Collection: Great Lakes Quilt Center/Michigan State University Museum, #2001:160.9,
Deborah Harding Redwork Collection
Photo Credit: Fumio Ichikawa

Sunbonnet girls, characterized by the shape of their large, obscuring bonnets, populate this quilt. The girls are seen at work and play in blocks marking the day, the month, and the season and the scenes are adapted from illustrations by Bernhart Wall, whose work appeared on postcards and in children's schoolbooks. Wall's figures can be identified by a distinctive flounce on the girls' bonnets near the back of the neck. Wall produced days-of-the-week and months-of-the-year card series for Ullman Manufacturing Company in 1905 and in 1907 his designs were featured in the book Little Susie Sunbonnet and How Her Year Was Spent, A Story for Little Tots by Uncle Milton.