Tennessee State Museum
From QuiltIndex
Costume and Textiles in the Tennessee State Museum
The Tennessee State Museum’s overall holdings of some 125,000 artifacts include over 10,000 items of clothing and textiles. By far the largest and finest collection of its kind in the state, it is also one of the premiere such collections in any state museum. This precious resource documents the lives and tastes of Tennesseans in the broadest sense and illustrates how Tennesseans have always actively participated in and contributed to the history, culture and style of our country.
The clothes, both civil and military, are of the historically famous (for instance, presidents Andrew Jackson’s and Andrew Johnson’s top hats; Sam Davis’s boot, cut apart by Union soldiers looking for a smuggled message), of the culturally renowned (Pat Boone’s white shoes; a growing collection of Country Music performance clothing from Uncle Dave Macon, DeFord Bailey, and Kitty Wells to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Loretta Lynn), and also of those whose names have been—or might normally be—forgotten over time (rare War of 1812 uniforms; a young nineteenth-century boy’s overall; designer hats worn by a stylish Memphis lady from the 1940s to 1970s).
Some 400 flags, one of the major collections in a U.S. museum, include the largest extant group of Tennessee Civil War flags (61) and range from the late eighteenth century to the present.
Over 300 quilts dating from the 1790s to the present comprise the largest public collection in Tennessee. They include not only traditional bed covers but also many contemporary art quilts (among these, Hungarian immigrant Clara Fodor’s unique hangings of each of the 50 states).
Other textiles—handwoven blankets and overshot coverlets; crocheted and tatted lace; embroidered samplers—show Tennessee girls, women, and some men giving free rein to highest quality artistic and manual skills. The past hundred years of textile holdings also document Tennessee’s key role in America’s arts and crafts revival—from the cottage industry of Gatlinburg’s Pi Beta Phi Settlement (the forerunner of today’s Arrowmont School) to the contributions of the Memphis College of Art and the Joe L. Evins Appalachian Center for Crafts.
With the inauguration of the renovated Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Quilt Gallery in 2005, the Tennessee State Museum now has a dedicated showcase for rotating displays of these collections, which also are represented in the museum’s permanent history galleries and in many of the museum’s temporary exhibits. Planning is underway for new Tennessee State Museum, supported by state-of-the-art storage and conservation care, where the costume and textile collections can become even more actively available for study and public viewing.
