52 LAKE OCONEE LIVING | SUMMER 2022
HARRIET POWERS THE
QUILTER
Harriet Powers was (1837-
1910) born in Athens, Ga.
She lived on the plantation
owned by John and Nancy
Lester in the Sandy Creek
area.She was a seamstress at
rst and probably did daily
sewing for her enslavers.
In the 1870 census, after
emancipation, Powers was
listed as “keeping house”
and her husband, Armstead,
was a farmer. ey lived with
their three children in the
Sandy Creek area just north
of Athens. Times were di-
cult for freed Blacks after the
war. Powers continued to sew
as suggested in their property
listing for taxes, a Singer sewing
machine was included.
Her sewing skills allowed
her to have a vision of what
she wanted to create: narrative
quilts. Using the sewing
skills she had learned, Powers
became a textile artist and
created narrative quilts that
told stories from the Bible
and occurrences she had
heard about. Textile historians
recognize great similarities
between Powers’ work
and the technique mastered
by the Fon people of Dahomey,
West Africa, according
to the African American
Registry.
Records indicate that Powers
displayed her Bible Quilt
at a fair outside of Athens.
Oneida Virginia (Jennie)
Smith, then head of the art
department at the Lucy Cobb
Institute in Athens, saw the
quilt and with great diculty
found the quilter. Smith
oered to buy the quilt but
Powers refused to sell. Five
years later, Powers sold the
quilt to Smith for $5 but also
described each panel. Smith
then showed the quilt at the
Cotton States Exposition in
Atlanta in 1895.
After making the rst quilt,
two things happened: rst,
faculty women from Atlanta
University saw the quilt and
commissioned Powers to
make another quilt. Powers
made the Pictorial Quilt,
presented to a trustee along
with Power’s descriptions and
her small photograph. Second,
a visitor, Lorene Diver of
Keokuk, Iowa, saw the quilt
and wrote Powers. e letter
Powers wrote back indicated
that she had created multiple
quilts, could read and write,
and was capable of creating
more quilts.
e Bible Quilt was made
by stitching 299 separate
pieces of fabric to a brightly
colored cotton background to
create 11 panels. Kyra Hicks
in her book, “is I Accomplish:
Harriet Powers’ Bible
Quilt and Other Pieces” used
Lorene Diver’s description of
the Bible Quilt:
Border was rose calico, the
spotted animals yellow and
purple – the peacock black
and white striped, the serpent
black and yellow – having no
feet in nature is here pictured
the only thing with feet.
Where Cain struck Abel, the
blood was red calico – e
eect of these people and animals
all punctured over with
the most beautiful quilting.
Lorene Diver of Keokuk,
Iowa, 1895.
e panels illustrate Biblical
or veriable astronomical
events that happened or that
arret owers an enslae alue ulter orn
n thens ae ults that hang n the thsonan
an the useu of Fne rts n oston owers was
nucte nto the eorga oen of cheeent n
a lay was wrtten aout her work an there s
a current oeent to hae a ostage sta ae
n her honor n she went to roa treet n
thens to hae her hotograh ae y Charles F
cannell he urchase a carte e st age of
herself an use ultle coes as callng carswth
the ea that uyers of her ults woul know who she
was