Marie Webster

At 97 years old, Marie Webster physical status not available right now. We will update Marie Webster's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Marie Daugherty Webster (July 19, 1859-56), a quilt designer, quilter, and businesswoman, as well as a writer and editor of Quilts, Their Story, and How to Make them (1915), the first American book on quilting, has been reprinted several times since.

She owned the Practical Patchwork Company, a quilt pattern-making company that operated from her Wabash, Indiana, for more than thirty years.

The appliquéd quilts by Webster inspired modern quilting patterns of the early twentieth century.

Her quilts have been on view in museums and galleries in the United States and Japan.

The Indianapolis Museum of Art houses the country's largest collection of her quilts.

In 1991, Webster was inducted into the Quilters Hall of Fame.

The Marie Webster House, her former home in Marion, Indiana, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992 and is the current home of the Quilters Hall of Fame in New York.

Early life and education

Marie Daugherty was born in Wabash, Indiana, on July 19, 1859, to Minerva Harriet (Lumaree) and Josiah Scott Daugherty. She was the eldest of the family's six children. In Wabash, her father was an entrepreneur, bank president, and civic leader. Daugherty learned fine handsewing from her mother during her childhood. She was educated in Wabash's public schools, graduating from Union School in 1878. Daugherty's parents disapproved her from attending college because she had no formal art education. Although needlework became a favorite pastime of hers, she did not begin designing quilts until the age of fifty.

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Career

Webster created her first appliquéd quilt of her own style in 1909, adapted from the classic "Rose of Sharon" pattern with shaped pieces cut from colored fabric and sewn to a background fabric. Webster's coworkers encouraged her to submit the quilt to the Ladies Home Journal, whose editor asked her to send additional samples of her work. The magazine's January 1911 issue included four of Webster's quilt designs ("Pink Rose," "Iris," "Snowflake"), and "Wind-blown Tulip"), which were stylized designs based on her garden flowers. In August 1911, January 1912, and August 1912, more of her appliquéd quilts were published in full-color in the Ladies' Home Journal issues. The Journal pressed her to write articles about quilts using her name as a byline, paving the way for other professional women quilters to use their own names in association with their work. In other women's journals, Webster had subsequent quilt patterns. In addition,, her quilts were on view at Marshall Fields' galleries in Chicago, Illinois, in 1911.

The exposure of her quilt designs in the Ladies' Home Journal, which has a circulation of about 1.5 million readers at the time, has brought Webster and her quilts national attention. As her quilt patterns became well-known, demand for her patterns has also increased. Webster created kits to keep up with the demand, with her son, Lawrence, drafting the blueprints for her designs and her sister, Emma Daugherty, assisting with the production of the full-size, tissue-paper patterns. The kits were initially priced at fifty cents per piece, and they came with instructions, pattern templates, and a snapshot of the finished quilt.

Doubleday, Page, and Company invited Webster to research and write a book about the history of quilting and pattern names in 1912. Quilts, Their Story and How to Make Them, published in October 1915, was the first full-length quilting book to be published in America, and it was reprinted multiple times. In her book, Webster took a broad view of the subject, tracing its origins in Egypt, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Renaissance. She also included chapters on quilting methods and quilting collections, as well as a list of over 400 quilt pattern names. Although her quilting history was not footnoted, it was based on earlier reference sources and contained a list of references she consulted. The New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Boston Herald all gave their praise for Webster's extensively researched book. In a February 1916 study of her book, it was described as "thoroughly delightful" and "nothing has been left unsaid in this book on the pleasure of patchwork making." Webster's book gave her national and international recognition as a quilt designer and quilter, as well as increasing the success of her quilting patterns. Her notoriety has resulted in additional press for her work, invitations to speak, and promises to announce more of her designs.

Since her quilt book was released in 1915, the mail-order chain that was out of Webster's home soared, spurring the calls for her quilt patterns. Ida Hess and Evangeline Beshore, as well as Emma Daugherty, founded The Practical Patchwork Company around 1921, inspired by Webster's ubiqué quilt designs. Webster managed the mail-order company out of her house with her cofounders and the additional support of her family members. The company, which was founded as "A Thing of Beauty Is a Joy Forever," was a company that concentrated on offering her original designs in kits that included packaged designs, instruction sheets, and precut fabric quilting pieces. In addition, it sold Webster-designed, partially completed quilts and exported them around the country. Through advertisements in periodicals, such as House Beautiful, and occasional sales to retail stores, the company promoted its services in its printed catalogs (the initial four-page catalog was entitled The New Patchwork Patterns). Webster created the designs, she or others in the company appliquéd the pieces, and other quilters were hired to do the quilting. Thirty-three of the company's catalogs by 1930 contained thirty-three of her designs.

Webster made hundreds of quilts and became a pioneer of the early twentieth century quilting revival. In favour of the simple, appliquéd quilts that were popular in the mid-nineteenth century, Webster's designs discarded the vibrant colors and heavily embroidered "Crazy Quilt" patterns of the late nineteenth century. The Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 1900s also influenced her simple, handmade appliquéd quilts. "balance, harmony, rehession, refinement, elegance, and, of course, simplification," her work has been characterized as "balance, balance, harmony, lethality, reverence, elegance, and, above all, simplification."

As opposed to the stylized forms and vibrant colors of the late Victorian period, Webster used a palette of soft, muted pastels, and modern designs that were less elaborate and more realistic. Her appliqué quilt patterns became well-known for their stunning, mainly floral designs, which were available in pastel shades. These characteristics also made her designs unusual for the time. Her quilt motifs were often inspired by nature, especially flowers from her garden, with popular designs including "Iris," "Daisies," "Sunflower," "Morning Glory," "Poppy," "Poppy," "Sunflower," "Poinsetta," "Morning Glory," "Poinsetta," "Morning Glory," "Poppy," "Morning Glory," "Poppy," Webster's modern quilting styles and her patterns, which were widely distributed in women's journals and in advertisements for her mail-order quilting company, influenced by other quilt designers, patternmakers, and quilt manufacturers, although they did not necessarily blame them for the original design concept.

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