--- title: "Nine Years Old and 1,233 Pieces: The Little Alabama Quilter Who Deserved a World’s Fair" date: 2026-06-19 author: "QuiltAdmin" featured_image: "https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Thousand-Pyramids.jpg" --- # Nine Years Old and 1,233 Pieces: The Little Alabama Quilter Who Deserved a World’s Fair Every now and then, a tiny newspaper clipping opens a door into a much larger story. This one begins with a proud little notice about a nine-year-old girl from Butler County, Alabama, and ends with a question that sounds almost like a challenge: “Is she not worth telling of in the Woman’s Department in the World’s Exposition?” Well, yes. Yes, she was. ![Newspaper clipping highlighting A.E. Dees, a 9-year-old girl from Butler County, known for making seven quilts, including intricate patterns. It praises her sewing skills and industriousness.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/little-girl-quilter.jpg) The clipping from The Greenville Advocate, a prominent historic newspaper in Butler County, Alabama, praised a child named A. E. Dees as “the smartest child in the world.” That may have been just a proud mama bragging but I am inclined to agree. By the age of nine, she had made seven quilts. Her most intricate one contained 1,233 pieces. Her first quilt had been finished when she was only five years old. ## World Cotton Centennial The World’s Exposition in the article probably refers to the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, also called the World Cotton Centennial, held in New Orleans from December 1884 into June 1885. The fair opened on December 16, 1884, and ran into the summer of 1885. New Orleans was a natural setting for a cotton exposition. Cotton was still one of the region’s most important crops, and New Orleans was a major cotton trading city. The fair was intended to show off industry, agriculture, invention, education, and the progress of the South after the Civil War. Like many world’s fairs, it was part celebration, part advertising campaign, and part “look what we can do now.” And tucked into all that machinery, commerce, and civic pride was something very important to quilters: the Woman’s Department. ## The Woman’s Department Was a Big Deal The Woman’s Department at the New Orleans exposition was not just a corner where ladies were allowed to put doilies while the men handled the “important” exhibits. It was organized and managed by women, with [Julia Ward Howe](https://www.nps.gov/people/julia-ward-howe.htm) serving as one of its leading figures. Howe was already famous as the author of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and she was also active in women’s rights and reform movements. Here was a public, national stage where women’s work could be displayed. Needlework, embroidery, household management, education, writing, and decorative arts were all part of the story. The department brought women from different regions into the same public conversation, even in a time when the country was still carrying the heavy bruises of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Unlike previous fairs, the 1884 New Orleans Exposition featured [deliberate space for African American women](https://thisbeautifulsisterhood.org/the-new-orleans-worlds-fair-of-1884-constructs-of-progress/). Despite underfunding and segregation, Black women were actively encouraged to submit their own high-quality needlework and craft displays. It’s impressive that an event that took place less than 20 years after the civil war ended made it a point to value the needlework of Black women. ## A Child Quilter, But Not a Toy Skill The clipping lists the quilts A. E. Dees had made: Brick and Block, Nine Block, Casket, Chestnut Burr, Irish Chain, Triangle, and Scrap Tulip. That is not a beginner list. Some of these patterns, like the Nine Block (probably a Nine-Patch) were simple enough to teach a young girl the basics of cutting, piecing, and straight seams. Others required planning, patience, and a steady hand. A quilt with 1,233 pieces would have been impressive for an adult. My guess is that those pieces made a Chestnut Burr quilt, which is made by folding small pieces on top of each other and sewing them in a circular arrangement. It made for a very heavy quilt that needed no batting or backing. The article also says she could make “any ordinary garment on the sewing machine.” That sentence tells us that A. E. Dees was not just making pretty things. She was being trained in the full range of domestic work expected of girls and women in the 19th century. I do wish we knew her full name. Just a bit of trivia: I checked the 1880 census. A possible candidate is [Martha Elizabeth Dees](https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/LV3K-XPT/martha-elizabeth-dees-1874-1893), born 1874 and buried at Antioch East Cemetery in Greenville, Butler County, Alabama in 1893. Maybe A or Annie was a nickname? ## The Patterns She Made The names in the clipping are a little window into 19th-century quiltmaking. Pattern names were not always fixed. One family might call a block by one name, while another community used a different one. Textile history often survives unevenly. Some makers were named. Many were not. Some quilts were saved with family stories. Others were used up, worn out, sold, inherited without labels, or separated from the women who made them. Still, the list gives us a good idea of the kind of work this child was doing. Brick and Block was probably a simple geometric design based on rectangles and squares, much like masonry. This would have been a good teaching pattern because it rewarded careful measuring and straight seams. Nine Block, assuming it was what we call a Nine-Patch now, is one of the oldest and most common beginner blocks. A well-made Nine Patch teaches accuracy, seam allowance, pressing, and the joy of points that actually meet. Irish Chain is a classic design where small squares create diagonal chains across the quilt. It can look simple at first glance, but it requires careful placement. The open spaces also gave quilters room to show off their hand quilting. Triangle may have referred to any number of triangle-based designs. Triangles were common in 19th-century quilts, from simple half-square triangle arrangements to more complex patterns such as Thousand Pyramids or Birds in the Air style designs. ![Th ousand-Pyramid-QuiltA handmade quilt displayed on a bed features rows of triangle patches in various colors and patterns, including blue, red, brown, and beige, set against a light patterned background.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Thousand-Pyramid-Quilt-768x866.jpg)A Thousand Pyramid quilt top, probably 1880’s ![Irish-Chain-red A handmade quilt featuring a repeating diamond pattern made of small red and white squares, bordered by a red and white striped edge, hangs on a wall.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Irish-Chain-red-768x770.jpg)An Irish Chain quilt, with a turkey red that could be 1880’s Scrap Tulip suggests a floral design, possibly appliquéd or pieced, made from leftover fabrics. Scrap quilts were practical, but they were also a point of pride. Using up every bit of cloth showed thrift, skill, and good household management. **UPDATE**. While I was working on the [Grandmothers Flower Garden](https://quilthistory.com/grandmothers-flower-garden-quilt-history/) article, I came across this page in a [1931 booklet by Grandmother Clarke](https://quilthistory.com/grandmother-clarks-1931-quilt-booklets/). Notice that the block called “Irish Chain” is actually an applique block? I wonder which one she made? Could the Nine-Block in the article actually be what we call “Irish Chain” now? [![Irish-Chain-Applique A sewing pattern sheet showing black-outlined templates on the left page and nine quilt block designs, each with a number and name, arranged in a grid on the right page. Quilt blocks feature geometric and appliqué styles.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Irish-Chain-Applique-768x532.webp)](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Irish-Chain-Applique.webp)Click on the picture to see it up close. ## Casket, Coffin, and the Language of Mourning The clipping says A. E. Dees made a Casket quilt. This may have been related to what some quilters later called Coffin or Casket patterns, using long, narrow shapes that resemble a coffin form. Again, we have to be careful here. Quilt pattern names traveled by family, region, magazine, newspaper, and memory. A name used in Alabama in the 1880s may not match exactly what a published pattern company meant decades later. Still, the name “Casket” would have been meaningful in a culture deeply familiar with mourning. Many Southern families had lost fathers, brothers, husbands, children, neighbors, and friends in the Civil War. [Mourning customs](https://quilthistory.com/victorian-mourning-customs/) were part of daily life, especially in the Victorian era. Dark fabrics, memorial objects, hairwork, mourning jewelry, and sentimental textiles all belonged to that world. ![An oval brooch featuring a center of braided light brown hair, surrounded by a ring of small pearls and an outer border of dark gemstones set in gold, reflects Victorian Mourning Customs in the United States.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/jet-jewelry-with-hair.jpg)A mourning brooch. Jet Jewelry with hair center. One of the most famous examples of a coffin or graveyard quilt is Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell’s Graveyard Quilt. Family tradition says she placed coffin shapes for family members around the border and moved each one into the central graveyard as that person died. The story was later told in Linda Otto Lipsett’s book, [*Elizabeth Roseberry Mitchell’s Graveyard Quilt: An American Pioneer Saga*.](https://amzn.to/4aXWQXK) ## Chestnut Burr and Alabama Quiltmaking Chestnut Burr may be the most impressive pattern in the list. The name suggests a textured, pointed design inspired by the prickly husk of a chestnut. It is closely related in spirit to Pine Burr or Pine Cone quilts, which are made with folded fabric pieces layered into dense, three-dimensional forms. The [Pine Burr style](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/GeesBend_TreasurePineBurrQuilt.pdf) became especially associated with Alabama quiltmaking. In fact, Alabama designated the Pine Burr quilt as its official state quilt in 1997. The official state quilt was made by Loretta Pettway Bennett of Gee’s Bend, and Alabama Public Television notes that Bennett learned the method from her mother, Qunnie Pettway. ![A circular mosaic pattern made of small, square tiles in shades of green, yellow, and orange, arranged in a spiral formation, creating a three-dimensional optical illusion.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Pine-Burr-Quilt.jpg)Courtesy of the Alabama Department of Archives and History. That later history does not mean A. E. Dees was making the exact same kind of Pine Burr quilt in the 1880s. But it does show that burr-style quilts have deep roots in Alabama’s quilt tradition. If Chestnut Burr was anything like the dimensional burr quilts we know today, then this little girl was doing very demanding work. ## Crazy Quilts and the World’s Fair Moment The timing of this clipping also places it right in the middle of the [Victorian crazy quilt craze](https://quilthistory.com/stitched-in-silk-and-secrets-the-victorian-crazy-quilt/). Crazy quilts became wildly popular in the late 19th century, especially after Americans were exposed to Japanese design influences at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Their asymmetry, rich fabrics, embroidery, ribbons, and painted details appealed to Victorian taste. By 1884 and 1885, crazy quilts were everywhere. They were not usually made as warm bedcovers. They were showpieces. They displayed a woman’s needlework skills, taste, social connections, and access to fashionable scraps of silk, velvet, ribbon, and brocade. The Woman’s Department in New Orleans would have been a perfect place for those quilts. It was a public stage for the kind of work women had long done privately. ![A vintage black-and-white advertisement features a woman arranging a large patchwork quilt. The text promotes silk pieces for patchwork quilts or hooked rugs, detailing a subscription offer from Everyday Life magazine.](https://quilthistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/silk-pieces-768x576.jpg) A. E. Dees’ quilts, however, sound more traditional than crazy. Her list includes geometric patterns, scrap work, and named blocks rooted in household quiltmaking. That contrast makes the clipping even more interesting. While fashionable crazy quilts may have been grabbing attention, this child’s work represented another kind of excellence: piecing accuracy. ## What This Clipping Tells Us At first glance, this is just a cute human-interest item: a smart little girl makes quilts. But there is more tucked into those few lines. It tells us that quiltmaking was considered a skill worthy of public praise. It tells us that children were taught serious sewing at young ages. It tells us that pattern names were already circulating through families and communities. It tells us that women’s domestic work could be connected to national exhibitions, civic pride, and public recognition. I don’t know whether her quilts were ever sent to New Orleans. I hope they were. I looked through the [Catalog of Exhibits](https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008890627) and didn’t see her name, but since she was a child, and we don’t really know her full name, that doesn’t mean her quilts weren’t there. ## Learn More [The Quilt Index](https://quiltindex.org/) A wonderful place to browse documented antique quilts, quilt blocks, makers, dates, regions, and quilt stories. It is an open-access digital repository with thousands of quilt images and records from museums, documentation projects, and private collections. [Barbara Brackman, *Encyclopedia of Pieced Quilt Patterns*](https://amzn.to/4aazLkv) The go-to reference for identifying pieced quilt blocks and their published names. Especially useful for old newspaper clippings where pattern names may vary by region or family tradition. The current edition includes more than 4,000 illustrated blocks. [Roderick Kiracofe, *The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750–1950*](https://amzn.to/4ems64Y) A broad, readable history of American quilting, including early quilts, block-style quilts, mourning quilts, Amish quilts, Baltimore Album quilts, and African American quilts. [Cuesta Benberry, *Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts*](https://amzn.to/4vgQU4h) An important book for understanding how Black quiltmakers have always been part of American quilt history, even when the written record failed to name them. The Quilters Hall of Fame describes Benberry as one of the first Black quilt historians. [The World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, 1884–1885](https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/) For period background, the University of Pennsylvania’s Online Books Page links to digitized publications from the New Orleans exposition, including catalogs and reports. [Southern Ladies and Suffragists: Julia Ward Howe and Women’s Rights at the 1884 New Orleans World’s Fair](https://academic.oup.com/mississippi-scholarship-online/book/19121?login=false) [Visitors’ guide to the World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, and New Orleans, commencing Dec. 16, 1884, and ending May 31, l885.](https://nolalibrary.org/2024/05/14/worlds-fairs-in-new-orleans/) [Louisiana State Museum Textiles Collection](https://louisianastatemuseum.org/bedding-furnishings-household-textiles-permanent-collection)