Many objects can tell us stories, not only written sources. One of these sources is coverlets because making them requires many elements, skill, and artistic vision. Coverlets and other objects are collected to tell the history of African-Americans who could not write most of the time. A lot of information can be extracted from proper studying of coverlets, including the information about the slave system, women’s labor, the cultural influence of Africa, etc. Material culture combines information about society’s economic, social, and cultural practices.
How do we understand that the coverlets were slave-made and slave-used? First, woven coverlets were displayed at the Owens-Thomas House and a historic house museum of Telfair Museum, Slave Quarters. They were placed alongside other slave-used objects, so people precepted them as something enslaved people constantly used in their everyday lives. Second, in general, enslaved people were used in cotton weaving; therefore, they had the skills to do it. However, the coverlets were found in states without information on slave weaving. Third, usually, enslaved people got their clothes from their owners, even if they worked as weavers.
From 1936 to 1938, John Lomax collected over two thousand interviews with formerly enslaved people. The records can be criticized for specific sampling, memory deformations that could occur after many decades, and the interviewer’s race influence. However, they provide missing information about the lives of enslaved people; for example, they contain evidence that enslaved people were engaged in growing cotton and spinning and dyeing clothes in Georgia. There is no sufficient information about specific coverlets made and used by African-Americans, but they were used by white people at least as a part of a dowry. No evidence from the interviews suggests that enslaved people made or used blankets that would have aesthetic or symbolic value.
There are museum accession records that contain information about slave-made coverlets, but most of the time, the information is not verifiable and was taken for granted from the words of the people who donated blankets. The quilts on display in the museums have been dated back to periods when imported factory-made clothing became more popular and cheaper and to the civil war period when beautiful blankets were no longer needed. Quilts, the authorship of which there is no doubt, were made by white women. There are also many coverlets without authorship, and Black women weaved a few percentages possibly.
Nevertheless, many historians have been interested in establishing the exact authorship of everyday culture items to explore and preserve the contribution of African Americans to culture. Many designs, such as geometric ones, are of African heritage, as many enslaved people were already skilled weavers before coming to America. The aesthetics and ornament features of coverlets in the Acacia Collection do not necessarily point to the race of creators but show the connection with African aesthetics. It supports the idea of African influence on weaving culture because of skilled weavers brough to America.
Despite all the research, questions of authorship remain complex and vague even when White families bring blankets into the museum collections. Since the enslavers also owned the property of the slaves, the blankets could remain in their houses, although they were initially made and used by the enslaved people. It is especially true for rich enslavers with numerous examples of well-done coverlets and other household items that enslaved people made.