Spring 2021 Newsletter

Crazy Quilts: Highlight from the Collection

Crazy quilts, identified by their varied use of materials, embroidered embellishments, and seemingly haphazard block design soared in popularity during the Victorian era.

Technological advancements increased the production of fabrics in America, and the arrival of trains throughout the country made silks, velvets, satin, and tulles increasingly available to quilters. Unique materials were also staples of the crazy quilt trend as seen in a quilt made by Margaret M. Jordan that utilizes political ribbons from the battle between Helena and Anaconda to be the state capitol and a ribbon from the Mill & Smeltermen’s Union No. 2 1895 Labor Day convention.

The crazy quilt was truly an art form, costing hours upon hours of careful fabric curation, placement and design of irregular shapes with attention to balance and asymmetry, and employing varieties of embroidery designs from simple stitches to creweled texture. Many quilts were designed to be used as display pieces rather than as utilitarian bedding.

The crazy quilt trend faded by the 1920s for urban quilters but remained popular for more rural quilters. Though some of the crazy quilts in our collection may be less elaborate and costly than their trendy predecessors, their use of sturdy fabrics and scrap material is savvier and more practical. A quilt collected by Alice Schumacher [object number 2001.132.1505] utilizes pieces of suiting along with other cotton and wool scraps. This and other quilts such as CCHS 132.166 show significant wear; testimony that these quilts received years of practical use.

-Ashleigh McCann, Collections Curator

Executive Director’s Message

Our work at The Cascade County Historical Society/The History Museum takes discipline. Some of it is time consuming: sorting resource materials into like piles, assigning an individual number and placing collections into numerical order, creating a list that serves as a finding aid, and making it available to the public during regular business hours. Other tasks are even more tedious: scanning images or documents, inputting accurate information into our database, managing volunteers and interns to maximize our output or rehousing collections entirely. Stay tuned later this summer as we roll out a new program for members that apply professional museum skills to novice family archivist projects.  

Though we were hit hard this winter with not just one but two of our furnaces going out and a costly repair to our fire suppression sprinkler system, donors and members have been generous to us and we are ever so grateful for your support. We have adjusted our sails with your help and are happy to say the museum is safe, warm, cozy, and productive. 

Time marches on and we are honored to be the keepers of North-central Montana’s diverse shared heritage. Our mission is to preserve and to celebrate our region’s history while making it accessible to the public through programming and research opportunities. While the delivery of the latter part of our mission has looked different this year, the foundation has remained the same. We have shared content through online platforms, including social media and weekly emails which feature stories from our collections, and staff has accommodated researchers by appointment. Preservation work is ongoing and grant funded projects have moved us forward exponentially.

Please consider joining us for one of our upcoming 2nd Saturday programs, stop in and visit our gift shop, or enjoy a tour of news exhibitions. Our spacious building allows for ample social distancing, and museums are a wonderful place to experience in small groups or on your own. While attending the most recent virtual conference by the Montana Association of Museums, we gleaned new ideas for virtual fundraisers and gained insights on ways to weather the pandemic. While we hope to put this past year behind us, we’re prepared for whatever lies ahead. We hope to see you soon at our historic building on Machinery Row and thank you for your continued support!

 -Kristi Scott

Thank you to our supporters whose generous
donations keep our history, culture, and heritage alive.

Military Uniforms & Quilts Receive New Archivally Sound Storage Methods

The Collections Department has made a major improvement to our textile storage thanks to a Montana History Foundation Grant awarded to The History Museum in 2020. Though stalled by COVID-19 business shutdowns and shipping delays last year, our team has successfully rehoused our 43 quilts and 96 hanging military uniforms.

Quilts were previously folded onto shelving with minimal information entered into our database (size, material type, description, or photographs). Now, every quilt in our collection has been photographed and we can access those images. Over time, a sharp fold in a textile will cause the fabric to break down along that fold line. Our quilt collection is now either rolled onto archivally sound tubes or placed in an archival box. Boxed quilts were padded along their folds with acid free tissue paper which prevents a fold from turning into a damaging crease. 

The military racks are made of pipe cut to a custom size and assembled by our staff to easily roll underneath our existing storage platforms. Previously the uniforms hung on clothing rods mounted underneath a platform, making them only accessible by crouching. Now the easily accessible uniforms can be moved around efficiently to be inventoried, cataloged, and photographed.

Our storage methods have improved significantly. Storage space is used more efficiently, giving our collections team needed room for ongoing projects that improve the archival care of our collections and their accessibility. Thank you to the Montana History Foundation for your support.

-Ashleigh McCann, Collections Curator

Separate Collection 535: Donna Wahlberg Research

This past month we received a true treasure: Donna Wahlberg’s research binders. Donna’s father was born in Barker and later she was raised in Hughesville. She grew up with an appreciation of history and witnessed the ghosting of long abandoned mining camps. Donna understood the great importance of documenting places and their historical significance before all the physical evidence is lost to time. To that end, she wrote two books: So Be It, about the Hughesville/Barker area and Gone but Not Forgotten, cemetery listings for Monarch, Neihart, Hughesville, Kibby, Geer, and Goodman. She knew she would be helping future researchers not only with her books but her own research notes as well. She also donated a great amount of her time indexing the Cascade County Naturalization Records and the Belt Valley Times Newspaper. Her children William and Darcy kindly offered the binders to us on her behalf.

Other recent acquisitions include Gallery 16, Albert E. Fousek Scrapbooks, Cascade County Democratic Women’s Club, Burkland Family, Schultz Family, and the Great Falls Advertising Federation are available for research in the Archives. Subscribe to our email list to explore featured highlights from a variety of collections within the Archives:

-Megan Sanford, Archives Administrator