Event
Quilt Display Showcasing the Colors of the Women's Suffrage Movement
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Strong City, Kansas – Come see the 15th annual quilt display at the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve over the Labor Day weekend, September 5th, 6th, and 7th. This year’s “virtual display” will feature quilts from the past in a photographic exhibit in the barn. Two fabric quilts will be displayed; the preserve’s quilt celebrating the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary and the preserve’s 20th birthday, along with the local student quilt from 2010. The two fabric quilts and the virtual quilt exhibit will be located in the historic barn from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. all three days.
The year 1920 was a milestone for women as a 72-year struggle came to fruition by the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. Some states had already granted this right to women, such as in Kansas in 1912.
This year’s quilt exhibit will champion this monumental event by featuring former quilts from years past that use the three colors of the suffrage movement, purple, gold, and white along with Kansas’ state flower, the sunflower. In 1867 suffragists in Kansas adopted the sunflower, the state flower, as a symbol of their campaign. From then on, gold became associated with the national women’s suffrage movement. It was described by members of the National Woman’s Party as “the color of light and life, is as the torch that guides our purpose, pure and unswerving.”
Purple came to America as a suffrage color via England, where it represented “the instinct of freedom and dignity.” The National Woman’s Party described the meaning of purple in their purple, white, and gold flag as symbolizing “the color of loyalty, constancy to purpose, unswerving steadfastness to a cause.” To learn more about the 19th Amendment, visit https://www.nps.gov/subjects/womenshistory/19th-amendment.htm and follow the links.
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