Most popular during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Log Cabin quilt blocks have a central square or diamond that is said to represent the hearth or fireplace of the home. The strips of surrounding fabric that emanate from the center square are the “logs.” These quilts are typically foundation pieced, meaning the strips and squares of fabric that make up each block are stitched to a backing square, sometimes made of muslin, and the blocks are then sewn together to form a top.
This pattern afforded opportunities for creativity as quiltmakers designed bedcovers with contrasting colors to create visual effects, transforming square blocks into radiating diamonds, triangles, zigzags, and more. Some of these variations are referred to by such descriptive titles as Windmill Blades, Pineapples, Courthouse Steps, Barn Raising, and Split Rail Fence, among others.
Several theories attempt to explain the origin of the “log cabin” name. Some historians credit William Henry Harrison’s 1840 presidential “Log Cabin Campaign and Hard Cider,” in which he portrayed himself as a simple, rustic man of the people. At the height of the American Civil War in 1863, these quilts were sometimes created to raise funds to support the Union Army, perhaps referencing the one-room cabin in Sinking Spring, Kentucky, where Abraham Lincoln was born. During the 1870s, the United States Centennial celebration may also have inspired nostalgia about the American West and the log cabins typically associated with white settlers.
The Dana-Spencer Textile Galleries at Hat and Fragrance