Red Cross Quilt, 1941-1945

Rosa Parks's December 1, 1955, refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus led to such successful public action that many consider her act to be the spark that ignited the Civil Rights movement. Yvonne Wells, a self-taught artist and retired schoolteacher, created this pictorial quilt without using patterns or templates.

Find out how the Photo Studio at The Henry Ford applies a little resourcefulness and ingenuity to photograph our extensive collection of quilts in order to share them online.

Learn more about quilts that The Henry Ford has recently digitized and added to its Digital Collections.

Learn the story behind the "Nude is Not a Color" quilt, created in 2017, and hear from the worldwide community of women who gathered virtually to take a stand against racial bias. You can see it for yourself on exhibit as part of What We Wore in Henr