Codes in Quilts

In Hidden in Plain View, a 1999 book, the authors speculated that pre-Civil War quilt patterns were stitched using a code to guide those escaping from slavery on the Underground Railroad. Talk shows and newspaper articles spread the theory as fact and there were even quilt exhibits promoting the idea. We do know that hobos traveling during the Depression sometimes left a mark on a fence to notify others that people in a particular house would give food, money or help. But we always thought the quilt-pattern code was questionable. It takes a long time to make a quilt and it had to be hung outside so it would be seen—and how was the code sent to fleeing slaves? Within five years of the book’s publication, the quilt-code idea was debunked by historians.