Log Cabin Crib Quilt

It is believed that Anna Ruddick made both this unsigned Log Cabin crib quilt and the signed Nine Patch quilt (1976.198.3). The crib quilt is awkwardly constructed and seems to be the work of a child. The fabrics used to construct it can be dated to the 1870s, the period when Anna would most likely have sewn it. The museum owns a quilt made by Anna’s mother, Susan Reed Ruddick (1976.198.1) and perhaps the six year old looked to her mother’s quilt for inspiration. Anna’s mother died twelve days after giving birth to her and subsequently, Susan’s mother, Elvina Reed, moved to Monticello, New York to take care of her granddaughter. She remained there until Anna’s father, John Ruddick, remarried in 1881.
Although the Museum has a photograph of Anna, we know little about her life. She was married at the age of twenty-four to Stephen Trowbridge (1869--?), the owner of a very successful lumber business. They had three children: Ruddick Trowbridge, who was a machine gunner in World War I and was killed in action in France in 1938, Sherwood "Hop" Trowbridge (1900-1972), and Louise Trowbridge Hamilton (n.ds.). Louise had no children to inherit the family quilts; they were sold in an estate sale that took place after her death, and their purchaser eventually donated them to the Museum.

[Peck 2015; adapted from Amelia Peck, "American Quilts & Coverlets in the Metropolitan Museum of Art," 2007]