Introduction
As I was reading through one of my old Mathematics Teachers’ Journals earlier this year, I came across an article called “Quilt Tessellations and the Underground Railroad” by Sandra A. Lewis. The title of this article piqued my interest. Who knew art, math, and history could have a such a deep connection? Growing up, my parents tried to assimilate as much history as possible into all of our summer vacations. We have traveled to many battlegrounds and have visited many important historical sites along the East Coast. Personally I enjoy a good ghost tour now and then, learning more about the offbeat side of history- the stories that usually aren’t talked about in the history books. When this particular article mentioned that the secret codes in the quilts that helped the enslaved escape to freedom was merely a legend, I was initially shocked. I remember learning in elementary school that quilts were hung up to give messages to the slaves. We read stories about the quilts in English class and in Art, we even made our own quilt blocks. Looking back, I am surprised to now learn this material was presented to students as unarguably true. The mere suggestion that these patterns were not necessarily historically accurate led me to conduct a variety of research about the quilts of the Civil War. As my research deepened, I learned that the quilts served a variety of purposes. The quilts of the Civil War open up many teaching opportunities in a variety of subject classrooms.
-Genni Brzezinski
-Genni Brzezinski