Old Glories
From handwoven bed coverlets made in home workshops to anonymous factory productions, the coverlets in the McCarl Collection embody the transition from cottage industry to factory automation over the course of the 19th century. How people made coverlets explores this transition through the lives of the people who made and used these beautiful antique textiles. The exhibit consisted of 23 coverlets, 19th century textile equipment, and excerpts from Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.
How people made coverlets was open from September 21, 2023 through February 29th, 2024. The Foster and Muriel McCarl Coverlet Gallery is located in the Fred Rogers Center on the campus of Saint Vincent College. Admission and parking are free. The McCarl Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and by appointment. Guided tours are also available.
The Original Old Glory
“Old Glory” has been a common nickname for the national flag of the United States nearly two centuries. The name was first coined by Captain William Driver, an American merchant seaman, in reference to the maritime flag that flew on his ship Charles Doggett.
The original Old Glory was sewn in 1824 by Driver’s mother and other women from his hometown of Salem, Massachusetts. It measured 10 feet tall by 17 feet long and featured just 24 stars at the time. Over the course of his career, Captain Driver sailed all over the world to China, India, Gibraltar, and the South Pacific. In 1831, Driver relocated 65 descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers from Tahiti back to their home on Pitcairn Island. This act was widely publicized, which may have helped his flag to become a household name.
In 1837 Captain Driver retired to Nashville, Tennessee, where two of his brothers were living. According to his daughter, Mary Jane Roland, he continued to fly his maritime flag on holidays “rain or shine” by hanging it on a rope that went from his attic to a tree across the street. The Driver family repaired the flag in 1860 and added ten new stars for the states that had joined the Union in the intervening years.
After Tennessee seceded from the Union during the Civil War, local Confederates made several attempts to confiscate Driver’s American flag. All attempts to search the Driver household were thwarted, however, by the unique hiding place devised by the captain and his wife—inside the cover on his bed.
The Story of Captain Driver’s Flag
Nashville was retaken from the Confederates by Union General William “Bull” Nelson on February 25, 1862. A famous incident occurred shortly afterward involving Captain Driver (ret.) and the Union flag. The following account was provided by a Union soldier on Nelson’s staff who observed the events of the morning.
The 6th Ohio hoisted its flag at the Capitol about 9:00 o’clock, before [Union General] Nelson arrived. Soon after he reached the Capitol about 9:00 o’clock, a man, pushing through the crowd with a bedquilt on his arm, asked who was the commanding officer. He introduced himself as Captain Driver, a Salem, Mass. sea captain and a solid Union man. When satisfied that General Nelson was the commanding officer, he began to rip open the bedquilt he carried and, pulling out an American flag, he exclaimed, “Here is the flag that the rebel, Governor Harris, pulled down from the State Capitol and which I have prayed to see put back there again. It has covered my wife and me; for a year we have slept under the Stars and Stripes.” With cheers the old flag was hoisted and Nashville’s capitol was thenceforth under American colors.
Captain Driver told General Nelson that he had come to Nashville before the war and settled there. When Tennessee joined the Confederacy, Captain Driver was too old to fight and told the authorities he was a Union man and would continue to be one, but would remain a noncombatant. When our flag was hauled down from the Capitol at Nashville, in some way Captain Driver got hold of it and hurried home; telling his wife to rip open their bed coverlet, put the flag in it, and sew it up. When it was learned that the flag had disappeared, the Confederates naturally suspected Captain Driver and hunted high and low through Captain Driver’s house but never found it. In recognition of Captain Driver’s devotion to the Union cause, General Nelson had the flag of the 6th Ohio hauled down and gave Captain Driver the honor of raising the Stars and Stripes over the Capitol. That night Captain Driver slept at the foot of the flag pole to make sure that nothing happened to the flag.
Horace Cecil Fisher (1960)
The Personal Experiences of Colonel Horace Newton Fisher in the Civil War
Was it a Quilt or a Coverlet?
The word coverlet or coverlid has been used in English since the 14th century. It appears to derive from Old French covrir ‘to cover’ + lit ‘bed.’ Historically, it referred to the topmost layer of bedding, regardless of what it looked like or how it was made.
Today, textile historians use the word coverlet to refer more specifically to a decorative bed cover that has been handwoven on a loom, as opposed to one made by another method, such as quilting. A quilt is made by sewing two layers of cloth together with a layer of batting in between. At least one of the cloth layers is typically pieced together from multiple fabrics in order to form a pattern. In a handwoven coverlet, the weaver forms the pattern row-by-row during the weaving process. No sewing of fabric pieces or layers is involved.
Various accounts of Captain Driver’s story use the terms “bedquilt” and “bed coverlet” interchangeably. The real events must have involved a handsewn quilt, not a handwoven coverlet. Although many woven coverlets do involve double layers of cloth, these layers are woven together inseparably and cannot be ripped open to hide something inside.
You don’t see quilts on display in the McCarl Gallery today. Our collection focuses on the handwoven coverlets of early to mid-19th century America. These coverlets were typically made of cotton and wool and woven by professional male weavers.