Rating: 
Summary: I have a very ambivalent response to this one!
Review: There are some books that are really problematic to review. This is one of them for me. On the positive side, my gut reaction is that there is a lot of truth to the authors' theories, and it presents a compelling way to look at quilts. I will think if the quilt patterns discussed here from a slightly different frame of reference after reading this, and that is, overall, a good thing. This is a also a book that could make history and textiles come alive for someone who is just becoming interested in the underground railroad, quilts, etc.My concern here (and I will be echoing the comments of lots of others who have written reviews) is that the authors' have virtually no corroborative evidence to back up their theories, and this is a major flaw in a book that purports to be a scholarly text. I understand very well that the lack of evidence is probably unavoidable, given the fragility of textiles, particularly from the age and circumstances that these would be, and also given the whole premise of these quilts being "hidden in plain sight." I guess that I would wish that the authors would have framed their discussion with some a discussion of some of this so that their story does not appear to be quite so speculative.
Rating: 
Summary: Great history of Underground Railroad Quilts
Review: This book was outstanding. I learned so much about how the slaves in South Carolina used quilts to teach each other how to escape right under the noses of their masters. I even used the idea in my fifth grade classroom to teach them about slavery and the Underground Railroad and then we made a sampler quilt.
Rating: 
Summary: Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Unde
Review: This story explains how escaping slaves used quilt designs, along with music and stories, as instructional devices for themselves and others on the Underground Railroad. The story began as a result of information received from an African American quilter named Ozella McDaniel Williams in South Carolina, which Ozella had received through her family. It tells how certain designs have certain meanings, telling the slaves when they should be ready to leave, what trails they were to take, and what they were ultimately to do once they were on free land. Interspersed throughout this new information, are references to old spirituals, groups, and individuals who helped the slaves escape to the North. When I first began to read the book, I was actually quite interested, as I had never heard the story before. However, it became somewhat of a struggle to finish; at times the book seemed repetitive, or I got the feeling that the authors had to stretch their imaginations too much to get their desired end-result. Despite this change of heart, I did find the story quite enjoyable. The existence of such a code may be hard to swallow for historians and others in our society, but the possibility of its truth make the story worth reading.
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