Appealing Yet Absurd

I have been looking for information on the traditional House or Schoolhouse block.

House Block  from Malaga 1937

The house block appeared in quilts at the end of the 19^th century.  It was firstly called Log Cabin, then Old Kentucky Home, Old Folks at Home or Lincoln’s Log Cabin.

I discovered that it was first called Little Red Schoolhouse in 1929 by Ruth Finley in “Old Patchwork Quilts and the Women Who Made Them.” I went to my bookshelf to see if Finley had any more information on the pattern. 

I discovered that Finley wasn’t a big fan of this block.  In her opinion the pattern was “appealing yet absurd”.  She dates it as a “new” pattern, i.e. appearing after 1870.

Finley mourned the demise of quality needlework due in part to the Victorian era.

“… no well-known pattern was evolved after 1880…. As a universal medium of feminine expression, quilt-making ceased to exist.  It vanished in the general night, as it were, of hideousness.”  page 196-197

My House blocks - "appealing yet absurd"

I wonder what Ruth Finley thought of Sunbonnet Sue?