Published February 1993 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Revitalizing a Traditional West Virginia Art and Enterprise
I long ago lost patience with the fashion in which some federal agencies seem mindlessly to exploit our country's assets to the advantage of foreign interests. Recently, I was able, in part, to help alter that process. Since the Colonial era, quilting has been an American art, particularly in rural states like West Virginia, where quilting skills have been handed down through families for generations. Last year, the Smithsonian Institution, one of our country's premier cultural agencies, entered into a three-year agreement that led to the production of several thousand quilts -reproductions of classic American designs- by Chinese manufacturers. Under this agreement, the Chinese were to produce between 30,000 to 90,000 quilts for sale in the United States by domestic companies, including retail stores and direct-mail firms such as Land's End. This contract set off a firestorm of protest among American quilters, and prompted me to contact Smithsonian officials to urge them to identify ways to ensure that American quilts are produced by American quilters. At my request, representatives from the Smithsonian and from Land's End met in my Charleston office with representatives from Cabin Creek Quilts Cooperative of Malden, West Virginia, to explore ways for utilizing the talents of West Virginia quilters. As a result, Cabin Creek Quilts signed a $40,000 contract to produce 100 reproduction quilts for Land's End. With fifty percent of the quilts sold out ten days after the release of the Land's End catalogue featuring the quilts, Land's End has extended Cabin Creek Quilts' contract for 1993 and has expanded the project to a minimum of five different quilt patterns, plus small-product development. Further, I have re• quested the U.S. Department of Commerce to work with Cabin Creek Quilts to explore even more marketing possibilities. Quilting is a West Virginia art that Cabin Creek Quilts is developing into a "cottage industry." I commend the quitters of this industrious West Virginia cooperative. West Virginians can be genuinely proud of these neighbors who are helping to recapture American markets for goods created in our state by our own people, and earning a well-deserved remuneration for their efforts. February 17, 1993