MOURNING AND MEANING THROUGH CLOTH: A Textile Study Seminar
Speaker Biographies
KEYNOTE SPEAKER, Polly Mello
“Quilts That Go Bump in the Night”
Polly Mello is a quilt historian and collector, and has been collecting
quilts for 40 years.
Quilts in her collection have been showcased in magazines, books,
major quilt shows and quilt museums. Her collection of over 200
quilts focuses on pre-1850 chintz and applique, crib, redwork, and
early 20th Century designer quilts. Her favorite grouping to collect
are the infamous macabre quilts that “go bump in the night”.
Polly is a member of The American Quilt Study Group and has
presented several Quilt Study Centers at AQSG’s annual conferences.
She belongs to three local study groups; Hazel Carter’s Dating Club,
The Eastern Shore Quilt Study Group, and FVF (Fran’s Vintage Friends) Study Group. Polly is the
author of three articles for Quilter’s Newsletter Magazine, as well as of the quilt history column
for The Baltimore Applique Society, of which she is a past president.
When she is not collecting antique quilts, Polly is an award winning quilt maker and designer.
Most recently, her quilt “Deep Within My Heart Lies a Melody: A Memory of Texas”, won 2nd
place in the Texas Independence Award and the In Full Bloom display at the 2011 Houston Quilt
Show.
Polly is a retired Registered Nurse and graduate of The University of Texas at San Antonio. She
now resides in Elkridge, Maryland with her husband and Chihuahua. Her five grandsons are
waiting with bated breath to see who inherits the quilt collection and will be charged with
building a museum for all to continue to see Geema’s quilts!
OPENING SPEAKER, Dr. Craig Thompson Friend
“In Memoriam: Mourning in America”
Dr. Craig Friend is a CHASS Distinguished Graduate
Professor and Director of Public History at North Carolina
State University in Raleigh, NC. He is co-editor and a
contributor to Death and the American South, as well as the
author or contributing editor of six other books on Southern
and early American history.
Craig’s academic interests are two-fold: In Public History,
they are in public memory and commemoration, family and
community history, and the history of public history. In
Traditional History, Craig researches in the early American republic and Old South, issues of
identity and commemoration, gender and masculinity, and death culture. His research has been
funded by the Winterthur Museum and Library, the Filson Historical Society, and the Pew
Charitable Trusts.
Dr. Karin J. Bohleke
“Crape and Bombazine: Mourning Fashions for Women”
Dr. Karin Bohleke is the Director of the Fashion Archives and
Museum of Shippensburg University in Shippensburg, PA. She
holds a Ph.D. in French language and literature from Yale
University, and also serves periodically as an assistant adjunct
professor of French at Shippensburg in addition to teaching in
Shippensburg’s Applied History Master’s program.
Karin has presented her continuing research at annual symposia
of the Costume Society of America and has published in Dress,
The Daguerreian Annual, American Periodicals, Civil War Historian
and The Citizens’ Companion. Her research interests focus on the
nineteenth century, and include fashion, early photography, preTutankhamun Egyptomania fashions for women, the dissemination of French fashions in the
United States, and women’s travel accounts of journeys to Egypt. Her current research project
involves the study of clothing in nineteenth-century photos of African Americans, both enslaved
and free.
Karin resides near Gettysburg, PA, and continues to pursue her interests in historic fashions,
needle arts, languages, social dance, and nineteenth-century women’s travel accounts.
Sheryl DeJong
“Memorial Pictures and Samplers”
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Sheryl DeJong began volunteering at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
in 1998 in the Textile Collection. One of her primary projects has been to prepare the
Museum’s collection samplers, embroidered pictures, and Victorian needlework pieces online
where they can available for all to enjoy.
Sheryl has written articles about the textiles with which she has worked for Fine Lines,
Needlepointers, Needle Arts, Piecework Magazine, and Sampler and Antique Needlework
Quarterly. Sheryl also writes regularly for the Smithsonian’s Blog, “O’ Say Can You See”.
Hugo Kohl
“Jewelry for Mourning”
Hugo Kohl is the founder and owner of Hugo Kohl Vintage
Jewelry Boutique and The Museum of American Jewelry
Design & Manufacturing in Downtown Harrisonburg.
Trained as an apprentice under numerous master
goldsmiths, Hugo combined a love for the history of
jewelry manufacturing with his skill for jewelry design in
his one-of-a-kind museum and store. The museum’s
elevated floor plan allows people to browse the retail store
while watching artisans create in the workshop below, and
boasts over 7,000 original jewelry hubs and dies, the
largest collection in the United States.