The Alliance for American Quilts brings together quiltmakers and designers, the quilt industry, quilt scholars and teachers, and quilt collectors in the cause of documenting, preserving, and sharing our great American quilt heritage. We are committed to collecting the rich stories that historic and contemporary quilts tell about our nation's diverse people and communities.

The Alliance's 25-member Board of Directors collaborates with partners and volunteers around the counry to:

• Increase understanding of the quilt as an important American grassroots art form that transcends many backgrounds and heritages.
• Engage Americans everywhere in the documentation of quilts of the 20th century to save information that otherwise will be lost.
• Make quilt research and information available to a broad and eager public.

Our Projects

The Alliance develops projects and carries them out in partnership with museums, universities, and grassroots quilt guilds around the country:

	The Center For The Quilt Online: America's quilt home on the Internet - the place where the rich material of Alliance projects comes together to inform, educate, and connect people everywhere with America's quilt heritage.
	Quilters' S.O.S. - Save Our Stories: A national grassroots oral history project to capture the stories and culture of today's quilt makers. The transcribed interviews, photographs, and easy-to-download how-to manual are widely available through Center For The Quilt Online. A partnership with the Regional Center For the Quilt at the Center for American Material Culture Studies, University of Delaware.
	Quilt Treasures: A special oral history project to document the lives, work, and influence of the leaders of the American quilt revival of the 1960's and 70's-and to develop multi-media presentations on Center For The Quilt Online. A partnership with the Regional Center For the Quilt at the Michigan State University Museum and the Library of Congress American Folklife Center.
	Boxes Under the Bed™: A national project to train local researchers to identify and rescue quilt-related items such as letters, clippings, patterns, etc. in need of preservation. Inventories will be made available on Center For The Quilt Online. A pending partnership with the Center for American History, University of Texas to develop a Regional Center For the Quilt.
	The Quilt Index: An on-line resource, using the power of the Internet to make information about quilts available to people everywhere, providing unique, unprecedented access to unpublished documentation on American quilts and quilt making. A partnership with MATRIX: the Center for Humane Arts and Letters OnLine and the MSU Museum based at Michigan State University, and funding by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Other participating Index partners include the Illinois State Museum, the University of Louisville Archives and Records Center, the Tennessee State Library, the Library of Congress American Folklife Center, The Kentucky Quilt Project, Inc., and Quilts of Tennessee.
	H-Quilts: An online discussion network enabling continuous sharing among individuals engaged in quilting research and documentation. This moderated discussion list provides a forum for raising issues, reporting findings, and sharing information about quilt exhibitions, collections, publications, research projects, and other topics within a virtual worldwide community of subscribers. A partnership with American Quilt Study Group and MATRIX: the Center for Humane Arts and Letters OnLine.

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