Harriet Powers (October 29, 1837 – January 1, 1910) was an American folk artist and quilter born into slavery in rural northeast Georgia. Powers used traditional appliqué techniques to make quilts that expressed local legends, Bible stories, and astronomical events. Powers married young and had a large family. After the American Civil War and emancipation, she and her husband became landowners by the 1880s, but lost their land due to financial problems.
Only two of her quilts are known to have survived: Bible Quilt 1886 and Pictorial Quilt 1898. Her quilts are considered among the finest examples of nineteenth-century Southern quilting. Her work is on display at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts
Powers was born into slavery in 1837 near Athens, Georgia. She is believed to have spent her early life on a plantation as an enslaved person, owned by John and Nancy Lester in Madison County and learned to sew from other enslaved persons or from her female enslaver.
In 1855, at the age of eighteen, Powers married Armstead Powers. They had at least nine children together.
Following the American Civil War, the Powerses and their children were emancipated. On the 1870 census they were recorded as having $300 (~$7,638 in 2025) in personal property, although they did not own land. In terms of occupation, Powers was listed as 'keeping house' and her husband as a 'farmhand.' At this point, three of their children– Amanda, Leon Joe (Alonzo), and Nancy– still lived at home.
By the 1880s Powers and her family owned four acres of land and ran a small farm in Clarke County. In 1886, Powers exhibited her first quilt at the Athens Cotton Fair. After some financial difficulty, Armstead began to slowly sell off tracts of land in the early 1890s, and he ultimately defaulted on his taxes. Despite their financial troubles, the Powerses did not lose their home. Their region had a cash poor, rural economy, and it was difficult for African Americans to collect the cash for taxes and fees.
In 1894, Armstead left Powers; she never remarried and likely supported herself as a seamstress. She remained in Clarke County for most of her life.
Although an 1895 Chicago Tribune article about the Cotton States and International Expo described Powers as ignorant and illiterate, learning Bible stories from "others more fortunate", Powers was literate. Quilt historian Kyra E. Hicks discovered a letter written by Powers while conducting research for her book on the quilter: This I Accomplish: Harriet Powers' Bible Quilt and Other Pieces (2009). The letter was a copy of an 1896 letter from Powers to a prominent woman from Keokuk, Iowa; it shared insights into Powers's life when she was enslaved, how and when she learned to read and write, and descriptions of at least four of her quilts. Powers wrote that she learned Bible stories through her own study of the book.
Powers died on January 1, 1910; and was buried in the Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery in Athens. Her grave was rediscovered in January 2005.
Harriet Powers was born on a plantation in Clarke County, Georgia. During this period, skilled seamstresses were uncommon on plantations and highly valued, leading enslavers to place newspaper advertisements seeking enslaved seamstresses with specialized skills. Enslavers often exploited their labor not only to produce clothing for the plantation but also to sell their work for profit. Given that Powers used a sewing machine, it is likely that she was already sewing professionally from a young age, creating quilts and garments.
Powers exhibited her first quilt, The Bible Quilt, in 1886 at the Athens Cotton Fair. It was here that Jennie Smith, an artist and art teacher from the Lucy Cobb Institute, saw the quilt, which she found to be remarkable, and asked to purchase it. Powers refused to sell, but the two women remained in touch. Four years later, Powers, met with financial difficulties and encouraged by her husband to sell, offered to sell the quilt to Smith for ten dollars; Smith agreed but talked the price down to five dollars (~$179.00 in 2025). Powers vividly explained the imagery on the quilt to Smith– who recorded these explanations, adding notes of her own, in her personal diary. It may be that Smith elaborated on the Christian content in her account. Powers visually communicated with her narrative quilts in themes from her own experience and the techniques from the age-old crafts of African Americans.
Powers' second quilt, The Pictorial Quilt, was made in 1898 and its history is somewhat unclear. One account suggests that it was commissioned by the wives of faculty members of Atlanta University, who had seen the first quilt at the Cotton States Exhibition in Atlanta in 1895, when Powers and her husband had separated. According to another source, the quilt was purchased in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1898.
Whatever its origins, the piece was presented to the Reverend Charles Cuthbert Hall of New York City, who was serving as the vice-chairman of the university's board of trustees at the time. The reverend's heirs sold the quilt to collector Maxim Karolik, who then donated it to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
In an 1896 letter, Powers describes a quilt made in about 1882 that she called The Lord's Supper Quilt. Similarly, records of other quilts exist but it's unclear if they or The Lord's Supper Quilt have survived.
Finished in 1886, The Bible Quilt (measuring 88 in × 73+3⁄4 in, 2,240 mm × 1,870 mm) is constructed out of cotton cloth and arranged in three rows with a total of 11 panels, or squares. Some scenes are given larger panels than others. The quilt has a 'random' quality although the scenes are arranged linearly. The Bible Quilt was made using appliqué techniques, and was both hand and machine sewn.
Looking at the panels from left to right, top to bottom, the stories represented are:
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, in the second creation narrative, Genesis 2:4–3:24.
A continuation, the Garden of Eden with Eve and a son.