Patricia Crews Willa Cather Professor of Textiles & Founding Director Emeritus of the International Quilt Museum

1984 Ph.D., Textile Science and Conservation, Kansas State University
1973 M.S., Textile Science, Florida State University
1971 B.S., Fashion Design and Merchandising, Virginia Tech

My research interests are focused in two areas: expanding knowledge about American textile history particularly through the study of quilts and quiltmaking traditions; and textile conservation and conservation science.   I have published more than seventy papers concerning the history, conservation and performance of textiles.

My books include Nebraska Quilts and Quiltmakers, which won the Smithsonian’s Frost Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Crafts in 1993; American Quilts in the Modern Age, 1870-1940  (University of Nebraska Press, 2009) and  Wild by Design:  Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts (University of Nebraska Press, 2003).  Wild by Design won the 2004 Textile Society of America’s R. L. Shep Award for best book in the field. 

Currently, I am working on a book entitled American Quilts in the Industrial Age, 1750-1870.  It is the prequel to American Quilts in the Modern Age and will feature the earliest American quilts in the International Quilt Museum’s collections.