The Vintage News has and interesting article on how the above quilt made in 1870 by school teacher, Ellen Hardy Baker, to teach her students at that time about the solar system.
To put it in perspective. This would have been a few years after the Civil War and before women had the right to vote. All grades would be taught in a one room schoolhouse, usually be one teacher. There as no indoor plumbing or electrical and likely heated with a stove or fireplace. The thought we would ever go in to space was only a fantasy..
Yet this young woman's forward thinking created a quilt as a teaching tool to teach her students was was known at the time about the solar system. It is because of women like her that space travel went from science fiction to Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon, unmanned missions to Mars, probes to other planets and even Voyager 1 that inadvertently left our galaxy.
The quilt is currently housed at the Smithsonian National History Museum.
For the full article on The Vintage News, click here
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