QUILTS

1894

X1964.12.03

Arriving in Montana in the early 1890s, Maggie Halbert (c. 1869-1935) taught at a one-room schoolhouse in Beaverhead County, near Dewey. At the turn of the twentieth century, rural teachers effectively ran all day-to-day operations of schools themselves-from teaching classes to chopping firewood for the woodstove. Despite their hard work, female teachers were typically paid twenty percent less than their male colleagues and were forced to resign if they married. Halbert used this quilt-which her mother stitched c. 1894-to keep her students warm when they became ill at school. Halbert only taught for a few years. She married in 1894 and moved to a ranch near Lavon Station in Madison County. In 1964, Halbert's daughter, Susan Hand-who was herself a teacher-donated this quilt to the Society's collections.