Submitted photo This is a closeup of a portion of one of the coverlets featured in the exhibition “Quilts & Coverlets: Art for the American Home” at the Kent State University Museum.

Kent State University Museum celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with two textile exhibitions opening Friday.

“Quilts & Coverlets: Art for the American Home” features 14 figured coverlets and five quilts from the Kent State University Museum collection. The exhibition highlights the differing forms of labor, artistry and technological innovation that defined these two related textile traditions.

While quilts were largely created through women’s domestic labor and social collaboration, coverlets were woven by professional male weavers using increasingly sophisticated loom technologies introduced through immigration and industrialization.

The exhibition includes a rare display of the Keckley quilt, attributed to Elizabeth Keckley, the formerly enslaved personal dressmaker to first lady Mary Todd Lincoln. The quilt, purported to incorporate fabric from Lincoln’s garments, features motifs including eagles and symbols of liberty and offers a powerful connection between textile history, politics and national identity.

According to Curator Sara Hume, “The parallel histories of quilts and coverlets reflect a period of rapidly changing technology, growing industrialization and the emergence of a more coherent national American culture during the early 19th century. These textiles offer a valuable way to understand how ideas about labor, craftsmanship and identity were expressed through objects made for the home.”

Opening alongside the exhibition is “Chintz: From Forbidden Fabric to Luxury Interiors,” a student-curated exhibition organized by Olivia Carpenter, collections fellow and a graduate student in Kent State’s School of Information.

Presented in the museum’s new Learning Lab, the exhibition traces chintz from its origins as richly colored cotton textiles imported from India to its later adoption by European and American luxury fabric houses, where floral printed fabrics became enduring symbols of refinement, prestige and design innovation.

Both will be on display through April 18, 2027, at the Kent State University Museum, 515 Hilltop Drive, Kent. An opening reception is scheduled at 5 p.m. today that will include a concert of American music by the student string quartet Cardinal Quarter at 5:30 p.m.

Museum hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 4 p.m. Sunday.

Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for senior citizens and $5 for children ages 5 to 18 and free on Sundays. For more information, go to www.kent.edu/museum or call 330-672-3450.