54-40 or Fight

Mid-20th-century quilt from an online auction

The pattern is mysterious at first---all those checkerboards and tulip shapes.

But if you go to a corner you can usually find the repeat block.

It's one of those nine-patch stars with long, spiky points that I've been posting about.

Kansas City Star, 1940

Mahala Prescott of Maine, Mass Quilts & the Quilt Index

It seems to have been a popular pattern in the 1890-1920 period

when these gray, black and navy blue prints were also popular.

From the Iowa Project

A typical example of turn-of-the-century style.

New York Project

Mid-20th century

Ruth Finley told us in her 1929 book it was called Fifty-Four Forty or Fight, without any further discussion. Quilters have assumed the name refers to a political slogan about a U.S./Canada border dispute in the 1840s.

The Moore About Nancy blogger recently wrote about this pattern, published with that name in 1933 by Nancy Cabot in the Chicago Tribune.

"Nancy Cabot however refers to it as a battle between Russia, England and the U.S over Alaska in 1884! I'm not sure what she is talking about. She also mentions that women of the period (1844) 'had no effective outlet for their political opinions' and that this block is the 'spontaneous expression of patriotic American women'."

http://nancycabotsewalong.blogspot.com/2013/03/fifty-four-forty-or-fight-quilt-block.html

All which is pretty typical of the historical myths that quilt pattern writers like Finley and Loretta Leitner (Nancy Cabot) relied upon to fill up space.

The pattern just is not that old. The earliest publication I've yet found is in the booklet published about 1910 under the name Clara Stone, where it's called Grandma's Star. That may be the source for those blue, gray and black quilts from the era.

Finley may have been thinking of the basic spiky-pointed star, this

dated example from a pair of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania pillow cases.

But that basic pattern has no checkerboards in corners or center.

From a set of blocks dated 1843 in the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The default name for the block with 5 four-patches and a spiky star is

54-40 or Fight.

No one calls it Grandma's Star or the Railroad.

Emily Pruett Butler, Arizona Project

Emily would not be thrilled to see how her mid-20th-century quilt has faded but it gives one ideas about making some of the stars dominant and others background.

Here's a link to a free 12" pattern.

https://www.quiltingcompany.com/Quilt/pattern-54-40-or-fight-lap-quilt/

I imported BlockBase 1627b into Electric Quilt 8.

49 blocks 12"

84" Square

Alternating a dark block and a lighter block

Shading it medallion style

Stars with Long, Spiky Points

Too bad the blues faded. This early 20th-century-quilt just out of the frame would have

been some quilt. 

The pattern is BlockBase #1623: Sun Rays. I've done a few posts on these spiky stars as a setting pattern rather than a block:

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2019/02/stars-in-sashing.html

The blue version above looks like the patterns is in the block set on point.

Here's the block (with the points chopped off)

Not that common

See a post on a variation we call 54-40 Or Fight

Ooops

Only published once??!

Here it is in BlockBase #1623

I gave it an apostrophe as if it belonged to Ray, but it should be Sun Rays Quilt.

I have pictures of the design going back to the 1840s

Block in the Philadelphia Museum of Art

A variation?

I have just a few published patterns in this seam structure,

a nine patch with spiky points. Probably because the star points are harder

to cut than a simple half-square triangle. The block design may have been

adapted from the earlier setting pattern.

Variations as Blocks

Encyclopedia of Pieced  Quilt Patterns

BlockBase

Simple but interesting when set allover.

  

I've never seen a quilt made in BlockBase#1629 Dove at the Window,

printed in the Kansas City Star in 1945.

But this unnamed variation was popular around 1900.

It must have been published.

We'll call it BlockBase #1628

I drew it in EQ8

as a 12" block

25 blocks gives you a 60" square quilt

Cutting a 12" Block

A Cut 4 squares (2 light, 2 dark) 4-7/8". Cut each in half diagonally. You need 8 triangles.

B  Cut 2 squares (1 light, 1 dark) 5-1/8". Cut each into 4 triangles with two diagonal cuts. You need 4 triangles.

For D & C

Alternate with a 12" block with the corners cut off.

And one last variation in an odd top made of glazed solid

color fabrics. Date???

The pattern has many possibilities

If you rotate the HST corners in the pattern you'd get this

look.

Rotating every other block one turn would give you

a complicated all over design.

Another Sash & Block Design with Spiky Points

From the Rocky Mountain Quilt Shop

I showed a version of this star design with the pattern in the sashing and plain white blocks here:

https://encyclopediaquiltpatterns.blogspot.com/2019/02/stars-in-sashing.html

It's BlockBase #1059.5

Robert Bishop pictured an antique version and called it "Eight Pointed Star."

Antique from about 1840-1860 that I used to own.

It's a great pattern to show off some quilting.

The main difference between the two BlockBase numbers is that here the cornerstone is pieced as a square in a square.

The formula:  

Sashing is a rectangle half the size of the plain block.

If the plain white block is 10", the sashing finishes to 5" x 10". The cornerstone is 5".

From a Carlie Sexton pattern booklet in the 1920s:

Sashing for a circular design.

You can extend the star points by making the sashing longer in proportion.

Instead of 10 x 5" draw it 10 x 6".

Two from online auctions

Above and below, no source.

All these red and white examples look to be from the heyday of red and white quilts

1880-1910.

Although I haven't found a published pattern or name before 1970

it seems to have been passed around.

Emma Justine Goehring from the Michigan Project

Two from the Quilt Index

 Mary Larkin Moriarty from the Iowa Project