Adeline Harris Sears

Adeline Harris Sears (April 7, 1839 – 1931) was an American quilt maker, best known for creating a quilt with autographs of several public figures around that time. 

Adeline Harris Sears was born on April 7, 1839, in Arcadia, Rhode Island, the youngest child of James Toleration Harris (1806-1895) and Sophia Amelia Knight Harris (1812-1887). Her father owned several textile mills in Arcadia. 

Adeline had two siblings, George Harris (1833-1875) and Eleanor Celynda Harris (1835-1897).

Adeline was educated by private tutors in her father's house. In 1856, aged seventeen, Adeline embarked on a quilt-making project that would incorporate autographs of hundreds of public figures of the time. She sent small diamond-shaped pieces of white silk worldwide to people she esteemed as the most important public figures of her day, asking each to sign the silk and return it to her. After she received back the autographed pieces, she stitched them into an all-silk "tumbling-blocks" patterned quilt. 

Sears' quilt featured the signatures of 360 influential individuals including eight American presidents; luminaries from the worlds of science, religion, and education; heroes of the Civil War; major literary people; and an array of prominent artists. The list of people included Jacob Grimm, Alexander von Humboldt, Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Gerrit Smith, Owen Lovejoy, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Sarah Josepha Hale, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Julia Ward Howe, Ann S. Stephens, Caroline Howard Gilman, Lydia Sigourney, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alexandre Dumas, William Makepeace Thackeray, Rembrandt Peale, Hiram Powers, Lilly Martin Spencer, Ulysses S. Grant, and Abraham Lincoln, among several others. 

The project began in 1856 and Sears received most of the autographs between 1856 and 1863. The earliest signature is dated 1856 and the latest 1867. She sewed the entire quilt herself and it is believed that Sears may have continued to work on the quilt well into the 1870s. 

After finishing the quilt, Adeline lived the remainder of her life out of the limelight.

In 1995, the Metropolitan Museum acquired Sears' quilt from her four great-grandchildren. The handmade quilt is now a preserved treasure at The Metropolitan Museum Of Art.

In 1866, while still working on her quilt, Adeline married Yale graduate Lorenzo Sears (1838-1916), an Episcopalian priest who later taught rhetoric and English literature at the University of Vermont, Burlington, in the 1880s before becoming a Professor at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.

The couple had four children, only one of whom, Sophie Harris Sears (1872-1949), survived infancy.

Sears died on May 10, 1931, in Providence, Rhode Island, at the age of 92. She is buried at Swan Point Cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island.