According to current models, 19th century American quilts are presented as simple objects of cultural heritage or considered for their similarities to other forms of modern art. This thesis follows a three part approach in order to study these objects which are valuable sources of historical information in their full context. This approach includes the historical, social/aesthetic, and material contexts of the objects. The topic of the study is the quilts of the Bethel and Aurora colonies, 19th century Christian "utopian" sects in Missouri and Oregon. While societies such as the Bethel and Aurora colonies shunned many aspects of modernization, quilts appear to be an area of connection with the outside world. The quilts serve as material evidence for the tension between communal and secular worldviews in the colonies.

The gravemarkers of the Aurora Colony Cemetery offer a means of examining identity and change within this early Oregon utopian community. Led by charismatic Wilhelm Keil and composed predominantly of people of German heritage, the members of the Aurora Colony sought to distance themselves from worldly influences through emigration to the Willamette Valley. In existence from 1856 to 1883, they sought to maintain shared cultural practices while, as farmers and artisans, relying simultaneously upon inclusive commerce with the outside world. Contextual analysis of this mortuaryscape provides a venue for understanding the interplay of separatist ideology and extralocal forces among Colony members and the following generation of their descendants. Artifactual data from relationships found among their mortuary objects reflects patterns of change in material, typology, composition, and language spanning the years 1862-1920. Subsequently, such objects express the tide of acculturation and dissolution experienced within the Colony.