RUBY SHORT MCKIM: A 20TH CENTURY BUSINESSWOMAN

While celebrating the 100th anniversary of women’s right to vote, we also honor remarkable businesswomen throughout history. A quilt conversation about early businesswomen is incomplete without mention of quilt designer Ruby Short McKim.

In 1916, as a young woman, Ruby won a quilt design contest. Her winning pattern, , was printed in the newspaper launching her long career as a quilt patterns (1928) and, from 1921 until 1937, twenty-three of her series quilts were syndicated in newspapers across the United States, Canada, and Australia.