Art - Remembering - Agnews State Asylum

87 x 44 inches (221 x 112 cm) 
fabric, cotton batting, thread
Quilting: Sue Fox

Description: A large grainy newspaper photograph of the collapsed buildings at Agnews covers the top third of this large quilt (87 x 44”). Mottled grey fabric fills the next third. On it are quilted bricks falling down. The lower third of the quilt contains the names of 107 inmates who died in Agnews in the 1906 earthquake written on brick colored fabrics.

The San Francisco 1906 earthquake destroyed many buildings at the Agnews Insane Asylum trapping inmates inside the locked wards. Although 107 inmates died, historical accounts of the earthquake ignore this tragedy.

A padded quilted open book, an accompanying small piece, lists the names of all the dead inmates on the left (no photo) and a newspaper quote on the right: “The main building collapsed pinning many of the patients under fallen walls and debris. The padded cells had to be broken open and more dangerous patients were tied to trees on the lawn in lieu of a safer place.”

This quote was my first introduction to this tragedy. The newspaper account states that locals, neither health or law professionals, decided that anyone who did not immediately move and sit where they were told (by these strangers) would be tied to trees and labeled “dangerous.”