I had to do a good bit of sleuthing to find the origin of the name of this quilt block. I was actually hoping I would discover that it had something to do with Melville Dewey, the creator of the Dewey Decimal System. Instead, it was named after Admiral George Dewey, who won an important naval battle during the Spanish-American War. It surprised me even more to find that Admiral Dewey has not one but at least five quilt blocks named for him: Mrs. Dewey’s Choice, The Dewey Block, The Dewey, Dewey’s Victory and the one you see here. It’s sad, really. Five different quilt blocks to honor an admiral who wasn’t even important enough to show up in any of my American History textbooks. And not a single one named after the fellow who gave us the clever numbering system that helped me find that admiral in the first place!
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