Trifles Visions of America Quotes

All this stuff about the cherry preserves gives us a nice detail of rural America at the time. This is a time when people were way less likely to go buy a jar of cherries from the store. Folks grew the cherries themselves and jarred the cherries themselves to boot. These days, there is lots of buzz about locally grown foods, but in the time of the play it was just the way of life.

This mention of the Ladies Aid gives a tasty slice of American history. (We say tasty because these ladies may well have been the inventors of bake sales.) These women's organizations actually started during the Civil War, when women in the North and South formed groups to help send medical supplies and other must-have to the troops.

After the war, Ladies Aid groups stuck around and put their energy towards lots of other charitable causes. They also were important to early feminists since they showed the big things women could achieve when they organized.  In the time of the play, the Ladies Aid was one of the few places where women were allowed to congregate without their husbands snooping around, so it's extra sad that Mrs. Wright didn't take part.

She was making a quilt, huh? Talk about Americana-rama. It's like we just stepped into a Cracker Barrel. Just like with the cherry preserves, this quilt making gives us the flavor of a time in America when many more people created with their hands.