In the quilts I had found good objects—hospitable, warm, with soft edges yet resistant, with boundaries yet suggesting a continuous safe expanse, a field that could be bundled, a bundle that could be unfurled, portable equipment, light, washable, long-lasting, colorful, versatile, functional and ornamental, private and universal, mine and thine.
—Radka Donnell-Vogt, U.S. quiltmaker. As quoted in Lives and Works, by Lynn F. Miller and Sally S. Swenson (1981)
An Illinois woman has invented a portable house which can be carried about in a cart or expressed to the seashore. It has also folding furniture and a complete camping outfit.
—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (1842–1903)
“Wotever is, is right, as the young nobleman sveetly remarked wen they put him down in the pension list ‘cos his mother’s uncle’s vife’s grandfather vunce lit the king’s pipe vith a portable tinder-box.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)