Ardis Butler James

(1925- ) born at Lincoln, lived at Omaha. Homemaker, collector of antique and contemporary art quilts since 1979, she co-founded with her husband Robert G. James, an Ord native, the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1997, with a donation of almost 1,000 quilts and $1 million; this is the nation’s first—and only—university-sponsored quilt center. Consult Omaha World Herald, April 24, 1997, p. 17 and May 10, 1998, pp. E-1, E-2 and Ord Quiz, May 1, 1997, p. 1 and Kansas City Star, August 23, 1997, pp. E-1, E-2 and Atlanta Journal-Constitution, December 24, 2000, p. A-6 and Omaha World Herald, April 14, 2005, pp. B-1, B-2. See also Wild by Design: Two Hundred Years of Innovation and Artistry in American Quilts (University of Washington Press, 2003) and International Quilt Study Center website at www.quiltstudy.org.

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