A few weeks ago, a lovely woman named Anne Crew dropped a gift for Bruce here at the Center.
Now, let me say up front: at the risk of sounding like a buzzkill, we don’t encourage this. Respectfully, it would cause myriad logistical issues if we agreed to pass things to Bruce. So, we generally do not. We didn’t quite promise that here, either.
BUT.
This handmade quilt really caught our attention, so we said Anne could leave it here and we’d show it to Bruce if the opportunity presented itself. Titled We Are Alive, after the song on the Wrecking Ball album, the stunning piece was created as part of the Modern Day Heroes Project, which brings quilters together to create collaborative works honoring people they consider contemporary heroes. To date, the group has created quilts honoring the likes of Bishop Mariann Budde, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, historian Heather Cox Richardson, journalist Rachel Maddow, and Dr. Anthony Fauci. Earlier this year, several of the group’s quilts were displayed at the Road to Virginia quilt show, honoring figures from a variety of fields. We Are Alive, designed by Berene Campbell, was created to honor Springsteen for his music and his advocacy for working people.
So, in September, Anne hand-delivered the quilt to us here at the Center on behalf of the many people who contributed to its creation. It is a beautiful object, but what interests me just as much as the finished quilt is what it represents.
Quilts have long served as more than functional objects. They commemorate people and events, preserve memories, express political and social ideas, and bring individual contributions together into a collective whole. In that sense, We Are Alive feels like a particularly appropriate tribute to Bruce.
One of the things we think about constantly at the Center is the role fans have played in this history. Bruce Springsteen’s extraordinary career has now spanned more than half a century, and generations of listeners have carried these songs into their own lives. They have found themselves in the characters, places, struggles, losses, hopes, and promises within them. They have formed friendships and communities around the music. They have collected photographs, ticket stubs, posters, recordings, stories, and memories, and, increasingly, we are working to preserve those stories alongside the more traditional archival materials in our collections.
That is part of the thinking behind our new Fan Stories Oral History Program. If we want future generations to understand the history of Bruce Springsteen, it isn’t enough to document what happened onstage. We also need to document what happened on the other side of the footlights.
The We Are Alive quilt does something similar in physical form.
Many hands contributed to this single object. Each person brought something of themselves to it, but together those individual contributions became something larger. There is something wonderfully fitting about that idea in the context of Springsteen fandom.
To Donna and the many quilters who contributed their time, talent, and considerable care to this project: thank you. We are honored that you chose the Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music as the home for this remarkable expression of appreciation, and grateful that Anne made the journey to deliver it to us personally.
The quilt is now part of another story: that of the ever-growing record of the ways Bruce Springsteen’s music has inspired people not simply to listen, but to respond, create, connect, and make something of their own.
And that is a story well worth preserving!
Postscript: Why am I writing about this quilt today? My new friends Dave Koenig and Bob Yanofsky, who know Donna DeSoto and some of the other folks behind the making of the quilt, stopped by the Center today to ask: Has the quilt been given to Bruce? Is it on display? I think they half feared I wouldn’t know what they were talking about, but I was delighted to bring them into our green room and show them the quilt is indeed there waiting to be shown to Bruce.
I guess you could say that the story of this particular quilt is still being stitched together.
Melissa Kozlowski
Director of Curatorial Affairs
Bruce Springsteen Center for American Music
Monmouth University
November 1, 2026
