Some years back the Smithsonian Institution decided to allow a limited number of reproductions of certain quilts in its collection to be made. The company chosen -- without bidding, without an announcement that the repros were coming -- had the quilts made in prisons in China.

The US quilting community hit the ceiling and went right through it! No attempt was made to contact the Cabin Creek Quilt Cooperative in West Virginia or the quilters on the Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation, both of which could have done the job better and cheaper, helped economically depressed people in the US, and avoided putting money in the pockets of Chinese prison wardens utilizing slave labor for the task.

I don't think that the SI will make that mistake again.