Samplers — Alexandra Lally Peters

A SAMPLING OF SAMPLERS

FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALEXANDRA PETERS

The Sampler Collection of Alexandra Peters is a researched and curated collection of over 150 samplers, (ever growing!) stitched by girls mostly aged 5-16 between the years of 1698 and 1850. The collection is primarily American, with several British, as well as a few Dutch and French samplers. All are framed in different ways, most under museum glass, (although a few still have their original glass) and many have been conserved by the Textile Conservation Workshop.

“Writing with needles, these sampler creators left us a powerful legacy that opens a window into the early education of girls, who their families were, and how they documented their very existence. ”

— INTERVIEW WITH MARSHAL MILES OF ROBIN HOOD RADIO

This genealogical sampler, made by a free Black girl, (probably one of the younger Heuston daughters, around 1830), shows us the success story of a healthy family with twelve children who educated their daughters, took great risks to look out for others as conductors in the Underground Railroad, and were leaders in their community.

Rhoda Newbury, age 14(1786 – 1874), The Royal Psalmist, Connecticut. Silk on silk, inkRhoda stitched the Biblical King David, thought to have written the Book of Psalms. Charmingly, she pictured The Royal Psalmist in the countryside she knew: northwestern Connecticut, with the spires of a Connecticut church in the background. Her sampler was made at Miss Patten’s School, in Windsor, Connecticut. Photo by Martin Lewis

Lucy Winston (c. 1805), Palemon and Lavine; Connecticut, probaby Hartford. Watercolor and silk on silk, eglomise mat (reverse painted on glass) In this variation of the biblical story of Ruth and Boaz, the sky and the faces are watercolor on silk. Everything else was sewn in a variety of complex and elaborate stitches. The houses in the background are from Hartford, CT.

Jane Ann Chesney (Iddings), age 12 (1816-1889) Warren, Ohio; Silk on linen Made by pioneer girl Jane Chesney, when she was 12 in 1828, showing the grandest building she would have ever seen, the Court House across the street from her home in Warren, Ohio.

Elizabeth Lewis Iddings, age 9 (1827-1849), Made in 1836, Warren, Ohio, Silk on linen. Elizabeth Iddings, Jane’s younger sister-in-law, imitated Jane’s sampler when she was 9, in 1836. Elizabeth also depicted the Warren Court house, but it had already grown much larger as the population of Ohio rapidly expanded. She did not live long, dying in 1849 at the age of 22.

Nancy McDonald (1800) Stern’s Mariah, Pennsylvania. Silk on silk, watercolor, Nancy McDonald misspelled both “Sterne” and “Maria” on her sampler showing “Stern’s Mariah”. Her version of the iconic and often depicted Maria, tragic heroine of the time, wears a fabulous Neoclassical dress, with flounces of silk. A girl in Chester County, Pennsylvania, or somewhere nearby, sewed a pictorial sampler of Pomona wearing similar silk flounces, so she must have attended the same school as Nancy. This style had been influenced by the court of Marie Antoinette, but fashion changed quite dramatically after the French Revolution in 1789, to become looser and less grand. Based on the painting by Angelica Kaufmann.

Nancy also made this beautiful fruit basket with carrots growing sideways underneath it and what would have been an exotic and rare pineapple, in 1799.

Polly Rice, age 11 (1804 – 1882), Northboro, Massachusetts. Silk on linen. Made at the Monson Academy, Massachusetts. Polly (Mary) was the fourth, and Lois the tenth, of 13 children. Born thirteen years apart, they each sewed their sampler in the same style at age eleven. Lois specifically mentions Monson Academy on her linsey-woolsey sampler, a private school still in existence today.

Lois C. Rice, age 11 (1815 – 1890), Silk on linsey-woolsey.

Mary Sparhawk, age 9 (1797-1869) Marblehead, Massachusetts
Silk on linsey-woolsey

Collector’s note: Several girls in Marblehead notably created exceptional samplers very much like Mary Sparhawk’s (including Sally Pickman Turner and Mary leFavour). They are all stitched in silk on linsey-woolsey, a mix of linen and wool that is usually dyed an olive-grey-green. They follow a similar pattern, with a woman holding a parasol, a man in a striking pose, and sheep, birds and a dog. Sadly, I saw a sampler of this group with an ugly anti-semitic phrase, so I won’t even mention that girl.

Mary’s sampler is pictured in “Girlhood Embroideries”, by the scholar Betty Ring, where you can see that it was sagging in its frame. So much for being highly valued - it was sagging even more when I found it 27 years after the Ring book was published. I had it conserved by the Textile Conservation Workshop. I’m looking out for you, Mary Sparhawk.

Elizabeth Huxtable, age 17 (1780 – 1874) Buckland Brewer, Devon, England.Silk on silk. Sister of Sally Huxtable.

Sally Huxtable, age 10 (1787 – 1862) Buckland Brewer, Devon, England. Silk on silk, Sister of Elizabeth HuxtableSisters stay together: Elizabeth, 7 years older, left a date on her sampler that gave important clues to finding her family. Sally (Sarah) Huxtable might have been impossible to place if her sampler had not traveled for 200 years with her sister Elizabeth’s.

Jerusha King Seymour, age 5, (1796 – 1833) Hartford, Connecticut. Silk on linen. Jerusha’s baby sister Lucy Bliss Seymour brought joy to a house of grief, born a few months after their father had died. The sampler was likely made by five year old Jerusha in 1797 when Lucy was 8 months old, because it is marked “July 13″, although the year has been picked out. Tragically, their mother died when little Lucy was 15 months old and Jerusha six, and then baby Lucy herself died three weeks later. Originally from the collection of Glee Krueger.

Ann Thomson (Jarrett), age 14 (1800-1885) Westtown Globe
Montgomery County, Pennsylvania
Silk and ink on silk, over linen, stuffed with wool
Made at the Westtown School in Chester County, Pennsylvania

This extraordinary globe sampler, one of only a few known to exist, is three dimensional! Embroidered globes were only made at the Westtown School, and would have been very difficult to sew. The outer layer, made of silk, was inked, embroidered, and then sewn in sections, like an orange. The silk was then sewn onto a linen underlayer, which had been stuffed with wool that probably came from the sheep grazing on the green outside the school.

Having her own globe allowed a girl to hold the world in her hand, and I wish I could try that. But I don't touch this one. It's too fragile. (You can see the little strands of silk thread trailing off it. I resist the temptation to fix them!)

Collector’s note: Ann Thomson’s globe came with an old paper fragment that says "Made by Ann Thomson Jarrett while at Westtown School". This was clearly written after she left the school. Because Westtown globes are rare, the location of each globe and any knowledge of a maker is well known. This one has been assumed to be Ann Jarrett, who attended the school in 1807. I searched and could find no mention of “Thomson” in any genealogy of Ann Jarrett. But I found a 14 year old girl named Anne Thompson, student #1518, who would have been at Westtown in 1814 when most globes were being made. She married Jacob Jarrett. There you have it - Anne Thompson Jarrett.

I love the detective work of figuring out who these girls were.

Ann Mullliner's painted map, 1778

Threads

The American samplers in the collection are from New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Maine, Pennsylvania, Ohio and California.

Genealogical (family record) samplers;
Companion samplers by sisters and family members;
Darning samplers;
Samplers by the same girl;
Samplers from known schools or teachers;
Marking samplers (alphabets);
Heraldic, coat of arms samplers;
Embroidered map samplers;
House samplers, or samplers with schools or public buildings;
Samplers by the women of the family of Nathaniel Hawthorne;
Quaker samplers, including a globe sampler from West Town School;
Pictorial samplers, some in eglomise frames;
A very rare sampler made by a free black girl;
Memorial samplers

Recurring themes of the collection are:

Family in early America

The importance of family to our young country with no history of its own;
The huge sizes of families and the death of siblings;
Sister samplers, cousins, and samplers by the same girl - same assignment, different expression;
The explosive growth of young America in population and movement;
Grief and the loss of both family members and public figures, especially George Washington;
The documentation of the existence of many girls, and their family members, whose lives may otherwise have not been recorded

Abolition, slavery, and black families

The constant tension between abolitionists and slaveholders, sometimes even within the same family;
How girls protested slavery with anti slavery needlework;
The presence of slavery and the courage of some families in fighting it;
Free black families and the education of their daughters;

Literacy and education of girls

The pride families had in literacy and education of girls, surprising to us now;
How the alphabet has changed, sometimes even on the same sampler;
The thrill of geography as girls mapped their literal place in the world;
The dramatic and passionate choices used by adolescent girls in their complex samplers;
The effect of the Romantic Movement and of literary works on pictorial samplers;
Calligraphy, the changing alphabet, and letters;
The Quakers and their high expectations of the education of girls

Artistry

The artistry of invisible darning;
The artistry of complex stitching;
The creative expression of girls even when they were working the same sampler as a sister;

Effects of needlework

The influence that needlework and samplers displayed in the home, had, especially on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne;
The contemplative, calming effect of doing needlework, as an escape for girls and women;
Sewing as a form of resistance, permitting girls to claim a space that was entirely theirs;