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. The samplers have been professionally photographed and are currently being archived as a collection by the Sampler Archive, the national archive for American samplers. 

This collection honors and celebrates the enormous legacy of the thousands of samplers (made by girls) still in existence in the United States and in England. There is nothing comparable for boys.

We don’t know the history of women, especially girls. I emigrated to the US from England when I was ten, and I knew nothing about American history. (A revolution? We had never learned about that in England. I thought the British had given this upstart colony away.) I wanted to understand America, my new country - but wars, men in wigs signing documents, tea in the harbor  - where were the girls in our past? Invisible in our way of approaching history. 

But then I began to come across samplers in antique stores 35 years ago, pieces of linen and sometimes silk, stitched by the hands of real girls in the 18th and 19th centuries. I could hold in my hand the skilled work of young women before the Industrial Revolution and before sewing machines, when every girl sewed and every item of clothing, every textile, was pieced together and decorated by the hands of girls and women. These samplers were only intended for display  - and often hung on the wall for generations. Contrary to our modern ideas about how the work of women was seen, I could see how much the needlework skills and education of girls had been valued and appreciated. And I could buy them! I began reading about the history of needlework, and I discovered Betty Ring, Glee Krueger, Susan Schoelwer and many others who had much to say about samplers. I read and reread every catalog of Amy Finkel, an antiques dealer who specializes in samplers.( I looked for samplers in museums everywhere and I spent hours at the V and A in London, back in the era when you could open drawers and look at samplers right in front of you. By the time I had ten or twelve samplers, holding history in my hand from a viewpoint I had always wanted to understand, I was hooked. I began intentionally looking to buy samplers that have a story to tell, especially if they opened a way of understanding life in colonial and antebellum America in a historical context. 

And then the Internet transformed the ability to find information. Now I research every sampler before I buy it and in most cases do a deep exploration of the sampler maker, her family, her town, her school, and what was happening around her politically and socially. I always become completely absorbed in discovery and stay up way too late researching. History unfolds before me. Connections happen. Surprising things turn up! 

And before I realized it, I had become a collector. The Sharon Historical Society and Museum, near me in Sharon, CT, asked me if I would be willing to show some or all of my samplers. They are fantastic to work with, and helped me curate an exhibit of about 55 framed pieces. I wrote the narration and the labels, with supporting photographs, maps and letters. The exhibit, which focused on the lives of the girls who made the samplers, and history unfolding around them,  was up from June through October of 2022, and attracted a lot of interest. There had not been an exhibit of only samplers in the US for many years. (In the fall of 2019, an exhibit in Scotland of Scottish samplers from American collector Leslie Durst was a huge hit and got international attention.) This seemed to hit a nerve.  Most exhibits give information about the sampler makers’ life, if known, and the materials used, with little attention given to the context in which they were made.

The museum had expected that it would attract only local people, but because this exhibit used the works and lives of real girls as an entry point to history, it drew in people of all ages, interested in history, women’s lives, education, needlework, antiques, and there just to walk around and look. Men seemed to be its most vocal enthusiasts. I heard from so many people afterwards asking more about the individual samplers exhibited. I talked to other collectors and to dealers, and met people with great knowledge about samplers and about American history. 

Several sent me their own books on American history, some asked me to come and speak about the samplers, some sent me old auction catalogs and books about samplers, and now everyone sends me photos of their family’s samplers to ask for information. 

— Alexandra