American Samplers

The earliest known American sampler was made by Loara Standish of the Plymouth Colony about 1645. By the 1700s, samplers depicting alphabets and numerals were worked by young women to learn the basic needlework skills needed to operate the family household. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, schools or academies for well-to-do young women flourished, and more elaborate pieces with decorative motifs such as verses, flowers, houses, religious, pastoral, and/or mourning scenes were being stitched. The parents of these young women proudly displayed their embroideries as showpieces of their work, talent, and status.

In recent years, samplers have become important in museum collections as representations of early American female education. Many are signed, and some are inscribed with locations and the names of teachers and schools. The emergence of large numbers of these samplers has resulted in much research in diaries, account books, letters, newspaper ads, local histories, and published commentary that is helping to illuminate the lives of women in early America.

Many early samplers do not have the letters “J” and “U” in their alphabets because they were not part of the early Latin alphabet and so the letter “I” was used for “J” and the “V” for “U.” The letter “s” is often replaced with the printers “s” which looks like the modern f.

There are 137 American samplers in the Textile Collection. The first was donated in 1886, the Margaret Dinsmoor sampler. In the 1890s the Copp Collection was received and it contained two samplers—one by Esther Copp and the other by her great niece Phebe Esther Copp. (The Copp Collection is an extensive collection of 18th-and 19th- century household textiles, costume items, furniture, and other pieces belonging to the Copps, a prosperous but frugal Connecticut family.) The earliest dated sampler in the collection was made in 1735 by Lydia Dickman of Boston, Massachusetts.

Three block alphabets; no "J" or "U." All alphabet letters and words in inscription done in alternating colors; geometric crossbands (some of them geometric flowering vines) separate all rows. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground.
Description
Three block alphabets; no "J" or "U." All alphabet letters and words in inscription done in alternating colors; geometric crossbands (some of them geometric flowering vines) separate all rows. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, two-sided cross, marking cross, satin, straight, fern, Algerian eye, herringbone, long-armed cross. THREAD COUNT: warp 38, weft 39/in.
Inscription:
"ELISABeTH HOLLAND IS MY NA
Me ENGLISH IS MY NATION BOST
ON IS MY DWeLLING PLACe
AND CHRIST IS MY SALVATION
WHeN I AM DeAD AND GONE
AND ALL MY BONeS ARE ROTeN
I LeAVe THIS SAMPLeR BeHIND
I MAY NOT Be FORGOTTeN FINIS
HeD IN THe 13 YeAR OF HeR
AGe OCTOBeR 14 1737"
Background:
Elizabeth was born on June 28, 1725, to Samuel and Elizabeth Holland in Boston, Massachusetts. She married Edward Gyles in Boston on her birthday, June 28, 1743. They had two sons, Edward and Samuel.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1737
maker
Holland, Elizabeth
ID Number
TE.T18126
catalog number
T18126
accession number
323477
Two block alphabets with no "J" or "U" with each letter in alphabets and each word in inscription different color.
Description
Two block alphabets with no "J" or "U" with each letter in alphabets and each word in inscription different color. Ten narrow decorative crossbands, three wide crossbands, and narrow geometric crossbands separating these and lettered rows; last crossband has row of strawberry(?) motifs against background solidly filled with cross stitches and first nine letters of lower-case alphabet. All four edges hemstitched with yellow silk thread. Wool and silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, two-sided cross, eyelet, marking cross, gobelin, satin, tent (petit-point), hem. THREAD COUNT: warp 46, weft 43/in.
Inscription:
"LYDIA DIC
KMaN IS MY NAMe AND ENGL
AND IS MY NATION aND BOST
ON IS MY DWeLLING PlaC aND
CHRIST IS MY SALVATION DON
e IN THIRTeeN YeAR OF MY
age 1735"
Background:
Lydia was born about 1722, and married Francis Shaw of Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1745. They had one son, Thomas, who was born December 11, 1745. Lydia died in Boston on December 26, 1746, just a year after the birth of her son.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1735
maker
Dickman, Lydia
ID Number
TE.E388182-a
catalog number
E.388182-a
accession number
182022

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