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.

Two block alphabets; letters colored alternately; no "J" or "U." Numbers to 9. All rows (including verse) separated by wide and narrow crossbands, many satin-stitched sawtooth bands.
Description
Two block alphabets; letters colored alternately; no "J" or "U." Numbers to 9. All rows (including verse) separated by wide and narrow crossbands, many satin-stitched sawtooth bands. At base of sampler, spies returning from Canaan (Caleb and Joshua), wearing flared coats, wide hats, and kneebreeches, and carrying bunch of grapes on pole; letters "C" and "I" identify them, and over their heads further notation "NVMBERS C 13 V 23"; flanked by tulip plants in baskets and small trees. Border of geometric vine-and-flower on top and two sides. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, satin, fern, eyelet, outline, stem, straight. THREAD COUNT: warp 50, weft 50/in.
Inscriptions:
"MY GOD I NEVER LONG'D TO SEE MY FATE WI
TH CVRIOVS EYES WHAT GLOOMY LINES AR
E WRIT FOR ME OR WHAT BRIGHT SCENES
SHALL RISE IN THY FAIR BOOK OF LIFE & GRA
CE MAY I BVT FIND MY NAME RECORDED IN SOM
E HVMBLE PLACE BENEATH MY LORD THE L
AMB
RVTH LEMMON HER SAMPLER WORKED IN
THE 13 YEAR OF HER AGE 1760"
Background:
Ruth was born on December 27, 1747, to Joseph and Hannah Lemmon in Marblehead, Massachusetts. She married John D. Prentice on January 11, 1770, in Marblehead, and they had one daughter, Ruth, born in 1770. Later they moved to Londonderry, New Hampshire, where her husband was a lawyer and New Hampshire Attorney General from 1787 to 1793. Mrs. Prentice died in 1791 in New Hampshire, and John married Tabitha Sargent in 1793.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1760
maker
Lemmon, Ruth
ID Number
TE.T14112
catalog number
T14112
accession number
272420
Three block alphabets; two alphabets colored in pairs, one all black; no "J"; numbers 1 through 0. Simple geometric crossbands framed by flowering vine and rose bushes. At base of sampler, centered tree flanked by two framed inscriptions, with tulips and strawberries.
Description
Three block alphabets; two alphabets colored in pairs, one all black; no "J"; numbers 1 through 0. Simple geometric crossbands framed by flowering vine and rose bushes. At base of sampler, centered tree flanked by two framed inscriptions, with tulips and strawberries. Single row of cross stitch forms border on all four sides. Silk embroidery thread on linen ground. STITCHES: cross, petit point, Algerian eye, rice, queen. THREAD COUNT: warp 34, weft 38/in.
Inscriptions:
"Better it is to be
of an humble Spi
rit with the low
ly than to divide
the Spoil with
the proud"
"Esther Copp her
Sampler made in
the eleventh
year of her age
august AD 1765"
Background:
Jonathan Copp was born on June 12, 1694, and married Mrs. Sarah (Dennis) Hobart as his second wife on June 30, 1742, in Stonington, Connecticut. Their daughter Esther was born on October 23, 1754, in New London, Connecticut, and she never married. She died September 21, 1829. (See sampler by Phebe Esther Copp, her grandniece. A tree, rose bush, and one text are the same on both samplers.) Esther's sampler is part of 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 collection was donated to the United State National Museum in the 1890s by John Brenton Copp, offering the nation the opportunity to preserve and study the everyday possessions of a New England family.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1765
maker
Copp, Esther
ID Number
TE.H06590
catalog number
H06590
accession number
28810

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