Connecticut Needlework - Women, Art, and Family, 1740-1840
Book description
Connecticut women have long been noted for their creation of colorful
and distinctive needlework, including samplers and family registers, bed
rugs and memorial pictures, crewel-embroidered bed hangings and
garments, silk-embroidered pictures of classical or religious scenes,
quilted petticoats and bedcovers, and whitework dresses and linens. This
volume offers the first regional study, encompassing the full range of
needle arts produced prior to 1840. Seventy entries showcase more than
one hundred fascinating examples--many never before published--from the
Connecticut Historical Society's extensive collection of this early
American art form. Produced almost exclusively by women and girls, the
needle arts provide an illuminating vantage point for exploring early
American women's history and education, including family-based
traditions predating the establishment of formal academies after the
American Revolution. Extensive genealogical research reveals unseen
family connections linking various types of needlework, similar to the
multi-generational male workshops documented for other artisan trades,
such as woodworking or metalsmithing. Photographs of stitches, reverse
sides, sketches, design sources, and related works enhance our
understanding and appreciation of this fragile art form and the talented
women who created it. An exhibition of needlework in this book will be
held at the Connecticut Historical Society in late fall, 2010. Funding
for this project has been provided by the Coby Foundation, Ltd., and the
National Endowment for the Arts. "The works are beautifully
presented, each with its own large, full-color photo." --Maine
Antique Digest SUSAN PRENDERGAST SCHOELWER is curator at George
Washington's Mount Vernon. She previously served as director of museum
collections at the Connecticut Historical Society. She is the editor of
Connecticut Valley Furniture: Eliphalet Chapin and His Contemporaries,
1750-1800 (2000) and Lions & Eagles & Bulls: Early American
Tavern & Inn Signs from the Connecticut Historical Society (2000).
