Book description
The Connecticut River Valley was an important center for the teaching
and production of embroidered pictures by young women in private
academies from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. This
book identifies the distinctive styles developed by teachers and
students at schools throughout the valley, from Connecticut and
Massachusetts to Vermont and New Hampshire. Needlework was a means of
instilling the values of citizenship, faith, knowledge, and patriotism
into girls who would become mothers in the early republic. This book
describes and illustrates how these embroideries provide insight into
the nature of women's schooling at this time. Over the course of their
education, girls undertook progressively more complex and difficult
needlework. Before the age of ten, they stitched elementary samplers on
linen. As the culmination of their studies, they executed elaborate
samplers, memorials, and silk pictures as evidence of the skills and
accomplishments befitting a lady. Proudly displayed as enticements to
potential suitors, these pieces affirmed a young woman's mastery of the
polite arts, which encompassed knowledge of religious and literary
themes as well as art and music.
This publication has been made possible through the generous support of
The Coby Foundation, Ltd., the Connecticut Humanities Council, the
Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism, Furthermore: a program of
the J. M. Kaplan Fund, and several private donors. CAROL AND STEPHEN
HUBER are leading experts and dealers in the field of American and
schoolgirl needlework, with a gallery in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. The
Hubers have contributed articles to publications such as Antiques and
Fine Arts and are the authors of How to Compare and Value Samplers. They
have lectured extensively for the Winterthur Program in Early American
Culture, the Bard Graduate Center, and the Peabody Essex Museum, among
others, and have advised museums and historical societies on their
collections. SUSAN P. SCHOELWER is a curator at George Washington's
Mount Vernon Estate & Gardens, Mount Vernon, Virginia and the author
of Connecticut Needlework. AMY KURTZ LANSING is the curator at the
Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut.
