A Study of Quaker Samplers Found in the The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center Collection

Nineteenth-century arts extended beyond the male-dominated public sphere of galleries and critics, entering the “feminine” private sector through textiles. Women would often embroider, crochet and more to create ornamentation for their homes, and to entertain themselves thereby creating a demand for needlework education. Embroidery, like other textile arts, was traditionally seen as a “feminine” art by critics and excluded from the public sphere. Its exclusion prevented embroidery from entering the wider art world and devalued its importance in the history of art during the nineteenth century. This paper focuses on three Quaker school-girl samplers from 1806 to 1859, as samplers were an art practiced throughout the century near and in Quaker schools. Specifically, these samplers demonstrate the potential for artistic self expression by young girls, a self expression typically studied in the nineteenth century through publicly displayed art. In studying these school creations, we can furthermore understand what the girls were taught and how this knowledge was manipulated in their hands. To best conceptualize this personal process of design and creation in nineteenth-century embroidery, a personal sampler has been designed and created using period accurate meanings to better understand these girls despite our altered, modern perspective.