A chapter upon Samplers, by right, should precede the discussion of
colonial embroidery, although the practice of mothers in crewelwork was
simultaneous with it. They were carried on at the same time, but the
embroidery was work for grown-up people, while samplers were baby
work--a beginning as necessary as being taught to walk or talk, to the
future of the child. Fortunately, the very infant interest in samplers
has tended to their preservation, and when the child grew to womanhood
the sampler became invested with a mingling of family interests and
affections, and she, the executant, came to look upon it with
motherliness. The loving pride of the mother in the child's
accomplishment also tended to the care and preservation of the first
work of the small hands.
As late as the twenties of the eighteenth century, infant schools still
existed and samplers were wrought by infant fingers. Eighty-five years
ago, I myself was in one of a row of little chairs in the infant school,
with a small spread of canvas lying over my lap and being sewn to my
skirt by misdirected efforts. My box held a tiny thimble and spools of
green and red sewing silk, and I tucked it under alternate knees for
safety.
_Sarah Woodruff!_--I wonder where she is now?--sat next to me in my
sampler days, and her canvas was white, while mine was yellow. Her
border was worked with blue, and mine with green. With a child's
inscrutable and wonderful awareness of underlying facts, I knew that
Sarah Woodruff's father was richer than mine, and that the white canvas
and blue border, which the teacher said "went with it," was an
indication of it. I have it now, the little faded yellow parallelogram
of canvas, on which the germ of the very fingers with which I am now
writing wrought with painstaking care--"Executed by Candace Thurber, her
age six years." They have since had various fortunes and experiences,
these fingers, and have wrought to the satisfaction, I hope, of their
foregone line of Puritan ancestors.
The sampler has special claims upon the world, because it is probable
that all forms of textile design originated with it. In fact, design for
needlework began with small squares formed by crossing stitches at the
junction of textile fiber.
In sequences these squares formed lines, blocks, and corner, and in
double-line juxtaposition made the form of border probably the oldest
ornamental decoration in the world, generally known as a Roman border.
This decoration escaped from textiles into stone and building materials,
and in fact appeared in the elaboration of all materials, from the
fronts of temples to the ornamentation of a crown. The most ancient
examples of design are founded upon a square, and this points inevitably
to the stitch covering the crossing of threads, the cross-stitch, which
preceded all others and remained the only decorative stitch until
weaving sprang into so fine an art that interstices between threads are
unnoticeable. Then, and not until then, the long over-stitch, the _opus
plumarium_, which we call "Kensington," was invented, and served to make
English embroidery famous in early English history. This was the stitch
used by the Pilgrim mothers in their crewel embroidery, as we use it
to-day in most of our decorative presentations.
[Illustration: SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the
possession of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N. J.]
In spite of the achievements of the _opus plumarium_, we are indebted
to simple cross-stitch, to the obligations of the mathematical square of
hand weavings, for all the wonderful borderings which have been evolved
by ages of the use of the needle, since decoration began. We do not stop
to think of the artistic intelligence or gift which made mathematical
spaces express beautiful form, any more than we stop in our reading to
think of the sensitive intelligence which drew a letter and made it the
expression of sound, and yet most of us use the result of some
exceptional intelligence and feel the exaltation of what we call
culture.
The stitch itself is entitled to the greatest respect, as the very first
form of decoration with the needle--an art growing out of and controlled
by the earlier art of weaving. Decorative bands of cross-stitch come to
us on shreds of linen found in the sepulchers of Egypt and the burial
grounds of the prehistoric races of South America. I have seen, in a
collection of textiles found in their ancient burial places, the most
elaborate and beautiful of cross-stitch borders, wrought into the
fabrics which enriched Pizarro's shiploads of loot sent from Vicuna,
Peru, to the court of Spain at the time of the wonderful and barbarous
"Conquest." All of the old "Roman" borders are found in this collection,
the best designs the world has produced, those which architects of the
period used upon the fronts and in the interiors of their first
creations. And here arises the ever recurring question of
thought-sharing between the most widely removed of the earlier human
races. How did early Peruvians and far-off Latins think in the same
forms, and how did they come to select certain ones as the best, and
cleave to them as a common inheritance? But leaving the puzzle of design
and returning to the cross-stitch, which was its first interpretation or
medium, and to the little Puritans who shared its acquaintance and
practice with the women of all ages, we may see how the New England
sampler opened the door of inheritance.
As Eve sewed her garments of leaves in the Garden of Eden, so each one
of these little Puritan Eves, so far removed in the long history of the
race from the first one, was heir to her ingenuities as well as her
failings, from her patching together of small and inadequate things, to
her creative function in the kingdom of the world, as well as to her
attempts to sweeten life, and to her failures and successes.
[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER embroidered in colors on écru linen, by
Mary Ann Marley, aged twelve, August 30, 1820. _From Providence, R. I._
_Right_--SAMPLER embroidered in brown on écru linen, by Martha Carter
Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished at her death.
_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
The learning to do an A or a B in cross-stitch was the beginning of
household doing, which is the business of woman's life. The decorative
and the useful were evenly balanced in sampler making. All this skill in
lettering could be applied to the stores of household linen in the way
of marking, for cross-stitch letters, done in colored threads, were a
part of the finish of sheets and pillowcases and fine toweling which
made so important a part of the riches of the household, and it led by
easy grades of familiarity to more comprehensive methods of decoration.
In truth, the letters first practiced in cross-stitch opened the door to
all future elaborations, and were the vehicle of moral instruction as
well; for little Puritans took their first doses of Bible history in
carefully embroidered text, and their notions of pictorial art from
cross-stitch illustrations. One finds upon some of the early examples
pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the ever present
author of sin, climbing the stem of the tree of life, or Jacob's dream
of angels ascending and descending a ladder, intersecting clouds of
blue and smoke-colored stitches.
These pictorial samplers are certainly interesting, but those which
confine themselves to simple cross-stitch with borders, and the name of
the little child who wrought them, touch a note of domestic life which
is more than interesting.
The sampler was purely English in its derivation and followed the
English with great fidelity, although redolent of Puritan life and
thought. Sometimes, indeed, it carried cross-stitch to the very limit of
its capability in an attempt to render Bible scenes pictorially, but for
the most part it was confined to the practice of various styles of
lettering consolidated into text or verse.
The material upon which they were worked was generally of canvas, either
white or yellow, and this was of English manufacture. As all
manufactures were things of price, later samplers were often worked upon
coarse homespun linens, which, barring the variations in the size of the
threads inevitable in hand-spinning, made a fairly good material for
cross-stitch.
[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late
eighteenth century American.
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_
_Right_--MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to the
memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805.
_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
[Illustration: SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806, by Sarah
Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L. I.]
Sampler making was a home rather than a school taught industry, going
down from mother to daughter along with darning and other processes
of the needle, and having no relation, except that of its dexterity, to
the distinct style of decorative embroidery called crewelwork, which
accompanied it, or even preceded it.
The collecting of samplers has become rather a fad in these days, and as
they are almost exclusively of New England origin, it gives an
opportunity of acquaintance with the little Puritan girl which is not
without its charm. As most of their samplers were signed with their
names, the acquaintance becomes quite intimate, and one feels that these
little Puritans were good as well as diligent. Here is Harmony
Twitchell's name upon a blue and white sampler. What child whose name
was Harmony could quarrel with other children, or how could this other,
whose long-suffering name was Patience, be resentful of the roughnesses
of small male Puritans? Hate-evil and Wait-still and Hope-still and
Thanks and Unity must have sat together like little doves and made
crooked A's and B's and C's and picked out the frayed sewing-silk
threads under the reproofs of the teacher of the Infant School, Miss
Mather or Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker, whose father was a
clergyman, or even Miss Bradford, whose uncle was the Governor?
All this is in the story of the sampler, and so the teaching and
practice of the canvas went constantly forward. The method was so
simple, quite within the capacity of an alphabet-studying child. To make
an A in cross-stitch was to create a link between the baby mind and the
letter represented. There was no choice, no judgment or experience
needed. The limit of every stitch was fixed by a cross thread, one
little open space to send the needle down and another through which to
bring it back, and the next one and the next, then to cross the threads
and the thing was done. Yes, the little slips could make a sampler,
every one of them, and when it was made, sometimes it was put in a frame
with a glass over it, and Patience's mother would show it to visitors,
and Patience would taste the sweets of superiority, than which there is
nothing to the childish heart, nor even to mature humanity, so sweet.
[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in
1810.
_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793.
_Courtesy Mrs. E. M. Sanford, Madison, N. J._]
[Illustration: PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John
Quincy Adams, and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection.
_Courtesy Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]
There were Infant Schools in my own days, little congregations of
children not far removed from babyhood, who were taught the alphabet
from huge cards, and repeated it simultaneously from the great
blackboard which was mounted in the center of the room. In the schools,
as well as at home, every little girl-baby was taught to sew, to
overhand minutely upon small blocks of calico, the edges turned over and
basted together. When a perfect capacity for overhand sewing was
established, the next short step was to the sampler, and the tiny
fingers were guided along the intricacies of canvas crossings. The dear
little rose-tipped fingers! the small hands! velvet soft and satin
smooth, diverse even in their littlenesses! They were taught even then
to be dexterous with woman's special tool, the very same in purpose and
intent with which queens and dames and ladies had played long before.
The sampler world was a real world in those days, full of youth and as
living as the youth of the world must always be, but now it is dead as
the mummies, and the carefully preserved remains are only the shell
which once held human rivalries and passions.
Quilts
The domestic needlework of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries, should not be overlooked in a history of embroidery, it
being often so ambitiously decorative and the stitchery so remarkable.
The patchwork quilt was an instance of much of this effort. It was
unfortunate that an economic law governed this species of work, which
prevented its possible development. The New England conscience, sworn to
utility in every form, had ruled that no material should be _bought_ for
this purpose. It could only take advantage of what happened, and it
seldom happened that cottons of two or three harmonious colors came
together in sufficient quantity to complete the five-by-five or
six-by-six which went to the making of a patchwork quilt. Nevertheless
one sometimes comes across a "rising sun" or a "setting sun" bedquilt
which is remarkable for skillful shading, and was an inspiration in the
house where it was born, and where the needlework comes quite within the
pale of ornamental stitchery.
This variety of domestic needlework, and one or two others which are
akin to it, survived in the northern and middle states in the form of
quilting until at least the middle of the nineteenth century, while in
the southern states, especially in the mountains of Kentucky and North
Carolina, it still survives in its original painstaking excellence.
Among the earlier examples of these quilts one occasionally finds one
which is really worthy of the careful preservation which it receives. I
remember one which impressed itself upon my memory because of the
humanity interwoven with it, as well as the skill of its making. It was
a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate
block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in
alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully
applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut
away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt
was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of
correct construction. The quilting was a marvel--a large carefully drawn
design, evidently inspired by branching rose vines without flowers, only
the leafage and stems being used, and all these bending forms filled in
with a diamonded background of exquisite quilting. The palely colored
center was distinguished only by its needlework, leaving the rose border
to emphasize and frame it.
There was a bit of personal history attached to this quilt in the shape
of a small tag, which said:
"This quilt made by Delia Piper, for occupation after the death of an
only son. Bolivar, Southern Missouri, 1845."
The same kind friend who had introduced me to this quilt, finding me
appreciative of woman's efforts in fine stitchery, took me to call upon
other pieces which were equally worthy of admiration. One was a white
quilt of what was called "stuffed work," made by working two surfaces of
cloth together, the upper one of fine cambric, the lower one of coarse
homespun. Upon the upper one a large ornamental basket was drawn, filled
with flowers of many kinds, the drawing outlines being followed by a
back stitchery as regular and fine as if done by machine, looking, in
fact, like a string of beaded stitches, and yet it was accomplished by a
needle in the hand of a skillful but unprofessional sewer. The picture,
for it was no less, was completed by the stuffing of each leaf and
flower and stem with flakes of cotton pushed through the homespun
lining. The weaving of the basket was a marvel of bands of buttonholed
material, which stood out in appropriate thickness. The centers of
the flowers had simulated stamens done in knotted work.
[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER in drawnwork, écru linen thread, made by
Anne Gower, wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628.
_Center_--SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on écru canvas by Mary
Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant, married July 1675,
accused of witchcraft in 1692, but escaped to New York. _From the Curwen
estate._
_Courtesy the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born February 19,
1780, in Bristol.
_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
I think this stuffed work was rather rare, for I have only seen two
specimens, and as it required unusual and exhaustive skill in
needlework, the production was naturally limited. The practice was one
of the exotic efforts of some one of large leisure and lively ambitions
who belonged to the class of prosperous citizens.
"Patchwork," as it was appropriately called, was more often a farmhouse
industry, which accounts for its narrow limits, since, with choice of
material, even a small familiarity with geometrical design might bring
good results. It might have easily become good domestic art. Geometrical
borders in two colors would have taken their place in decorative work,
and the applied work, so often ventured upon, was the beginning of one
very capable method. The skillful needlework, the elaborate quilting,
the stitchery and stuffing are worthy of respect, for the foundation of
it all was great dexterity in the use of the needle.