Image taken from “Samplers and Stitches” by Mrs. Archibald Christie. Courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia.
Yesterday I had the opportunity to spend my day at The Library Company of Philadelphia. If you are not aware of this institution and are interested in rare books, manuscripts, pamphlets, etc related to American history, check it out. It is history-geek heaven!
For my summer research on girlhood embroidery made by African American girls in Philadelphia I thought I would explore what information the institution held. Yesterday I began with many of the reference books in their archives. The majority of the books were 20th century books on the history of embroidery in America. The bible on embroidery, Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850 Volumes II by Betty Ring was one of the books I perused. Ring divides the samplers she discusses by state. She devotes another chapter to the Quaker influence itself because it was visible throughout several of the states. Volume II includes the chapter on Pennsylvania. {Volume I was the more northern states.} Embroidery was a division of girls education brought to America from England. In addition to reading, writing, and arithmetic, young girls were taught to do ornamental and plain needlework with the intention of demonstrating to family, friends, and likely benefactors, what they were learning with their tutors at home or teachers at school. In some cases the girls were also using their skills at home for utilitarian work. And in some cases needlework was also taught to boost the skills of young girls as they sought positions of servitude, dressmaking, or as seamstresses in the colony. Pennsylvania samplers have a distinct look to them due to the early Quaker influence and later influence and mercantile connection Philadelphia had to cosmopolitan London. This book chapter was very informative. I have to finish reading it.
Another book I perused was Samplers and Stitches: A Handbook of Embroidery, published in 1929. Even though this book was published later than the two samplers I am working on this summer, I enjoyed flipping through and looking at the printed illustrations of stitches.
There are so many! This book is a great reference to help me identify stitches on samplers. For instance the stitch in the top image, the cross-stitch, is one of the standard stitches used on samplers, I understand. To help me better understand how stitches are created, I consulted youtube. This when youtube is the most beneficial! There are several women from around the world on youtube with instructional videos, one I found during a quick search was Mary Corbet. Her videos are demonstrative of various stitches and she keeps the videos short in duration depending on the difficulty/detail of the stitch. The video below describes the cable chain stitch.
If you would like to check out more of her videos here is the link to her youtube page. I am seriously considering learning myself, so I will be consulting her youtube page and website in the future. I hope you enjoy this video!
Lastly, if you haven’t been to the Library Company of Philadelphia, I highly recommend a visit. If you contact the librarians prior to visiting, they are most helpful in assisting you in finding items in the archives related to your research.
