at the Atrium Gallery
March 30 - September 13, 1998

NOTE: This exhibit is CLOSED.  For reference only.

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In the 18th century, fine needlework was as important to a girl's education as computer skills are today. Women were in charge of making, mending and decorating the clothing and textiles used in their homes, and did embroidery and needlework for recreation as well. A "sampler," comprised of needlework on cloth, provided an opportunity for girls to perfect their technique in stitchery. Samplers ranged from a simple Marking Sampler to an elaborate Fancy Sampler.

In an era when marriage and motherhood were the goal of a girl's life, attractive needlework on display in her parents home told a suitor that the young woman he was courting has the skills she needed to run a home. A woman in the unenviable position of having to earn her own living could be come respectable dressmaker or lady's maid if she had good sewing and embroidery skills; otherwise, she would find her lot in general housework.

While a girl might make her sampler under her mother's supervision, many were made as school projects. The limited number of opportunities for women outside the home left needlework as an important part of the school curriculum, more than academic subjects. Certain teachers and schools in the Delaware Valley developed distinctive styles that will be explored in the exhibit.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, as women began to have more educational and occupational choices (and clothing and linens could be purchased ready-made), embroidery and needlework declined in importance. Embroidery became a choice, not a chore. Yet some women have continued to find pleasure in traditional needlecrafts, as more modern examples in the exhibit illustrate.

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