May, 1 9 13 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



177 



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COLLECTORS' DEPARTMENT 



THE EDITOR OF THIS DEPARTMENT WILL BE GLAD TO ANSWER ANY 

 LETTERS OF ENQUIRY FROM ITS READERS ON ANY SUBJECT CONNECTED 

 WITH OLD FURNITURE, POTTERY AND PORCELAIN, GLASS, MINIATURES. 

 TEXTILES. PRINTS AND ENGRAVINGS, BOOKS AND BINDINGS. COINS AND 

 MEDALS. AND OTHER SUBJECTS OF INTEREST TO COLLECTORS. LETTERS 

 OF ENQUIRY SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED BY STAMPS FOR RETURN POSTAGE 



(Collectors' Notes and Queries and The Collectors' Mart will be found in the 

 reading matter columns of the advertising pages of this number.) 



Map Samplers 



By Robert H. Van Court 

 Photographs by T. C. Turner 





F all the objects treasured as heirlooms and 

 sought and highly prized by collectors, there 

 are very few which possess the element of 

 human interest in so great a degree as the 

 samplers of long ago. In these days of care- 

 free and untrammeled childhood, indulgent 



the decoration which we may well believe taxed the taste 

 and skill of the young workers both as to design and execu- 

 tion. The adornment consisted generally of the letters of 

 the alphabet, capital letters as well as small, and the Arabic 

 and sometimes the Roman numerals as far as ten. To this 

 was added the maker's name and age, and sometimes her 



parents are apt to regard as wholly unnecessary anything place of residence, and often a verse which reflects more 



truly than could anything else the strict and uncompromising 

 attitude toward life and the world which prevailed in those 

 sterner days, A study of the little stanzas of poetry, ob- 

 viously homemade, reveals a spirit of inflexible devotion to 

 duty which can hardly be associated with childhood of to- 

 day. The complete adornment of a sampler included be- 

 sides these letters, figures and embroidered texts the more 

 decorative features of houses, trees, and often of human 



figures, not to mention such 

 ornamental adjuncts as 

 animals, baskets of flowers 

 and angels or cherubs sup- 

 porting crowns. Around all 

 of this would be placed a 

 border as elaborate as cir- 

 cumstances would permit, 

 and all of this varied adorn- 

 ment worked in the greatest 

 possible number of stitches 

 and in silk of many and 

 divers soft and beautiful 

 colors resulted in a sampler 

 which was a source of pride 

 to the maker and her family, 

 and an example and incen- 

 tive to posterity. 



The map sampler may be 

 regarded as the logical re- 

 sult of conditions. The lit- 

 tle women who worked the 

 samplers were students of 

 geography or the "use of 

 the globes," as the study is 

 called in many old works, 

 and it was perhaps but nat- 

 ural, that proficiency in 

 geography and skill in 

 needlework should find ex- 



which interferes with the liberty of youth or with the hours 

 of happy play to which children are so fully entitled. It is 

 interesting to gather from these little samplers, relics of a 

 far distant past, the somewhat different ideas regarding 

 the raising of children which obtained several generations 

 ago. The word "sampler" is derived, of course, from 

 "example," or the older English word "ensample," and, as 

 the name implies, is a sample of the degree of skill and 

 wide range of resource in 

 needlework to which the 

 youthful maker had attained. 

 The making of samplers 

 has never been confined to 

 any one land, for house- 

 wives of every European 

 country have trained their 

 daughters in needlecraft and 

 the sampler has been merely 

 a specimen of ability or a 

 kind of diploma for merit 

 achieved. American cus- 

 toms which have been so 

 largely derived from those 

 of England and Holland, 

 brought the art of needle- 

 work to a high degree of de- 

 velopment and many of the 

 most interesting of samplers 

 are the work of little women 

 of New England or New 

 Amsterdam. 



Samplers were usually 

 worked upon canvas or a 

 homemade fabric somewhat 

 resembling scrim. The color 

 used was generally cream or 

 ecru, and against this plain 

 background was arranged 



An unusually interesting map of Scotland sampler, dated 1811, from 

 the Drake Collection 



