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SAMPLERS of YESTERDAY 
AND THEIR PLACE 
TODAY 
Marks of Early Diligence To 
Adorn The Collector’s Walls 
GARDNER TEALL 
Little Sarah Bonney’s heart was right 
there, but her schooling hadn't “taken” 
yet. At twelve she stitches, “See how 
good my parents is to give me education” 
This child had a moral bringing up. At 
the age of nine, in the year 1817, she cross- 
stitched her impression of the human vir¬ 
tues in interesting sampler patterns 
B EFORE the age of machine-made 
things and of attire much more con¬ 
ventional than in many of the earlier periods 
there was, of course, great need of skilled 
needlewomen, not only professionally, but 
at home as well, for it was in the home that 
most of the “finery” of our forefathers 
originated. Stubbes “Anatomy of Abuses” 
(this appeared in 1583) tells of the raiment 
of the men of his time who were “decked 
out in the fineries even to their shirts, which 
are wrought with needlework of silks,” etc. 
The good Stubbes also complains that it 
was difficult to tell who were gentle folk be¬ 
cause all men of that time affected silks, 
velvets, “taffeties” and the like regardless 
of station. Thus we may see how import¬ 
ant it was that the little misses of the days 
of long ago should be taught stitchery at 
the early age of nine or ten years. 
Why Samplers Happened 
Old samplers are almost the most inti¬ 
mate of collectable old things. How pati¬ 
ently the little fingers toiled over these 
records of their wonderful (even if en¬ 
forced) application! Truly, they are the 
needle-craft primer of yesterday. We have 
only to recall an old 
English play, 
“Gammer Gurton’s 
Needle,” probably 
the very first of the 
earlier English folk 
comedies, to under¬ 
stand the great im¬ 
portance attached to 
the needle. This 
play, written about 
1660 (and attributed 
to John Still, Bishop 
of Wells, and for¬ 
merly Master of 
Christ’s College, 
Cambridge, where it 
was first produced) 
shows h o w, during 
the period of its 
conception, a steel 
needle was treasured 
as few family treas¬ 
ures are to-day, and 
so when Gammer 
Gurton lost hers— 
if Anna Denlingham had lived she would 
now be a grand dame of ninety-seven. In¬ 
stead, she left this heritage of a sampler 
done with her own little fingers 
the only one she possessed—the misfortune 
took on the importance of a genuine calam¬ 
ity. As collectors of samplers and writers 
on the subject of samplers have been baf¬ 
fled in trying to discover why samplers and 
samplers known to have been worked be¬ 
fore the middle of the 18th Century are 
extant, this clue to the probable reason 
which we find in “Gammer Gurton’s 
Needle” is of interest; this is the fact that 
as needles were so uncommon and such 
treasured possessions they were not to be 
entrusted to tiny fingers. Later when in¬ 
vention turned its attention to needle-mak¬ 
ing, needles became common enough. I 
imagine many a little girl of the 18th Cen¬ 
tury wished that “needles had never been 
born”—she would have preferred to play. 
Very fine samplers containing both names 
and dates prior to 1800 are not to be found 
at every turn. Notwithstanding this the 
sampler collector need anticipate no dis¬ 
couraging difficulty in getting together ex¬ 
amples for a fairly representative collec¬ 
tion. It is only in comparatively recent 
years that old samplers have been discovered 
to be excellent accessions to the decoration 
of a room in which old pieces of furniture 
are placed. They may be mounted and 
framed for hanging on a wall as a picture 
might be, and I know of few objects in the 
line of antiques that seem so appropriate 
for use in a bedchamber. 
The Early Examples 
While it is not always an easy matter 
to assign all undated samplers to their exact 
periods, approximate dates may, without 
great trouble, be arrived at. Naturally, the 
earliest examples were more utilitarian than 
ornamental in conception, more like a mere 
example of stitchery of various sorts, leaf 
from the scrap book of needlework as it 
were. Later pattern and design and pic¬ 
torial composition were evolved. Likewise 
the earlier samplers seem to have been 
longer and narrower in proportion than 
later ones. Threads of gold and silver are 
to be found in sampler work of the Eliza¬ 
bethan and of the Jacobean period where 
we would not look 
for them in the 
Georgian. Again 
there are character¬ 
istics of pattern that 
clearly denote the 
embroiderer’s time. 
As Eluist helpfully 
points out (when 
discussing very early 
English samplers), 
the designs of the 
letters of the alpha¬ 
bet employed by the 
sampler makers 
form one of the 
best guides to the 
period of the work. 
The earliest date of 
an alphabet sampler 
is, I believe, that of 
1643, of a sampler 
with a motto, 1651, 
of a sampler having 
a border 1726, of 
the representation of 
The alphabet ivas a favorite device where¬ 
by young ladies were led through the in¬ 
tricacies of the language 
“A diligent Scholar is an Ornament to a 
School.” We hope that “smiling peace” 
did bless Lydia's “revolving years” 
