Women were sewn into the fabric of colonial history

SHARON – Though history books and official records often focus on stories of Colonial men, historian, speaker and sampler collector Alexandra Lally Peters argued that women played a major role in shaping early America – and while they may not always appear on paper, they show up in needlepoint.

In a lecture sponsored by the Sharon Historical Society Sunday, June 14, Peters proclaimed, “Absence from the records is not an absence from history.” Women’s contributions weren’t always documented or celebrated, she posited, because history tends to exclude home and domestic life.

“The most important structure in colonial life was family and I focus on appreciating the value of what women did,” she said.

Peters was emphatic that she wasn’t disparaging men, but that society doesn’t understand how to publicly value domesticity.

Samplers, or textiles featuring often intricate needlework, provide evidence of competence, vision and pride, she said. Tens of thousands of samplers have survived from that time period.

She provided the audience a glimpse of several of the samplers in her personal collection, which numbers more than 200. They can be large or small, generally designed from linen or silk – occasionally wool – and made to be displayed. They were most often created at school and then brought home.

“Textiles are critical to human life,” Peters said. “And they are almost always made by women.”

The first sampler she ever saw was made by Agnes Brayshaw in 1788. She was so impressed because it showed her identity by describing herself.

Lidy Hanson (1722-1824) lived to 102 and witnessed enormous amounts of change. Miriam Lord (1748-1831) was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s grandmother. He saw her sampler on the wall and wrote about needlework in his classic “The Scarlet Letter.” His aunt Mary Dodge also created samplers, so he saw needlework all around him.

Clarisa Butler of Wethersfield used a mixture of linen and wool for a sampler. Her biography noted she was excommunicated from the church for having a child out of wedlock.

Family registers that listed relatives were often placed on samplers. One depicting the Comstock family showed they came from Kent and then moved elsewhere. One of Peters’ favorites is a Heuston Genealogy. They were a Black family from Maine and samplers from Blacks were very unusual.

“They had 12 children,” she said. “I’d never seen another sampler showing all 12 children had survived. The children, even the girls, were educated. I’ve become friends with one of the descendants.”

“Samplers are telling you something,” said Peters. One work by Patty Livingston showed the family crest. She came from Red Hook, NY, but is buried in Hillside Cemetery in Sharon.

Samplers also speak of sorrow. The Stetson family register shows they had five living children in December and by February, they had lost four of them. “It was common to lose children,” Peters said. “Kids worried all the time about dying and that was sometimes reflected in their needlework.”

Peters listed the skills needed to create samplers, including literacy, mathematical ability, dexterity, creativity and self-discipline. She said children were not coerced to make them, but did so with pride.

“I live with the creative energy of these girls,” she said.