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This exhibit focuses on two American samplers. They have both been chosen to represent a variety of the motifs common in New England Samplers from the mid to late 1700s. They all feature verses that relate to death and remembrance. Such themes were common in samplers of this era which speaks to the legitimate fears of girls about the dangers of entering womanhood and their existential dread about not being able to lead a meaningful life worth remembering (Stinebeck 1186-1187). The physical and scholarly endangerment of these texts in the present day can be interpreted as an extension of these fears: girls made manifest their identity through embroidery with the hopes of being remembered through it and the objects they made are left just as unstable as the girls who produced them.
This sampler was made by a 14 year old Sarah Hoopes in Newtown, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 1799. It is square in shape and framed by a stitched strawberry border. Further, it is inscribed with several verses that speak to her views on death and piety. It also includes a record of her immediate family and several popular floral motifs.
The verse on the sampler reads:
" Waz[s]h Lord ANd
PUrIFY MY Heart
ANd MaKe It CleaN
IN EVerY Part ANd
WheN It IS CleaN
LOrd KeeP It SO
FOr That IS MOre
ThaN I CaN DO
The LOSS OF TIMe
IS MUCh The LOSS
OF Truth IS MOre
The LOSS OF ChrISt
IS SUCh That NO
MaN CaN ReStOre
POOR State of JaCob
Here It SeeMS TO Me
The CattLe FOUNd
AS SOFt A Bed AS He
Yet GOd APPeared
There HIS JOY ANd
CrOWN GOd IS NOt
ALwaYS FOUNd ON
BedS OF DOWN
The Bed WaS
Earth The RaIsed
PILLar StONe
WhereON POOR
JaCOb ReSt HIS
Head ALONe
HeaVeN WaS HIS
CaNOPY The Shades
OF NIGht WaS
HIS DraWN CUrtaIN
TO EXCLUde The
LIGht ThIS WOrK
IN HaND MY FrIeNdS
MaY HaVe WHeN I aM
IN The SILeNt GraVe"
This verse is garbled and less coherent than that of other sampler-makers'. Still, all the sections reference the death of the maker or biblical figures. Throughout, the maker is concerned with how she will be perceived by god when she dies. This idea is furthered by the " The flower and strawberry motifs on this sampler [which] indicate nature and a perfect fruit: the strawberry has no rind or pit to throw away." (American History Museum, "Sarah Hoopes' Sampler) Hoopes strives to be without impurities just as the fruit is depicted. Additionally, this is likely the ethos with which she was instructed to complete her sampler as the stitches are finely detailed and demonstrate a high skill level.
The sampler is also inscribed with Sarah signature and the year the sampler was made and a record of her family.
"Sarah HOOPes
DauGhter OF Abram
ANd SUSaNNa HooPeS
Her WOrK doN
IN The 14th Year OF
Her AGe 1799
ReeSe HOOPeS
DaNIeL HOOPeS
ALICe HOOPeS
Phebe HOOPeS
AP EJ(?) PH SH”
All the names are written in a light thread with the exception of Pheobe Hoopes whose name is written in black. One ponders the reason for this artistic decision. Perhaps death or a feud caused her to denote her relative this way.
This sampler was made by 10-year-old Mary Purintun in 1767. Mary used a variation of a common verse template in her sampler. The verse reads:
"Mary Purintun Is My name
And English is My Nation
Danvers is my DweLLing PLace
And Christ is My Salvation.
When I Am Dead Laid in My Grave
And ALL my Bones Are Rotten
When This You See Remember Me
That I May Not Be Forgotten."
This "verse signature" highlights the importance of the material existence of the sampler to the sampler maker as evidence of her own existence.
Fanny Nissley from Lancaster county wrote a variation of this sampler verse on her own sampler in 1836 which read:
"Rapho is Nation. Heaven is my
Dwelling Place and Christ is my
Salvation. When I am dead and in
my grave and all my bones are
rotten, when this you see remember
me Else I shall be forgotten. The
rose is red the lives are green the
days are past which I have seen."
(Philadelphia Museum of Art, "Sampler" )
Tonni Flores Fratto writes that this "verse signature "invariably points out that someday the sampler-maker will be far away or dead, and that she wants to be remembered; she usually adds that her work is to remind people of her and keep her in their memories"(210).
The transmission and alteration of these lines through time and space between girls also speaks to the intergenerational knowledge building inherent in sampler making.