Technology
Samplers use embroidery to make complicated patterns on woven sheets of cloth. The woven base material is most often linen but can also be silk, cotton or wool. The threads used to decorate it are most often silk but can also be wool, cotton, linen, metal or hair (Sampler Archive). These threads would have been professionally dyed in England and imported to New England and as such were luxury goods and denotation of wealth. The dyes used were derived from plants and animals native to England and its colonies (Parmal 142). A variety of stitch types were used including cross, buttonhole, chain, darning, eyelet, knotted, running, satin, stem, straight and many others (Sampler Archive). These stitches were done by hand using embroidery needles made out of iron.
As previously mentioned, the identity of samplers as textiles rather than texts has proved problematic for their reception as important historical documents. This is most obvious in the academically perceived dichotomy between the needle and the pen. For example, Catharine Stimpson writes of late medieval women that "Significantly, some women refusing to reduce their lives to the needle and distaff, insisted that they too, might enter public culture and wield the pen. Indeed, a woman, Elizabeth I, was the most formidable ruler Europe knew" (vii). But this is a false dichotomy. Women and girls in colonial America were active readers of the bible and other texts (as evidenced by their common place books) and actively engaged in textual expression through samplers and other textile arts. “These were readers on the move, engaging in a dynamic process of crossing between: texts crossing between ink and stitch, readers crossing between genres, sociability crossing between intimate and public settings, and most critically, young women sampling among these practices and spaces” (Silbert 182).
The word “text” is in fact derived from the latin textus which literally translates to “that which is woven” (Oxford English Dictionary, “text”). This speaks to a deep historical connection between the act of creating meaning through writing and creating meaning through sewing. Just as a pen marks a surface in an act of “meaningful mark-making” so too does the needle. (Goggin, 314) A reciprocal relationship exists between textile and text: the act of weaving was remediated as a metaphor to explain the written word and the act of writing was remediated into a textile medium through sampler-making and other embroidery.
As the 19th century progressed, women and girls continued to make samplers however they became an increasingly less important and skillful practice. The rise of the middle class and the industrial growth of the United States following the revolution lead to increased opportunities for female education. (Edmond 12) This meant that the focus of education shifted from fine needlework towards skills more commonly associated with modern education such as science, math and literacy. While some of these ideas were embroidered into samplers, lettering with a pen, chalk or pencil proved more economical and accessible ways of teaching these concepts. (Goggin, 324) Simultaneously, more girls were learning embroidery as the expensive materials were now accessible to more people, but they were learning from their mothers and friends rather than skilled seamstresses and schoolmistresses. As such, the level of skill and diversity of stitches showcased in samplers decreased. (Edmond 12)
Today, sampler making is still practiced by many. Several books and patterns exist on how to make both historically inspired and modern samplers. The embroidery machine was invented in the 1870s and is now widely available for in-home use. This means that people can make complicated embroidery designs without having to practice through sampler creation. Still, many people choose to create samplers and other embroidery projects by hand as a hobby, art or way to connect to the past.