Needle Work Exhibit for 2009-2010

Wrought By My Hand

Old Ordinary Exhibit Features Schoolgirl Needlework

Photos of NeedleWork are shown below.

The Hingham Historical Society’s extensive collection of embroidery created by Hingham schoolgirls is featured in a special display at the Old Ordinary house museum. American needlework is “hot” in the antique market right now and the works on display are fine examples of period needlework.  The Old Ordinary, 21 Lincoln St., Hingham, is open Tues.-Sat. 1:30-4:30. Admission to the house museum and exhibit is $5 for adults, $3 for children.

Schoolgirls took pride in their needlework, making their name a part of the overall design. The phrase “wrought by my hand” was often stitched with the name of the schoolgirl. For the exhibit embroidery examples are grouped by four types: Marking Samplers, the simplest form; Pictorial Samplers, advanced form; Family Records, genealogy;  Pictorial and Memorial embroideries. Explanatory panels with each grouping explain the context and purpose of each type of embroidery. 

Genealogy records from the1893 Hingham town history provide family information about the local girls whose surnames are familiar.  Works by Abigail Cushing, Patty Whiton, Mary Tower, Caroline Souther, Lucy Jacob and Mary Sprague are in the exhibit.

Deborah Humphrey’s simple marking sampler is especially significant in the Society’s collection. She married Abiel Wilder of Hingham in 1808 and lived much of her married life in the house preserved as the Old Ordinary. Judith Wilder, daughter of clockmaker Joshua Wilder, stitched a family record embellished with a floral border. Her work will be displayed at the Old Ordinary with one of her father’s clocks.

The earliest piece in the exhibit was worked by Fanny Gay in 1774. Most of the pieces in the collection date from 1800 to 1842. Many of the 19^th century samplers and pictorial embroideries were likely made by Derby Academy students.

After schoolgirls mastered basic stitches they graduated to pictorial embroidery. Lydia Cushing stitched a Boston landscape with John Hancock’s house, Park Street Church and the grassy Common, complete with a cow . She used silk thread on silk fabric to achieve the detail of each element using satin stitch and outline stitch.

Memorial pictures were created to honor a family member after their death. Sophia Loring, at age 15, memorialized her grandparents Thomas and Sarah Loring with a complex embroidery featuring three youngsters, a weeping willow, the ocean with a sailing ship and a house in the background. Sophia employed the  satin stitch to cover almost the entire surface of the 10 inch by 14 inch picture, adding details with French knots, couching and outline stitches.

Wrought By My Hand was researched and organized by Jane Shute, Joyce Schreier, Beth Harling and Julianne Mehegan.  The exhibit is the culmination of a two year project undertaken in conjunction with the Colonial Dames’s invitation to submit information about samplers and pictorial needlework in the Historical Society Collection. The information collected for the Colonial Dames’s project  includes the maker, date made, origin, fabric/thread type, condition and inscriptions. Over 50 volunteers carefully studied each embroidery in the Society’s collection to prepare the information for submission to The Dames. A national database of information with be created to aid scholars researching American needlework .

Lydia Nichols

Gay

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