This embroidered mourning picture was embroidered in Lititz, Pennsylvania, about 1816, using silk
Lydia Dickman's Sampler
Grade Range: K-12
Resource Type(s): Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
3/5/2009
By the 1700s, samplers depicting alphabets and numerals were worked by young women to learn the basic needlework skills needed to operate the family household. The earliest dated sampler in the museum's collection was made in 1735 by Lydia Dickman of Boston, Massachusetts. By the late 1700s and early 1800s, schools or academies for well-to-do young women flourished, and more elaborate pieces with decorative motifs such as verses, flowers, houses, religious, pastoral, and/or mourning scenes were being stitched. The parents of these young women proudly displayed their embroideries as showpieces of their work, talent, and status.
National Standards
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Era 2: Colonization and Settlement (1585-1763)
1: Why the Americas attracted Europeans, why they brought enslaved Africans to their colonies, and how Europeans struggled for control of North America and the Caribbean
2: How political, religious, and social institutions emerged in the English colonies
3: How the values and institutions of European economic life took root in the colonies, and how slavery reshaped European and African life in the America
2: How political, religious, and social institutions emerged in the English colonies
3: How the values and institutions of European economic life took root in the colonies, and how slavery reshaped European and African life in the America
