Object Number 1969.0046 A

Object Name

Sampler (Globe sampler)

Category

Textiles (Needlework)

Credit Line/Donor

Museum purchase

Creator (Role)

Ruth Wright (Maker)
Ruth Wright was from Exeter, Pennsylvania who was registered at the Westtown Friends School, near Philadelphia in October 1814. She worked this globe sampler while at school in 1815. Not much is known about Ruth - further research may be required.

The Friends' Westtown Boarding School (School)
May 6, 1799
The Friends' Westtown Boarding School in Chester County, Pennsylvania, has been in continuous operation since May 6, 1799, and a wealth of schoolgirl needlework has survived from its first fifty years of existence. Westtown quickly became the most respected Quaker boarding school within this stronghold of Quaker culture. The school building was built on 600 acres of land in Westtown Township. The girls' studies were essentially the same as the boys' with less emphasis on math, and more emphasis on needlework. Spelling lessons were conducted while they sewed. Most samplers worked at Westtown were practical and plain exercises in marking and darning. The undulating vine-and-leaf border is characteristic of verse samplers produced at this school. Students with advanced needlework skills were allowed to "stitch views of the School." The most unique objects produced by Westtown schoolgirls are the stuffed silk globes. (See Ring, Betty. Girlhood Embroidery, Vol. II, pp. 388-390)

Place of Origin

Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, United States, North America

Secondary Place of Origin

Chester, Pennsylvania, Mid-Atlantic, United States, North America

Date

1815

Materials

Silk; Ink; Graphite; Linen

Techniques

Embroidered, Woven (plain), Stuffed, Sewn

Construction Description

Hand-embroidered

Dimensions (inches)

8 (Diam)

Dimensions (centimeters)

20.32 (Diam)

Measurement Notes

Circumference: 16 inches

Object Description

Web - 09/17/2014

This is a terrestrial globe sampler worked with ink, pencil, and silk threads on a silk ground. It was worked in 1815 by Ruth Wright of Exeter, Pennsylvania while attending the Westtown Friends School in Chester County. At this time, schools began to teach academic subjects to young women, including geography. At Westtown, after the girls had mastered easier types of samplers, they moved on to working globes, terrestrial and celestial, a type not found elsewhere. Globes had very little needlework, and instead were intended to demonstrate academic accomplishment. In Westtown globes, the lines of longitude and latitude are couched down and the borders of countries are often done in outline stitches. However, names are hand-printed on the silk background. Stands were sometimes made for these globes, as is the case with Ruth's example.

Bibliography and Bibliographic Notes

[Book] Swan, Susan Burrows. 1977 Plain & Fancy: American Women and Their Needlework, 1700-1850.
• Published: p. 60, 61, fig. 26
[Book] Swan, Susan Burrows. 1995 Plain and Fancy: American Women and their Needlework, 1650-1850.
• Published: p. 64, fig. 30
[Book] Swan, Susan Burrows. 1976 A Winterthur Guide to American Needlework.
• Published: p. 21, fig. 13
[Book] Swan, Susan Burrows. 1975 Needlework, An Historical Survey, Antiques Magazine Library, "Worked Pocketbooks". 53-58.
• Westtown examples: fig. 3
[Book] Schiffer, Margaret B. 1958 Historical Needlework of Pennsylvania.
• p. 56 - illustration of similar globes; p. 64 - text; p. 51 -quotation of a young girl making a globe
[Book] Howell, William Huntting. 2015 Against Self-Reliance: The Arts of Dependence in the Early United States.
•
[Article] Andrews, JeanMarie. 04//2014 Holding the World in Stitches. Early American Life Magazine. 54 - 57.
• Published: p. 54