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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in America, by 
+Candace Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Development of Embroidery in America
+
+Author: Candace Wheeler
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2008 [EBook #24165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Constanze Hofmann and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE DEVELOPMENT
+  OF EMBROIDERY IN
+  AMERICA
+
+  By Candace Wheeler
+
+  [Illustration: CANDACE WHEELER
+
+  From the painting by her daughter Dora Wheeler Keith.
+
+  _Painted by Dora Wheeler Keith_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE DEVELOPMENT OF
+  EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+  _By_
+
+  CANDACE WHEELER
+
+  _Illustrated_
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+  NEW YORK AND LONDON
+  MCMXXI
+
+
+
+
+  DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+  Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
+  Printed in the United States of America
+  X-V
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+  Introductory. The Story of the Needle                                3
+
+  I.    Beginnings in the New World                                   10
+
+  II.   The Crewelwork of Our Puritan Mothers                         17
+
+  III.  Samplers and a Word About Quilts                              48
+
+  IV.   Moravian Work, Portraiture, French Embroidery and Lacework    62
+
+  V.    Berlin Woolwork                                               96
+
+  VI.   Revival of Embroidery, and the Founding of the Society
+        of Decorative Art                                            102
+
+  VII.  American Tapestry                                            121
+
+  VIII. The Bayeux Tapestries                                        144
+
+
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  CANDACE WHEELER. From the painting by her daughter
+      Dora Wheeler Keith                                    Frontispiece
+
+  MOCCASINS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.
+      Made by Sioux Indians                                  _Facing_ 12
+
+  PIPE BAGS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Sioux Indians             12
+
+  MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Sioux Indians          14
+
+  MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Plains Indians         14
+
+  CREWEL DESIGN, drawn and colored, which dates back
+      to Colonial times                                               18
+
+  TESTER embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+      homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass.,
+      in 1640, by Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth            22
+
+  RAISED EMBROIDERY ON BLACK VELVET. Nineteenth century American      22
+
+  QUILTED COVERLET made by Ann Gurnee                                 26
+
+  HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET with King George's Crown embroidered
+      with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+      home at Fort Lee, N. J., where Washington was entertained       26
+
+  CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET, made about 1830, of homespun wool with
+      "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter
+      worked in the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red,
+      yellow, and dark green. From the Westervelt collection          26
+
+  BED SET, Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and worked
+      by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework,
+      Deerfield, Mass.                                                32
+
+  BED COVERS worked in candle wicking                                 32
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the possession
+      of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N. J.                        50
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in colors on écru linen, by Mary Ann Marley,
+      aged twelve, August 30, 1820                                    52
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in brown on écru linen, by Martha Carter
+      Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished
+      at her death                                                    52
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late eighteenth
+      century American                                                54
+
+  MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to
+      the memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805      54
+
+  SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806,
+      by Sarah Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L. I.                         54
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in 1810              56
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793          56
+
+  PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John Quincy Adams,
+      and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection                      56
+
+  SAMPLER in drawnwork, écru linen thread, made by Anne Gower,
+      wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628                         60
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on écru canvas by Mary
+      Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant,
+      married July, 1675, accused of witchcraft in 1692,
+      but escaped to New York                                         60
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born
+      February 19, 1780, in Bristol                                   60
+
+  NEEDLEBOOK of Moravian embroidery made about 1850, now in
+      the possession of Mrs. J. N. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa.              64
+
+  MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY worked by Emily E. Reynolds, Plymouth, Pa.,
+      in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian Seminary
+      in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter                64
+
+  MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY from Louisville, Ky.                            66
+
+  LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania Dutch
+      early nineteenth century                                        70
+
+  "THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"--Moravian embroidered picture,
+      an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa. Worked by
+      Sarah Kummer about 1790                                         74
+
+  "SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"--Cross-stitch picture
+      made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family,
+      Bethlehem, Pa.                                                  74
+
+  ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred Hoskins,
+      of Edenton, N. C., while attending an English finishing school
+      in Baltimore in 1814                                            76
+
+  FIRE SCREEN embroidered in cross-stitch worsted                     78
+
+  FIRE SCREEN, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+      cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen                    78
+
+  FIRE SCREEN worked about 1850 by Miss C. A. Granger,
+      of Canandaigua, N. Y.                                           78
+
+  EMBROIDERED PICTURE in silks, with a painted sky                    80
+
+  CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI. Embroidered picture in silks,
+      with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very, of Salem,
+      at the age of sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school            80
+
+  CAPE of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century American         84
+
+  COLLARS of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century American    84
+
+  BABY'S CAP. White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+      Nineteenth century American                                     86
+
+  BABY'S CAP. Embroidered mull. 1825                                  86
+
+  COLLAR of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century American     86
+
+  EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the
+      Westervelt collection                                           88
+
+  EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS, 1850. From the collection
+      of Mrs. George Coe                                              88
+
+  EMBROIDERY ON NET. Border for the front of a cap made about 1820    90
+
+  VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net.
+      American nineteenth century                                     90
+
+  LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 × 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+      collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier                            92
+
+  HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the Dutch.
+      The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on
+      which the design was darned with linen. Made about 1800
+      and used in the end of linen pillow cases                       92
+
+  BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliquéd
+      on blue woolen ground                                           98
+
+  NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point.
+      Single cross-stitch                                             98
+
+  HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse needlepoint                 100
+
+  TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+      and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand
+      weave originated at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms               100
+
+  EMBROIDERED MITS                                                   104
+
+  WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+      century American                                               104
+
+  WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+      century American                                               104
+
+  EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post
+      bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton,
+      by Mrs. Gideon Granger, Canandaigua, New York                  104
+
+  DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool                    108
+
+  LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch
+      with colored wool                                              108
+
+  QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand                           118
+
+  DETAIL of quilted coverlet                                         118
+
+  THE WINGED MOON. Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed
+      in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists, 1883       122
+
+  SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL                          126
+
+  THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. Arranged (from photographs
+      made in London of the original cartoon by Raphael, in the
+      Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+      needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists                130
+
+  MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL. Drawn by Dora Wheeler
+      and executed in needle-woven tapestry by
+      The Associated Artists, 1884                                   132
+
+  APHRODITE. Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry
+      worked by The Associated Artists, 1883                         134
+
+  FIGHTING DRAGONS. Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered
+      by The Associated Artists, 1885                                140
+
+  THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY                              146
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY -- THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE
+
+
+The story of embroidery includes in its history all the work of the
+needle since Eve sewed fig leaves together in the Garden of Eden. We are
+the inheritors of the knowledge and skill of all the daughters of Eve in
+all that concerns its use since the beginning of time.
+
+When this small implement came open-eyed into the world it brought with
+it possibilities of well-being and comfort for races and ages to come.
+It has been an instrument of beneficence as long ago as "Dorcas sewed
+garments and gave them to the poor," and has been a creator of beauty
+since Sisera gave to his mother "a prey of needlework, 'alike on both
+sides.'" This little descriptive phrase--alike on both sides--will at
+once suggest to all needlewomen a perfection of method almost without
+parallel. Of course it can be done, but the skill of it must have been
+rare, even in those far-off days of leisure when duties and pleasures
+did not crowd out painstaking tasks, and every art was carried as far as
+human assiduity and invention could carry it.
+
+A history of the needlework of the world would be a history of the
+domestic accomplishment of the world, that inner story of the existence
+of man which bears the relation to him of sunlight to the plant. We can
+deduce from these needle records much of the physical circumstances of
+woman's long pilgrimage down the ages, of her mental processes, of her
+growth in thought. We can judge from the character of her art whether
+she was at peace with herself and the world, and from its status we
+become aware of its relative importance to the conditions of her life.
+
+There are few written records of its practice and growth, for an art
+which does not affect the commercial gain of a land or country is not
+apt to have a written or statistical history, but, fortunately in this
+case, the curious and valuable specimens which are left to us tell their
+own story. They reveal the cultivation and amelioration of domestic
+life. Their contribution to the refinements are their very existence.
+
+A history of any domestic practice which has grown into a habit marks
+the degree of general civilization, but the practice of needlework does
+more. To a careful student each small difference in the art tells its
+own story in its own language. The hammered gold of Eastern embroidery
+tells not only of the riches of available material, but of the habit of
+personal preparation, instead of the mechanical. The little Bible
+description of captured "needlework alike on both sides" speaks
+unmistakably of the method of their stitchery, a cross-stitch of colored
+threads, which is even now the only method of stitch "alike on both
+sides."
+
+It is an endless and fascinating story of the leisure of women in all
+ages and circumstances, written in her own handwriting of painstaking
+needlework and an estimate of an art to which gold, silver, and precious
+stones--the treasures of the world--were devoted. More than this, its
+intimate association with the growth and well-being of family life makes
+visible the point where savagery is left behind and the decrees of
+civilization begin.
+
+I knew a dear Bible-nourished lonely little maid who had constructed for
+herself a drama of Eve in Eden, playing it for the solitary audience of
+self in a corner of the garden. She had brought all manner of fruits and
+had tied them to the fence palings under the apple boughs. This little
+Eve gathered grape leaves and sewed them carefully into an apron, the
+needle holes pierced with a thorn and held together by fiber stripped
+from long-stemmed plantain leaves. Here she and her audience of self hid
+under the apple boughs and waited for the call of the Lord.
+
+The long ministry of the needle to the wants of mankind proves it to
+have been among the first of man's inventions. When Eve sewed fig leaves
+she probably improvised some implement for the process, and every
+daughter of Eve, from Eden to the present time, has been indebted to
+that little implement for expression of herself in love and duty and
+art. For this we must thank the man who, the Bible relates, was "the
+father of all such as worked in metals, and made needles and gave them
+to his household." He is the first "handy man" mentioned in
+history--blest be his memory!
+
+If the day should ever come, not, let us hope, in our time or that of
+our children, when the manufacturer shall find that it no longer pays to
+make needles, what value will attach to individual specimens! If they
+were only to be found in occasional bric-à-brac shops or in the
+collections of some far-seeing hoarder of rarities, it would be
+difficult to overrate the interest which might attach to them. How, from
+the prodigal disregard of ages and the mysteries of the past, would
+emerge, one after another, recovered specimens, to be examined and
+judged and classified and arranged!
+
+Perhaps collections of them will be found in future museums under
+different headings, such as:
+
+"Needles of Consolation," under which might come those which Mary Stuart
+and her maids wrought their dismal hours into pathetic bits of
+embroidery during the long days of captivity, or the daughter of the
+sorrowful Marie Antoinette mended the dilapidations of the pitiful and
+ragged Dauphin; or:
+
+"Needles of Devotion," wielded by canonized and uncanonized saints in
+and out of nunneries; or:
+
+"Needles of History," like those with which Matilda stitched the prowess
+of William the Conqueror into breadths of woven flax.
+
+Possibly there may arise needle experts who, upon microscopic
+examination and scientific test, will refer all specimens to positive
+date and peculiar function, and by so doing let in floods of light upon
+ancient customs and habits. It is idle to speculate upon a condition
+which does not yet exist, for, happily, needles for actual hand sewing
+are yet in sufficient demand to allow us to indulge in their purchase
+quite ungrudgingly.
+
+I was once shown a needle--it was in Constantinople--which the
+dark-skinned owner declared had been treasured for three hundred years
+in his family, and he affirmed it so positively and circumstantially
+that I accepted the statement as truth. In fact, what did it matter? It
+was an interesting lie or an interesting truth, whichever one might
+consider it, and the needle looked quite capable of sustaining another
+century or so of family use. Its eye was a polished triangular hole made
+to carry strips of beaten metal, exactly such as we read of in the Bible
+as beaten and cut into strips for embroidery upon linen, such
+embroidery, in fact, as has often been burned in order to sift the pure
+gold from its ashes.
+
+Not only the history, but the poetry and song of all periods are starred
+with real and ideal embroideries--noble and beautiful ladies, whose
+chief occupations seem to have been the medicining of wounds received in
+their honor or defense, or the broidering of scarfs and sleeves with
+which to bind the helmets of their knights as they went forth to
+tourney or to battle. In these old chronicles the knights fought or made
+music with harp or voice, and the women ministered or made embroidery,
+and so pictured lives which were lived in the days of knights and ladies
+drifted on. The sword and the needle expressed the duties, the spirit,
+and the essence of their several lives. The men were militant, the women
+domestic, and wherever in castle or house or nunnery the lives of women
+were made safe by the use of the sword the needle was devoting itself to
+comforts of clothing for the poor and dependent, or luxuries of
+adornment for the rich and powerful. So the needle lived on through all
+the civilizations of the old world, in the various forms which they
+developed, until it was finally inherited by pilgrims to a new world,
+and was brought with them to the wilderness of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I -- BEGINNINGS IN THE NEW WORLD
+
+
+The history of embroidery in America would naturally begin with the
+advent of the Pilgrim Mothers, if one ignored the work of native
+Indians. This, however, would be unfair to a primitive art, which
+accomplished, with perfect appropriateness to use and remarkable
+adaptation of circumstance and material, the ornamentation of personal
+apparel.
+
+The porcupine quill embroidery of American Indian women is unique among
+the productions of primitive peoples, and some of the dresses, deerskin
+shirts, and moccasins with borders and flying designs in black, red,
+blue, and shining white quills, and edged with fringes hung with the
+teeth and claws of game, or with beautiful small shells, are as truly
+objects of art as are many things of the same decorative intent produced
+under the best conditions of civilization.
+
+To create beauty with the very limited resources of skins, hair, teeth,
+and quills of animals, colored with the expressed juice of plants, was a
+problem very successfully solved by these dwellers in the wilderness,
+and the results were practically and æsthetically valuable.
+
+In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., there has happily
+been preserved a most interesting collection of these early efforts. The
+small deerskin shirts worn as outer garments by the little Sioux were
+perhaps among the most interesting and elaborate. They are generally
+embroidered with dyed moose hair and split quills of birds in their
+natural colors, large split quills or flattened smaller quills used
+whole. The work has an embossed effect which is very striking. A coat
+for an adult of Sioux workmanship, made of calfskin thicker and less
+pliant than the deerskin ordinarily used for garments, carries a broad
+band of quill embroidery, broken by whorls of the same, the center of
+each holding a highly decorated tassel made of narrow strips of
+deerskin, bound at intervals with split porcupine quills. These
+ornamental tassels carry the idea of decoration below the bands, and
+have a changeable and living effect which is admirable. In a smaller
+shirt, the whole body is covered at irregular intervals with whorls of
+the finest porcupine quill work, edged by a border of interlaced black
+and white quills, finished with perforated shells. Many of the designs
+are edged with narrow zigzag borders of the split quills in natural
+colors carefully matched and lapped in very exact fashion. There is one
+small shirt, made with a decorative border of tanned ermine skins in
+alternate squares of fur and beautifully colored quill embroidery, not
+one tint of which is out of harmony with the soft yellow of the deerskin
+body. The edge of the shirt is finished in very civilized fashion, with
+ermine tails, each pendant, banded with blue quills, at alternating
+heights, making a shining zigzag of blue along the fringe. The
+simplicity of treatment and purity of color in this little garment were
+fascinating, and must have invested the small savage who wore it with
+the dignity of a prince.
+
+The mother who evolved the scheme and manner of decoration carried her
+bit of genius in an uncivilized squaw body, but had none the less a true
+feeling for beauty, and in this mother task lifted the plane of the art
+of her people to a higher level.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--MOCCASINS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux
+Indians.
+
+_Right_--PIPE BAGS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux Indians.
+
+_Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+The purely decorative ability which lived and flourished before the
+advent of civilization lost its distinctive simplicity of character when
+woven cloth of brilliant red flannel and the tempting glamour of
+colored glass beads came into their horizon, although they accepted
+these new materials with avidity. Porcupine quill work seems to have
+been no longer practiced, although a few headbands of ceremony are to be
+found among the tribes, and now and then one comes across a veritable
+treasure, an evidence of long and unremitting toil, which has been
+preserved with veneration.
+
+Of course many valuable results of the best early embroideries still
+exist among the Indians themselves.
+
+A very striking feature of both early and late work is the fringing,
+which plays an important part in the decoration of garments. The fringe
+materials were generally of the longest procurable dried moose hair, the
+finely cut strips of deerskin, or, in some instances, the tough stems of
+river and swamp grasses twisted, braided and interwoven in every
+conceivable manner, and varied along the depth of the fringes by small
+perforated shells, teeth of animals, seeds of pine, or other shapely and
+hard substances which gave variety and added weight. Beads of bone and
+shell are not uncommon, or small bits of hammered metal. In one or two
+instances I have seen long deerskin fringes with stained or painted
+designs, emphasized with seeds or shells at centers of circles, or
+corners of zigzags. This ingenious use of a decorative fringe gave an
+effect of elaborate ornament with comparatively small labor.
+
+Perhaps the best lesson we have to learn from this bygone phase of
+decorative effort is in the possibilities of genuine art, where scant
+materials of effect are available.
+
+A thoughtful and exact study of early Indian art gives abundant
+indication of the effect of intimacy with the moods and phenomena of
+Nature, incident to the lives of an outdoor people.
+
+Many of the designs which decorate the larger pieces, like shirts and
+blankets, were evidently so inspired. The designs of lengthened and
+unequal zigzags are lightning flashes translated into embroidery; the
+lateral lines of broken direction are water waves moving in masses.
+There are clouds and stars and moons to be found among them, and if we
+could interpret them we might even find records of the sensations with
+which they were regarded.
+
+[Illustration: MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK Made by Sioux
+Indians.
+
+_Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+[Illustration: MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK Made by Plains
+Indians.
+
+_Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+It would seem to argue a want of inventive faculty, that the
+aboriginal women never conceived the idea of weaving fibers together in
+textiles, but were contented with the skins of animals for warmth of
+body covering. The two alternatives of so close and warm a substance as
+tanned skins, or nakedness, seem to a civilized mind to demand some
+intermediate substance. This, however, was not felt as a want, at least
+not to the extent of inspiring a textile. Perhaps we should never have
+had the unique porcupine quill embroidery except for the close-grained
+skin foundation, which made it possible and permanent. Certainly the
+cleverness with which the idea of weaving has been used in the evolution
+of the Indian blanket shows that only the initial thought was lacking.
+The subsequent use of the arts of spinning and weaving, with the
+retention of the original idea of decoration in design and coloring, has
+made the Indian blanket an article of great commercial value.
+
+Fortunately, these productions are valuable to their producers, and even
+to other members of the tribes, and were carefully preserved from
+casualties, so that there are still many examples of Indian manufacture,
+such as belts of wampum, and headbands of ceremony, to be found among
+existing tribes.
+
+These early specimens are not only intrinsically valuable, but give many
+a clue to what may be called the spiritual side of the aborigines. They
+had not learned the limits of representation, and as this history deals
+with results of life and not with the impulse toward expression which
+lies at the root of design, we need not attempt more than a suggestion
+of some of the results. The unguided impulses of Indian art, as seen or
+imagined in their work, lies behind the work itself and can be read only
+by its materialization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II -- THE CREWELWORK OF OUR PURITAN MOTHERS
+
+
+The crewelwork of New England was the first ornamental stitchery
+practiced in this country by women of European race, and in their hands
+made its first appearance even during the days of privation and nights
+of fear which were their portion in this strange new world to which they
+had come.
+
+The seed of it was brought by that winged creature of destiny, the
+_Mayflower_, hidden in the folds or decorating the borders of the
+precious household linen which was a part of the gear of the first
+Pilgrims. In its hollow interior there was room for bed dressings and
+table napery, even when the high-posted bedsteads and tables which they
+had adorned were abandoned, or exchanged for peace of mind and liberty
+of action.
+
+It may have declared itself in the very first years of settlement,
+before they had encountered the savage antagonism of the aborigines, and
+while they still had only the privations incident to pioneer life; or
+it may have been after the long struggle for ascendancy and possession
+was over, and they could settle down in hard-won homes. Upon neighboring
+or contiguous farms there they gradually drew together the threads of
+memory concerning former peaceful occupations, and wove them once more
+into the warp of daily life. They could visit one another, exchanging
+domestic experiences, or reminiscences of spiritual struggles of their
+own or of fellow Pilgrims, and old-time hand occupations would be a
+mutual lullaby and an exorcism of anxiety.
+
+The real beginning of embroidery as a national art was probably at a
+later period, for its previous practice would be but a continuation of
+old-world occupations or diversions of life.
+
+The devoted mothers of the American race, who sailed the seas in those
+far-off days, might have brought some favorite "piece" of embroidery
+among their most intimate belongings, wherewithal to while away the
+hours of weary days upon the limitless breadths of ocean. There would be
+intervals of calm between storms, and periods when even the merest shred
+of a home-practiced art would be doubly and trebly valued, like a
+piece of heavenly raiment to a naked and banished angel.
+
+[Illustration: CREWEL DESIGN, drawn and colored, which dates back to
+Colonial times.
+
+_In the possession of the Dunham family of Cooperstown._]
+
+The most natural effort of the woman standing in the midst of such new
+and strenuous conditions as surrounded the Pilgrim mothers in America,
+would be to reproduce something which had meant peace and tranquillity
+in former days. We can imagine her, searching the closely packed
+iron-bound chests which held most of the worldly goods of the traversing
+pilgrims--those famous chests, the boards of which had been carefully
+doweled and faithfully put together to resist outward and inward
+pressure--packed and repacked with constant misgivings and hopeful
+foresight. In those crowded treasure chests it was possible there might
+be found skeins of crewel, and even working patterns which some hopeful
+instinct had prompted her to preserve.
+
+While the Puritan mother was scheming to add embroidery to her
+occupations, she did not forget to train each small maid of the family
+to the use of the needle. Ruth and Peace and Harmony and Mercy made
+their samplers as faithfully as though they were growing up under the
+shade of the apple trees of old England instead of among the blackened
+stumps of newly cut forests.
+
+So the old art survived its transplantation and rooted itself in spite
+of storms of terror, and during and after the test of fire and blood,
+and spread, after the manner of art and knowledge, until it became the
+joy and comfort of a new race, a vehicle of feminine dexterity and an
+expression of the creative instinct with which in a greater or lesser
+degree we are all endowed.
+
+We can easily believe that stores of linen and precious china, as well
+as the small wheels for the spinning of the flax, could not be denied to
+the devoted women who chose to share the hard fortunes of their Pilgrim
+husbands and fathers. It is probable that in one form or another
+possessions of crewel embroidery were transported with them.
+
+I know of no well-authenticated specimen which came in actual substance
+in that elastic vessel, but undoubtedly there were such, while many and
+many existed in the minds and memories of the women of the new colony,
+to come to life and take on actual form, color and substance when the
+days of their privations were numbered. If such actual treasured things
+existed and were preserved through the early days of colonial life,
+every stitch of them would hold within itself traditions of tranquillity
+in a world where homes stood, and fields were tilled in safety, because
+of the vast plains of ocean which lay between them and savage tribes.
+
+In the earliest days of the colonies we could hardly expect more than
+the necessary practice of the needle, but when we come to the second
+period, when neighborhoods became towns, and cabins grew into more or
+less well-equipped farmhouses, Puritan women gladly reverted to the
+accomplishments of pre-American conditions. The familiar crewelwork of
+England was the form of needlework which became popular.
+
+In looking for materials with which to recreate this art, they had not
+at that time far to seek. Wool and flax were farm products, necessities
+of pioneer life, and their manufacture into cloth was a well-understood
+domestic art.
+
+Domestic animals had shared the tremendous experiment of transplantation
+of a fragment of the English race, and had suffered, no doubt, with
+their masters and owners, the struggles with savages and unaccustomed
+circumstances, but they had survived and increased "after their kind."
+Even through the strenuous wars against their very existence by
+uncivilized man, they lived and increased. Cows "calved," and sheep
+"lambed," and wool in abundance was to be had.
+
+The enterprising Puritan woman pulled the long-fibered straggling lock
+of wool, sorted out and rejected from the uniform fleeces, carded it
+with her little hand cards into yard-long finger-sized rolls, and
+twisted it upon her large wheel spindle, producing much such thread as
+an Italian peasant woman spins upon her distaff to-day as she walks upon
+the shore at Baiæ.
+
+If the pioneer was a natural copyist, she doubled and twisted it, to
+make it in the exact fashion of the English crewel; if adventurous and
+independent, she worked it single threaded. This yarn had all the pliant
+qualities necessary for embroidery, and was in fact uncolored crewel.
+
+[Illustration: TESTER embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass., in 1640, by
+Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+To the right, raised embroidery on black velvet. Nineteenth century
+American.]
+
+So, also, the production of flax thread, when the crop of flax was
+grown, and the long stems had struggled upward to their greatest
+heights, and finished themselves in a cloud of multitudinous blue
+flax flowers, beautiful enough to be grown for beauty alone, they pulled
+and made into slender bundles, and laid under the current of the brook
+which neighbored most pioneer houses, until the thready fibers could be
+washed and scraped from the vegetable outer coat, the perishable parts
+of their composition, and combed into separateness. Then it was ready
+for the small flax wheel of the housewife. Every woman had both wool
+wheel and flax wheel, the latter of all grades of beauty, from those
+made for the use of queens and ladies of high degree--royal for
+elaboration--to the modest ashen wheel, derived from a long line of
+industrious and careful foremothers, or copied by the clever Pilgrim
+fathers, from some adventurous wheel which had made the long voyage from
+civilized Holland to uncivilized America.
+
+For color, the simplest and most at hand expedient was a dip in the
+universal indigo tub, which waited in every "back shed" of the Puritan
+homestead. One single dip in its black-looking depths and the skein of
+spun lamb's wool acquired a tint like the blue of the sky. Immersion of
+a day and night gave an indelible stain of a darker blue, and a week's
+repose at the bottom of the pot made the wool as dark in tint as the
+indigo itself. For variety in her blues, the enterprising housewife used
+the sunburned "taglocks" which were too hopelessly yellow for webs of
+white wool weaving, and gave them a short immersion in the tub, with the
+result of a beautiful blue-green, tinged through and through with a
+sunny luster, and this color was sun-fast and water-fast, capable of
+holding its tint for a century.
+
+We know how knots of living wool grow golden by dragging through dew and
+lying in the sun, and how the ladies of Venice sat upon the roofs of
+their palaces with locks outspread upon the encircling brims of
+crownless hats, in order to capture the true Venetian tint of hair. We
+do not know by what alchemy the sun _silvers_ a web spread out to
+whiten, and yet _gilds_ the human tresses of ladies and yellows the
+"taglocks" of sheep. Chemists may be able to explain, but simple woman,
+unversed in the mysteries of chemistry, cannot. Whatever may have been
+the science of it, this golden hue added to medium and dark blue a triad
+of shades, which proved to be most effective when placed upon pure
+white of bleached linen, or the gray-cream of the unbleached web.
+
+The color seekers soon learned that every indelible stain was a dye, and
+if little God-fearing Thomas came home with a stain of ineffaceable
+green or brown on the knees of his diminutive tow breeches, the mother
+carefully investigated the character of it, and if it was unmoved by the
+persuasive influence of "soft soap and sun," she added it to a list
+which meant knowledge. It is to be hoped that this was often considered
+an equivalent for the "trouncing" which was the common penalty of
+accident or inadvertence suffered by the Puritan child. In truth,
+Solomon's unwholesome caution, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," was
+all too strictly observed in those conscience-ridden Puritan days. I had
+a child's lively disapproval of Solomon, since the curse of his
+sarcastic comment came down with the Puritan strain in my own blood, and
+I have a smarting recollection of it.
+
+God-fearing Thomas and his brothers added to their mother's artistic
+equipment not only a list of variously shaded brown from the bark of the
+black walnut tree, and of yellows from the leaves and twigs of the
+sumac and wild cherry, but numberless others. She was an untiring color
+hunter, an experimenter with the juices of plants and flowers and
+berries, and with every unwash-outable stain. She set herself to the
+exciting task of repetition and variation. She tried the velvet shell of
+young butternuts upon threads of her white wool, and found a spring
+green, and if she spread over it a thinnest wash of hemlock bark, they
+were olive, and if she dipped them in mitigated indigo, lo! they were of
+the green of sea hollows. The butternut in all stages of its growth,
+from the smallest and greenest to the rusty black of the ripe ones, and
+the blackest black of the dried shell, was a mine of varied color; and
+the brass kettle of from ten to twenty quarts capacity, which served so
+many purposes in domestic life, could be tranquilly carrying out some of
+her propositions in the corner of the wide chimney while dinner was
+cooking, or in the ashes of the burned-out embers while the household
+slept.
+
+[Illustration: QUILTED COVERLET made by Ann Gurnee.]
+
+[Illustration: HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET with King George's Crown
+embroidered with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+home at Fort Lee, N. J., where Washington was entertained.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET, made about 1830 of homespun wool
+with "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter worked in
+the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red, yellow, and dark green.
+From the Westervelt collection.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+It was interesting and skillful work to extract these colors, and the
+emulation of it and the glory of producing a new one was not without
+its excitement. There was a certain "fast pink" which was the secret
+of one ingenious ungenerous Puritan woman, who kept the secret of the
+dye, when rose pink was the unattainable want of feminine New England.
+She died without revealing it, and as in those days there were no
+chemists to boil up her rags and test them for the secret, the "Windham
+pink," so said my grandmother, "made people sorry for her death,
+although she did not deserve it." This little neighborly fling passed
+down two generations before it came to me from the later days of the
+colony.
+
+Yellows of different complexions were discovered in mayweed, goldenrod
+and sumac, and the little-girl Faiths and Hopes and Harmonys came in
+with fingers pink from the handling of pokeberries and purple from
+blackberry stain, tempting the sight with evanescent dyes which would
+not keep their color even when stayed with alum and fortified with salt.
+All this made Mistress Windham's memory the more sad. A good reliable
+rose red was always wanting. Madder could be purchased, for it was
+raised in the Southern colonies, but the madder was a brown red. Finally
+some enterprising merchantman introduced cochineal, and the vacuum was
+filled. With a judicious addition of logwood, rose red, wine red and
+deep claret were achieved.
+
+The dye of dyes was indigo, for the blue of heaven, or the paler blue of
+snow shadows, to a blue which was black or a black which was blue, was
+within its capacity. And the convenience of it! The indigo tub was
+everywhere an adjunct to all home manufactures. It dyed the yarn for the
+universal knitting, and the wool which was a part of the blue-gray
+homespun for the wear of the men of the household. "One-third of white
+wool, one-third of indigo-dyed wool, and one-third of black sheep's
+wool," was the formula for this universal texture. Perhaps it was not
+too much to say that the gray days of the Pilgrim mother's life were
+enriched by this royal color.
+
+The soft yarns, carefully spun from selected wool, took kindly to the
+natural dyes, and our friend, the Puritan housewife, soon found herself
+in possession of a stock of home-manufactured material, soft and
+flexible in quality, and quite as good in color as that of the lamented
+English crewels. The homespun and woven linens with which her chests
+were stocked were exactly the ground for decorative needlework of the
+kind which she had known in her English childhood, long before questions
+of conscience had come to trouble her, or the boy who had grown up to be
+her husband had been wakened from a comfortable existence by the
+cat-o'-nine-tails of conscience, and sent across the sea to stifle his
+doubts in fighting savagery.
+
+Probably the Puritan mother could stop thinking for a while about the
+training of Thomas and Peace and Harmony, and the rest of the dozen and
+a half of children which were the allotted portion of every Puritan
+wife, while she selected out intervals of her long busy days, as one
+selects out bits of color from bundles of uninteresting patches, and
+devoted them to absolutely superfluous needlework.
+
+What a joy it must have been to ponder whether she should use deep pink
+or celestial blue for the flowers of her pattern, instead of remembering
+how red poor baby Thomas's little cushions of flesh had grown under the
+smart slaps of her corset board when he overcame his sister Faith in a
+fair fight about nothing, and what a relief the making of crewel roses
+must have been from the doubts and cares of a constantly increasing
+family!
+
+She sorted out her colors, three shades of green, three of cochineal
+red, two of madder--one of them a real salmon color--numberless shades
+of indigo, yellows and oranges and browns in goodly bunches, ready for
+the long stretches of fair solid white linen split into valances or
+sewed into a counterpane. Truly she was a happy woman, and she would
+show Mistress Schuyler, with her endless "blue-and-white," what she
+could do with _her_ colors! Then she had a misgiving, and reflected for
+a moment on the unregeneracy of the human soul, and that poor Mistress
+Schuyler's quiet airs of superiority really came from her Dutch blood,
+for her mother was an English Puritan who had married a Hollander, and
+her own husband revealed to her in the dead of night, when all hearts
+are opened, his belief that "Brother Schuyler had been moved to emigrate
+much more by greed of profitable trade with the savages than by longings
+for liberty of conscience."
+
+She went back to her "pattern," which she just now remembered had been
+lent her by poor Mistress Schuyler, and was soon absorbed in making
+long lines of pin pricks along the outlines of the pattern, so that she
+could sift powdered charcoal through and catch the shapes of leaves and
+curves on her fair white linen.
+
+Her foot was on the rocker of the cradle all the time, and the last baby
+was asleep in it. The hooded cherry cradle which had rocked the three
+girls and four boys, counting the wee velvet-scalped Jonathan, against
+whose coming the cradle had been polished with rottenstone and whale oil
+until it shone like mahogany.
+
+Should the roses of the pattern be red or pink? and the columbines blue
+or purple? She could make a beautiful purple by steeping the sugar paper
+which wrapped her precious cone of West Indian "loaf sugar," and
+sugar-paper purple was reasonably fast. So ran the thoughts of the dear,
+straight-featured Puritan wife as she sorted her colors and worked her
+pattern.
+
+At this period of her experience of the new life of the colonies, the
+chief end of her embroidery was to help in creating a civilized home, to
+add to what had been built simply for shelter and protection, some of
+the features which lived and grew only in the atmosphere of safety and
+content. Hospitality was one of the features of New England life, and
+the first addition to the family shelter was a bedroom, which bore the
+title of the "best bedroom," and a tall four-post bed, which was the
+"best bed." The adornment of this holy altar of friendship was an urgent
+duty.
+
+When I began this allusion to the "best bedroom," I left the housewife
+sorting her tinted crewels for its adornment, and she still sat, happily
+cutting the beautiful homespun linen into lengths for the two bed
+valances, the one to hang from the upper frame which surrounded the top
+of her four-post bedstead, and the other, which hung from the bed frame
+itself, and reached the floor, hiding the dark space beneath the bed.
+The "high-post bedstead" had long groups of smooth flutes in the upward
+course of its posts, and no footboard, a plain-sawed headboard and
+smooth headposts. There must be a long curtain at the head of the bed,
+which would hide both headboard and plain headposts, and this curtain
+she meant should have a wide border of crewelwork at the top and bunches
+of flowers scattered at intervals on its surface.
+
+[Illustration: BED SET. Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and
+worked by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. Deerfield,
+Mass.]
+
+[Illustration: BED COVERS worked in candle wicking.
+
+_Courtesy of Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]
+
+None of Mistress Schuyler's "blue-and-white" for her! It should carry
+every color she could muster, and the upper valance should have the same
+border as the head curtain. The lower valance would not need it, for the
+counterpane would hang well over, and she meant somehow to bend the
+border design into a wreath and work it in the center of the
+counterpane, and double-knot a fringe to go entirely around it, the same
+as that which should edge the upper valance.
+
+It was a luxurious bed dressing when it was finished, and nothing in it
+of material to differentiate it from the embroideries which were being
+done in England at the very time. There were no original features of
+design or arrangement. The close-lapping stitches were set in exactly
+the same fashion, and, considering the absolute necessity of growing and
+manufacturing all the materials, it was a wonderful performance.
+
+It was not alone bed hangings which were subjects of New England
+crewelwork; there were mantel valances, which covered the plain wooden
+mantels and hung at a safe distance above the generous household fires.
+These were wrought with borders of crewelwork, and finished with
+elaborate thread and crewel fringes. They were knotted into
+diamond-shaped openings, above the fringes, three or four rows of them,
+the more the better, for in the general simplicity of furnishing, these
+things were of value. Then there were table covers and stand covers and
+wall pockets of various shapes and designs, and, in short, wherever the
+housewife could legitimately introduce color and ornamentation,
+crewelwork made its appearance.
+
+In the very infancy of the art of embroidery in America, the primitive
+needlewoman was possessed of means and materials which fill the
+embroiderers of our rich later days with envy. Homespun linen is no
+longer to be had, and dyes are no longer the pure, simple, hold-fast
+juices which certain plants draw from the ground; and try as we may to
+emulate or imitate the old embroidered valances which hung from the
+testers of the high-post bedsteads and concealed the dark cavities
+beneath, and the coverlet besprinkled with bunches of impossible flowers
+done in home-concocted shades of color upon heavy snow-white linen, we
+fall far short of the intrinsic merits of those early hangings.
+
+There are many survivals of these embroideries in New England families,
+who reverence all that pertains to the lives of their founders. Bed
+hangings had less daily wear and friction than pertained to other
+articles of decorative use, and generally maintained a healthy existence
+until they ceased to be things of custom or fashion. When this time came
+they were folded away with other treasures of household stuffs, in the
+reserved linen chest, whence they occasionally emerge to tell tales of
+earlier days and compare themselves with the mixed specimens of
+needlework art which have succeeded them, but cannot be properly called
+their descendants.
+
+The possession of a good piece of old crewelwork, done in this country,
+is as strong a proof of respectable ancestry as a patent of nobility,
+since no one in the busy early colonial days had time for such work save
+those whose abundant leisure was secured by ample means and liberal
+surroundings. The incessant social and intellectual activity demanded by
+modern conditions of life was uncalled for. No woman, be she gentle or
+simple, had stepped from the peaceful obscurity of home into the field
+of the world to war for its prizes or rewards. If the man to whom she
+belonged failed to win bread or renown, the women who were bound in his
+family starved for the one or lived without the luster of the other.
+
+I have shown that even in the early days of flax growing and indigo
+dyeing the New England farmer's wife had come into her heritage, not
+only of materials, but of the implements of manufacture. She had the
+small flax wheel which dwelt in the keeping room, where she could sit
+and spin like a lady of place and condition, and the large woolen wheel
+standing in the mote-laden air of the garret, through which she walked
+up and down as she twisted the yarn.
+
+Later, the colonial dame, if she belonged to the prosperous class--for
+there were classes, even in the beginning of colonial life--had her
+beautifully shaped mahogany linen wheel, made by the skillful artificers
+of England or Holland, more beautiful perhaps, but not more capable than
+that of the farm wife, whittled and sandpapered into smoothness by her
+husband or sons, and both were used with the same result.
+
+The pioneer woodworker had a lively appreciation of the new woods of the
+new country, and made free use of the abundant wild cherry for the
+furniture called for by the growing prosperity of the settlements, its
+close grain and warm color giving it the preference over other native
+woods, excepting always the curly and bird's-eye maple, which were
+novelties to the imported artisan.
+
+I remember that "curly maple" was a much prized wood in my own
+childhood, and that after carefully searching for the outward marks of
+it among the trees of the farm, I asked about the shape of its leaves
+and the color of its bark, so that I might know it--for children were
+supposed to know species of trees by sight in my childhood. "Why," said
+my mother, "it looks like any other maple tree on the outside; it is
+only that the wood is curly, just as some children have curly hair."
+Even now, after all these years, a plane of curly maple suggests the
+curly hair of some child beloved of nature.
+
+The beautiful curly, spotted and satiny maple wood was, however, "out of
+fashion" when the roving shipmasters began to bring in logs of Santo
+Domingo mahogany in the holds of their far-wandering barks, and the
+cabinetmakers to cut beautiful shapes of sideboards, and curving legs
+and backs of chairs, as well as the tall carved headposts and the head
+and footboards of luxurious beds from them. It was not only that they
+were a repetition of English luxury, but that they made more of
+themselves in plain white interiors, by reason of insistent color, than
+the blond sisterhood of maples could do. Cherry, which shared in a
+degree its depth of color, held its world for a longer period, but no
+wood could withstand the magnificence of pure mahogany red, with the
+story of its vegetable life written along its planes in lines and waves,
+deepening into darks, and lightening into ocher and gold along its
+surfaces.
+
+If the cabinetry of New England is a digression, it is perhaps excusable
+on the ground of its close connection with the crewel work of New
+England, of which we are treating, and to which we shall have something
+of a sense of novelty in returning, since at least the complexion of our
+colonial embroidery has experienced a change.
+
+So, in spite of the success of the early Puritan woman in producing
+tints necessary to the various needs of colored crewelwork, the
+supremacy of indigo as a dye led to a lasting fashion of embroidery
+known as "blue-and-white." It was the assertion of absolute and tried
+merit in materials which led to its success. We sometimes see this
+emergence of persistent goodness in instances of some human career,
+where indefatigable integrity outruns the glamour of personal gift. This
+was the fortune of the "blue-and-white," which not only created a style,
+but has achieved persistence and has broken out in revivals all along
+the history of American embroidery. It has been somewhat identified with
+domestic weaving, for the loom has always been a member of the New
+England family, the great home-built loom, standing in the far end of
+the kitchen, capable of divers miracles of creation between dawn and
+sunset.
+
+On this much-to-be-prized background of homespun linen the different
+shades of indigo blue could be, and were, very effectively used, and it
+is worthy of note that it repeated the simple contrasts of the Canton
+china or the "blue Canton" which were the prized gifts brought to their
+families by the returning New England seamen in the profitable "India
+trade," which soon became a commercial fact.
+
+"Blue-and-white" had at first been evolved by tight-bound
+circumstances. Excellent practice in shades of blue had given it a
+certified place in the embroidery art of America, but we do not find it
+in collections of old English embroidery. It is one of the small
+monuments which mark the path of the woman colonist, narrowed by
+circumstances, which created a recognized style. It is not to be
+wondered at that blue-and-white crewelwork made a place for itself in
+the history of embroidery which was a permanent one. The circumstances
+of Puritan life being so simple and direct would induce a corresponding
+simplicity of taste, and simplicity is apt to seize upon first
+principles.
+
+Every colorist knows that strong but peaceful contrast is one of the
+first laws of color arrangement, and the unconscious yoking of white and
+blue placed one of the strongest color notes against unprotesting and
+receptive white. This made a new manner or style of embroidery. Its
+permanence may have been influenced by the art of one of the oldest
+peoples of the world, and as we have said, the prevalence of Canton
+china upon the dressers and filling the mantel closets and serving the
+tables of the rich, was beginning to appear in all houses of growing
+prosperity, even where pewter ware and dishes carved from wood still
+held the place of actual service.
+
+The Puritan housewife could arrange her grades of blue according to the
+Chinese colors of this oldest domestic art of the world, and be
+correspondingly happy in the result. Chinese design, however, had no
+influence in the growing practice of embroidery, and here also an
+instinctive law prevailed. She recognized that even the highly
+artificial landscape art of her idolized plates would not suit the
+flexible and broken surfaces of her equally cherished linen, or the
+surroundings of her life.
+
+It was small wonder that this became a favorite style of embroidery and
+has in it the seeds of permanence. A table setting of snow-white or
+cream-white homespun, scalloped and embroidered in lines of blue
+crewels, shining with the precious Canton blue, was, and would be even
+at this day, a thing to admire.
+
+The first deviation from the habitual crewelwork is to be found in the
+"blue-and-white," for although the same stitch was employed, it was
+more often in outline than solid. The designs were sketches instead of
+"patterns" as had formerly been the case. Although this variety of work
+comes under the head of colonial crewelwork, there was in it the
+beginning of the changes and variety effected by differing circumstances
+and influences--those vital circumstances which leave their traces
+constantly along the history of needlework. It was owing to various
+reasons that outline embroidery largely took the place of solid
+crewelwork.
+
+The question of design must have been a rather difficult one, as there
+were no designs, and almost no sources of design for needlework, and at
+this stage of the art in New England original design seems not to have
+suggested itself. It would certainly have been quite natural to have
+copied pine trees and broken outlines of hills, but as this class of
+embroidery was almost entirely used for hangings and decorative
+furnishings, the Pilgrim mothers seem to have had an instinctive sense
+that such design was incongruous. Consequently they copied English
+models. We find designs of crewelwork of the period in English museums
+identically the same as in the New England work, thorned roses and
+voluminously doubled pinks, held together in borders of long curved
+lines or scattered at regular intervals in groups and bunches.
+
+My grandmother explained to me in that long-ago period, where her great
+age and my inquisitive youth met and exchanged our several and
+individual surplus of thought and talk, that to a certain extent ladies
+of colonial days copied many of their designs from what were called
+India chintzes. These chintzes seem to have been the intermediate wear
+between homespun of either flax or wool and the creamy satins or the
+thick "paduasoy," the more flexible "lutestring" silks, worn by great
+ladies of the period, and the wrought India muslins for less
+conventional occasions. India chintzes were printed upon white or tinted
+grounds of hand-spun cotton, in colors so generously full of substance
+as to have almost the effect of brocaded stuffs, and adaptations from
+their designs were suitable for embroidery. I remember the
+three-cornered and square bits of India chintz which my grandmother
+showed me in long-preserved "housewives," or "huz-ifs," as she called
+them. They were lengths of domestic linen on which small squares or
+triangles of chintz were sewn, making a series of small pockets, each
+one stuffed with convenient threads or bits of colored sewing silks, or
+needle and thimble. These were pinned at the belt of the active
+housewife, and hung swaying against her skirts if she rose from her
+sewing, or were conveniently at hand if she sat patching or
+embroidering. I remember that some of my grandmother's "huz-ifs" still
+held threads of different colored crewels wound on bits of cardboard,
+and any embroiderer might envy the convenience of such holders.
+
+I do not see, in fact, why there should not be a revival of "huz-ifs," a
+pleasant new fashion, founded upon the old, holding in harmonious
+variety all the wonders of modern manufacture, as well as making
+mementos of former gowns of one's own and of one's friends. They might
+be studied gradations of color and design, and be enriched by harmonious
+bindings. If my dwindling time holds out, perhaps I shall institute or
+assist at such a renewal of old conveniences, in spite of sharp contrast
+of purposes, adding to home costume a grace of pendent color.
+
+I was talking of design, when "huz-ifs" intruded, and was saying that at
+the period when "blue-and-white" took on the "outline practice" design
+was a difficult question; indeed, it is always a difficult question for
+embroiderers. It is so important a part or quality of the art of
+embroidery. In fact, it is the business of the successful embroiderer to
+know as much about design as she must about stitchery and color.
+
+After the advent of "blue-and-white," embroidery took on many different
+features. Curiously enough, when it was confined to decorative uses, its
+character immediately changed. Crewelwork of the period was not given to
+hangings and furniture, but to clothing. An embroidered apron became of
+much more importance than a bed valance or counterpane. The young girl
+began by embroidering her school aprons with borders of forget-me-nots
+and mullein pinks, in colored crewels.
+
+I remember seeing among my grandmother's savings an apron of gray
+unbleached linen, quite dark in color, with a border of single pinks
+entirely around it. The design had evidently been drawn from the flower
+itself, and the whole performance was essentially different from that
+of a slightly earlier period. The materials of homespun linen and
+home-dyed crewels were the same. The thing which was different and
+showed either a cropping-out of original thought or a bias toward the
+style of embroidery lately introduced by the famous school of Bethlehem,
+Pennsylvania, was an over-and-over stitch instead of the old crewel
+method. This over-and-over stitch was apparent in all crewel embroidery
+devoted to personal wear, but was never found in articles used for house
+or decorative purposes. It was certainly a proper distinction, as the
+_flat_ of crewel was not capable of shadow and was more inherently a
+part of the textile, as much so, indeed, as a stamped or woven
+decoration would have been.
+
+It was not long before the over-and-over stitch demanded silks and
+flosses instead of crewels for its exercise, and silk or satin for the
+background of its exploits. There were satin bags covered with the most
+delicate stitchery, and black silk aprons with wreaths of myrtle done
+with silks or flosses, and, finally, satin pelerines exquisitely
+embroidered in designs of carefully shaded roses. Although nothing
+remarkable or epoch-making happened in the art of embroidery, it
+retained an even more than respectable existence. The skill, taste, and
+love for the creation of beauty, which were the heritage of the race,
+were kept alive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III -- SAMPLERS AND A WORD ABOUT QUILTS
+
+
+A chapter upon Samplers, by right, should precede the discussion of
+colonial embroidery, although the practice of mothers in crewelwork was
+simultaneous with it. They were carried on at the same time, but the
+embroidery was work for grown-up people, while samplers were baby
+work--a beginning as necessary as being taught to walk or talk, to the
+future of the child. Fortunately, the very infant interest in samplers
+has tended to their preservation, and when the child grew to womanhood
+the sampler became invested with a mingling of family interests and
+affections, and she, the executant, came to look upon it with
+motherliness. The loving pride of the mother in the child's
+accomplishment also tended to the care and preservation of the first
+work of the small hands.
+
+As late as the twenties of the eighteenth century, infant schools still
+existed and samplers were wrought by infant fingers. Eighty-five years
+ago, I myself was in one of a row of little chairs in the infant school,
+with a small spread of canvas lying over my lap and being sewn to my
+skirt by misdirected efforts. My box held a tiny thimble and spools of
+green and red sewing silk, and I tucked it under alternate knees for
+safety.
+
+_Sarah Woodruff!_--I wonder where she is now?--sat next to me in my
+sampler days, and her canvas was white, while mine was yellow. Her
+border was worked with blue, and mine with green. With a child's
+inscrutable and wonderful awareness of underlying facts, I knew that
+Sarah Woodruff's father was richer than mine, and that the white canvas
+and blue border, which the teacher said "went with it," was an
+indication of it. I have it now, the little faded yellow parallelogram
+of canvas, on which the germ of the very fingers with which I am now
+writing wrought with painstaking care--"Executed by Candace Thurber, her
+age six years." They have since had various fortunes and experiences,
+these fingers, and have wrought to the satisfaction, I hope, of their
+foregone line of Puritan ancestors.
+
+The sampler has special claims upon the world, because it is probable
+that all forms of textile design originated with it. In fact, design for
+needlework began with small squares formed by crossing stitches at the
+junction of textile fiber.
+
+In sequences these squares formed lines, blocks, and corner, and in
+double-line juxtaposition made the form of border probably the oldest
+ornamental decoration in the world, generally known as a Roman border.
+This decoration escaped from textiles into stone and building materials,
+and in fact appeared in the elaboration of all materials, from the
+fronts of temples to the ornamentation of a crown. The most ancient
+examples of design are founded upon a square, and this points inevitably
+to the stitch covering the crossing of threads, the cross-stitch, which
+preceded all others and remained the only decorative stitch until
+weaving sprang into so fine an art that interstices between threads are
+unnoticeable. Then, and not until then, the long over-stitch, the _opus
+plumarium_, which we call "Kensington," was invented, and served to make
+English embroidery famous in early English history. This was the stitch
+used by the Pilgrim mothers in their crewel embroidery, as we use it
+to-day in most of our decorative presentations.
+
+[Illustration: SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the
+possession of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N. J.]
+
+In spite of the achievements of the _opus plumarium_, we are indebted
+to simple cross-stitch, to the obligations of the mathematical square of
+hand weavings, for all the wonderful borderings which have been evolved
+by ages of the use of the needle, since decoration began. We do not stop
+to think of the artistic intelligence or gift which made mathematical
+spaces express beautiful form, any more than we stop in our reading to
+think of the sensitive intelligence which drew a letter and made it the
+expression of sound, and yet most of us use the result of some
+exceptional intelligence and feel the exaltation of what we call
+culture.
+
+The stitch itself is entitled to the greatest respect, as the very first
+form of decoration with the needle--an art growing out of and controlled
+by the earlier art of weaving. Decorative bands of cross-stitch come to
+us on shreds of linen found in the sepulchers of Egypt and the burial
+grounds of the prehistoric races of South America. I have seen, in a
+collection of textiles found in their ancient burial places, the most
+elaborate and beautiful of cross-stitch borders, wrought into the
+fabrics which enriched Pizarro's shiploads of loot sent from Vicuna,
+Peru, to the court of Spain at the time of the wonderful and barbarous
+"Conquest." All of the old "Roman" borders are found in this collection,
+the best designs the world has produced, those which architects of the
+period used upon the fronts and in the interiors of their first
+creations. And here arises the ever recurring question of
+thought-sharing between the most widely removed of the earlier human
+races. How did early Peruvians and far-off Latins think in the same
+forms, and how did they come to select certain ones as the best, and
+cleave to them as a common inheritance? But leaving the puzzle of design
+and returning to the cross-stitch, which was its first interpretation or
+medium, and to the little Puritans who shared its acquaintance and
+practice with the women of all ages, we may see how the New England
+sampler opened the door of inheritance.
+
+As Eve sewed her garments of leaves in the Garden of Eden, so each one
+of these little Puritan Eves, so far removed in the long history of the
+race from the first one, was heir to her ingenuities as well as her
+failings, from her patching together of small and inadequate things, to
+her creative function in the kingdom of the world, as well as to her
+attempts to sweeten life, and to her failures and successes.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER embroidered in colors on écru linen, by
+Mary Ann Marley, aged twelve, August 30, 1820. _From Providence, R. I._
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER embroidered in brown on écru linen, by Martha Carter
+Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished at her death.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+The learning to do an A or a B in cross-stitch was the beginning of
+household doing, which is the business of woman's life. The decorative
+and the useful were evenly balanced in sampler making. All this skill in
+lettering could be applied to the stores of household linen in the way
+of marking, for cross-stitch letters, done in colored threads, were a
+part of the finish of sheets and pillowcases and fine toweling which
+made so important a part of the riches of the household, and it led by
+easy grades of familiarity to more comprehensive methods of decoration.
+In truth, the letters first practiced in cross-stitch opened the door to
+all future elaborations, and were the vehicle of moral instruction as
+well; for little Puritans took their first doses of Bible history in
+carefully embroidered text, and their notions of pictorial art from
+cross-stitch illustrations. One finds upon some of the early examples
+pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the ever present
+author of sin, climbing the stem of the tree of life, or Jacob's dream
+of angels ascending and descending a ladder, intersecting clouds of
+blue and smoke-colored stitches.
+
+These pictorial samplers are certainly interesting, but those which
+confine themselves to simple cross-stitch with borders, and the name of
+the little child who wrought them, touch a note of domestic life which
+is more than interesting.
+
+The sampler was purely English in its derivation and followed the
+English with great fidelity, although redolent of Puritan life and
+thought. Sometimes, indeed, it carried cross-stitch to the very limit of
+its capability in an attempt to render Bible scenes pictorially, but for
+the most part it was confined to the practice of various styles of
+lettering consolidated into text or verse.
+
+The material upon which they were worked was generally of canvas, either
+white or yellow, and this was of English manufacture. As all
+manufactures were things of price, later samplers were often worked upon
+coarse homespun linens, which, barring the variations in the size of the
+threads inevitable in hand-spinning, made a fairly good material for
+cross-stitch.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late
+eighteenth century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_
+
+_Right_--MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to the
+memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806, by Sarah
+Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L. I.]
+
+Sampler making was a home rather than a school taught industry, going
+down from mother to daughter along with darning and other processes
+of the needle, and having no relation, except that of its dexterity, to
+the distinct style of decorative embroidery called crewelwork, which
+accompanied it, or even preceded it.
+
+The collecting of samplers has become rather a fad in these days, and as
+they are almost exclusively of New England origin, it gives an
+opportunity of acquaintance with the little Puritan girl which is not
+without its charm. As most of their samplers were signed with their
+names, the acquaintance becomes quite intimate, and one feels that these
+little Puritans were good as well as diligent. Here is Harmony
+Twitchell's name upon a blue and white sampler. What child whose name
+was Harmony could quarrel with other children, or how could this other,
+whose long-suffering name was Patience, be resentful of the roughnesses
+of small male Puritans? Hate-evil and Wait-still and Hope-still and
+Thanks and Unity must have sat together like little doves and made
+crooked A's and B's and C's and picked out the frayed sewing-silk
+threads under the reproofs of the teacher of the Infant School, Miss
+Mather or Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker, whose father was a
+clergyman, or even Miss Bradford, whose uncle was the Governor?
+
+All this is in the story of the sampler, and so the teaching and
+practice of the canvas went constantly forward. The method was so
+simple, quite within the capacity of an alphabet-studying child. To make
+an A in cross-stitch was to create a link between the baby mind and the
+letter represented. There was no choice, no judgment or experience
+needed. The limit of every stitch was fixed by a cross thread, one
+little open space to send the needle down and another through which to
+bring it back, and the next one and the next, then to cross the threads
+and the thing was done. Yes, the little slips could make a sampler,
+every one of them, and when it was made, sometimes it was put in a frame
+with a glass over it, and Patience's mother would show it to visitors,
+and Patience would taste the sweets of superiority, than which there is
+nothing to the childish heart, nor even to mature humanity, so sweet.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in
+1810.
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793.
+
+_Courtesy Mrs. E. M. Sanford, Madison, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John
+Quincy Adams, and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection.
+
+_Courtesy Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]
+
+There were Infant Schools in my own days, little congregations of
+children not far removed from babyhood, who were taught the alphabet
+from huge cards, and repeated it simultaneously from the great
+blackboard which was mounted in the center of the room. In the schools,
+as well as at home, every little girl-baby was taught to sew, to
+overhand minutely upon small blocks of calico, the edges turned over and
+basted together. When a perfect capacity for overhand sewing was
+established, the next short step was to the sampler, and the tiny
+fingers were guided along the intricacies of canvas crossings. The dear
+little rose-tipped fingers! the small hands! velvet soft and satin
+smooth, diverse even in their littlenesses! They were taught even then
+to be dexterous with woman's special tool, the very same in purpose and
+intent with which queens and dames and ladies had played long before.
+
+The sampler world was a real world in those days, full of youth and as
+living as the youth of the world must always be, but now it is dead as
+the mummies, and the carefully preserved remains are only the shell
+which once held human rivalries and passions.
+
+
+Quilts
+
+The domestic needlework of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
+centuries, should not be overlooked in a history of embroidery, it
+being often so ambitiously decorative and the stitchery so remarkable.
+The patchwork quilt was an instance of much of this effort. It was
+unfortunate that an economic law governed this species of work, which
+prevented its possible development. The New England conscience, sworn to
+utility in every form, had ruled that no material should be _bought_ for
+this purpose. It could only take advantage of what happened, and it
+seldom happened that cottons of two or three harmonious colors came
+together in sufficient quantity to complete the five-by-five or
+six-by-six which went to the making of a patchwork quilt. Nevertheless
+one sometimes comes across a "rising sun" or a "setting sun" bedquilt
+which is remarkable for skillful shading, and was an inspiration in the
+house where it was born, and where the needlework comes quite within the
+pale of ornamental stitchery.
+
+This variety of domestic needlework, and one or two others which are
+akin to it, survived in the northern and middle states in the form of
+quilting until at least the middle of the nineteenth century, while in
+the southern states, especially in the mountains of Kentucky and North
+Carolina, it still survives in its original painstaking excellence.
+
+Among the earlier examples of these quilts one occasionally finds one
+which is really worthy of the careful preservation which it receives. I
+remember one which impressed itself upon my memory because of the
+humanity interwoven with it, as well as the skill of its making. It was
+a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate
+block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in
+alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully
+applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut
+away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt
+was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of
+correct construction. The quilting was a marvel--a large carefully drawn
+design, evidently inspired by branching rose vines without flowers, only
+the leafage and stems being used, and all these bending forms filled in
+with a diamonded background of exquisite quilting. The palely colored
+center was distinguished only by its needlework, leaving the rose border
+to emphasize and frame it.
+
+There was a bit of personal history attached to this quilt in the shape
+of a small tag, which said:
+
+"This quilt made by Delia Piper, for occupation after the death of an
+only son. Bolivar, Southern Missouri, 1845."
+
+The same kind friend who had introduced me to this quilt, finding me
+appreciative of woman's efforts in fine stitchery, took me to call upon
+other pieces which were equally worthy of admiration. One was a white
+quilt of what was called "stuffed work," made by working two surfaces of
+cloth together, the upper one of fine cambric, the lower one of coarse
+homespun. Upon the upper one a large ornamental basket was drawn, filled
+with flowers of many kinds, the drawing outlines being followed by a
+back stitchery as regular and fine as if done by machine, looking, in
+fact, like a string of beaded stitches, and yet it was accomplished by a
+needle in the hand of a skillful but unprofessional sewer. The picture,
+for it was no less, was completed by the stuffing of each leaf and
+flower and stem with flakes of cotton pushed through the homespun
+lining. The weaving of the basket was a marvel of bands of buttonholed
+material, which stood out in appropriate thickness. The centers of
+the flowers had simulated stamens done in knotted work.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER in drawnwork, écru linen thread, made by
+Anne Gower, wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628.
+
+_Center_--SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on écru canvas by Mary
+Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant, married July 1675,
+accused of witchcraft in 1692, but escaped to New York. _From the Curwen
+estate._
+
+_Courtesy the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born February 19,
+1780, in Bristol.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+I think this stuffed work was rather rare, for I have only seen two
+specimens, and as it required unusual and exhaustive skill in
+needlework, the production was naturally limited. The practice was one
+of the exotic efforts of some one of large leisure and lively ambitions
+who belonged to the class of prosperous citizens.
+
+"Patchwork," as it was appropriately called, was more often a farmhouse
+industry, which accounts for its narrow limits, since, with choice of
+material, even a small familiarity with geometrical design might bring
+good results. It might have easily become good domestic art. Geometrical
+borders in two colors would have taken their place in decorative work,
+and the applied work, so often ventured upon, was the beginning of one
+very capable method. The skillful needlework, the elaborate quilting,
+the stitchery and stuffing are worthy of respect, for the foundation of
+it all was great dexterity in the use of the needle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV -- MORAVIAN WORK, PORTRAITURE, FRENCH EMBROIDERY, AND
+LACEWORK
+
+
+While the ladies and house mistresses of New England were busy with
+their crewelwork, the children with their little samplers, and farm
+housemothers sewed patchwork in the intervals of spinning and weaving,
+an entirely different development of needlework art had taken place,
+beginning in Pennsylvania. Embroidery in America did not grow
+exclusively from seed brought over in the Mayflower. It sprang from many
+sources, but its finest qualities came from the influence of what was
+called "Bethlehem Embroidery."
+
+The advent of this style of needlework was interesting. It originated in
+a religious community founded in 1722 at Herrnhut, Germany, by Count
+Zinzendorf. It was a strictly religious, semimonastic group of single
+men and single women, whose hearts were filled with zeal for mission
+work. At that period, I suppose America seemed a possible and promising
+field for such efforts, and accordingly forty-five of the brothers and
+as many of the sisters turned their faces toward this new world. One
+can fancy that when the thought first entered their minds, of coming to
+a land peopled by savage Indians, with but a bare sprinkling of "the
+Lord's people," they trembled even in their dreams at the thought of the
+cruel incidents they might encounter in that wilderness toward which
+they were impelled by apostolic zeal, and the unquiet sea upon which
+they were about to embark foreshadowed an unknown future. But there was
+small danger for them upon the sea; surely they could not sink in
+troubled waters, these etherial souls! The heavenly quality of them
+would upbear the vessel and cargo. They would come safe to land, no
+matter how tempestuous the elements!
+
+I suppose, at all periods of the world, prophet and martyr stuff might
+be sifted out from the man-stuff of the times if the race had need of
+them. In normal states of growth, we call them "cranks" and look for no
+results from their existence. But the elusive spirit of love never dies.
+It appears and reappears in the history of all races and times, and
+leaves its mark upon them in various shapes of beneficence.
+
+These missionary brothers and sisters had chosen as the theater of their
+labor that part of our broad land which was pleasantly christened
+Pennsylvania, and selecting a portion of the southern area, they founded
+their colony and called it "Ephrata."
+
+It existed for forty years, constantly increasing its membership, and
+living a life reaching out toward a perfection of goodness which seemed
+quite possible to their apostolic souls.
+
+Time, however, brought changes of circumstance and of mind, and after
+many philanthropic phases, in 1749 the mingled elements and aspirations
+of the enlarged congregation were merged into two boarding schools, one
+for boys, which was the germ of Lehigh University, and another for girls
+at Bethlehem, which, under the careful fostering of the sisters, became
+the birthplace of the famous Moravian needlework. So were melted into
+the modern form of scholastic instruction the various efforts of
+religious activity, the eternal reaching out for conditions in human
+life in which it is easy and natural to be good and happy. It had not
+been accomplished in this semimonastic life, but the efforts toward it
+had their influence, and, you may judge by the quality of its
+founders, had never died.
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLEBOOK of Moravian embroidery, made about 1850. _Now
+in the possession of Mrs. J. U. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa._]
+
+[Illustration: MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY worked by Emily E. Reynolds,
+Plymouth, Pa., in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian
+Seminary in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter.
+
+_Courtesy of Claire Reynolds Tubbs, Gladstone, N. J._]
+
+The two schools very early in their history seem to have established a
+reputation for learning and culture which made them a desirable
+influence in the formative lives of the children of the most thoughtful,
+as well as the most prominent and prosperous, American families. Indeed,
+the school for girls became so popular as to lead to an extension and
+founding of several branches in other of the southern states. The art
+and practice of fine needlework became a popular and necessary feature
+of them, distinguishing them from all other schools. "Tambour and fine
+needlework" were among the extras of the school, and charged for, as we
+learn from school records, at the rate of "seventeen shillings and
+sixpence, Pennsylvania currency."
+
+It was not alone tambour and fine needlework, as we shall see later,
+that was taught by the Moravian Sisters, but the ribbon work, crêpe
+work, and flower embroidery, and picture production upon satin. These
+pictures, however important as performances, were not the most common
+form of needlework taught by the Sisters. Flower embroidery was the
+usual form of practice, and it was of a quality which made each one a
+wonder of execution and skill. The materials were satin of a superb
+quality for the background, or Eastern silk of softness and strength,
+and the silks used in the stitchery were generally "slack twisted" silk
+threads of very pure quality, and in certain cases, where they would not
+be likely to fray, lustrous flosses of Eastern make. The stitch used in
+these flower pieces was an over-and-over stitch, or what was called
+satin-stitch, which was without the lap of Kensington stitch. There was
+in every piece of embroidery done under the instruction of the
+accomplished and devoted Sisters certain virtues, certain effects of
+conscientious and patient work, mingled with the love of good and
+beautiful art, which were plainly visible. It had in all its flower
+pieces, and they were many, the quality of beautiful charm. The ministry
+of nature may have had something to do with this, since the lives of the
+executants were open to its influences.
+
+[Illustration: MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY from Louisville, Ky.]
+
+One can make a mental picture of those early days beside the peaceful
+"Lehi," where the Sisters taught and nurtured the young girls of very
+young America, and trained them in such beautiful and womanly
+accomplishments. The scattered bits of needlework which remain to us are
+so fine, so clear, so thoroughly exhaustive of all excellence in
+technique, that they are to the art of embroidery what the ivory
+miniature is to painting. We cannot but hail the memory of the Sisters
+of Bethlehem with respect and admiration.
+
+I became familiar with the work of this community when I was arranging
+an historic exhibition of American Embroidery for the Bartholdi Fair in
+1883. Few people may remember that, among the means for the installation
+of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty which welcomes the world at the
+entrance to the harbor of New York, was an effort called the Bartholdi
+Fair, held in the then almost new and very popular Academy of Design at
+the northwestern corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street.
+Knowing the value of Bethlehem work, I made an effort to secure a
+representative collection, with the result of gathering a most
+interesting group of specimens, mainly by the interest and help of Mr.
+Henry Baldwin of Lehigh University, to whom I was referred for
+assistance in my purpose. I have before me now the correspondence which
+ensued, a most painstaking, kind and patient one on his part, giving me
+much interesting history of the Bethlehem mission, as well as its life
+and progress. Among the legends is one--that during our Revolutionary
+war, Pulaski recruited some of his Legion at Bethlehem, and ordered a
+banner, which was carried by his troops until he fell in the attack upon
+Savannah. This banner is now in the rooms of the Maryland Historical
+Society, and I find the question of its having been an order from Count
+Pulaski, or a gift to the Legion, is one of very lively interest in the
+community.
+
+This exhibit of 1883 was as complete an historical collection of
+American needlework as was possible, and I have a list of ten articles
+loaned from collections in Bethlehem, which reads as follows:
+
+1. Embroidered pocketbook of black silk with flowers in bright colors.
+Former property of Bishop Bigler.
+
+2. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers, date 1800.
+
+3. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers and vines,
+dated 1786.
+
+4. Sampler, dated 1740.
+
+5. Yellow velvet bag embroidered with ribbon work.
+
+6. Black velvet bag embroidered in crêpe work with flowers.
+
+7. White satin workbag embroidered in fine tracery of vines.
+
+8. A box with embroidered pincushion on top.
+
+9. A blue silk pocketbook with very fine ribbon work.
+
+10. A paper box done with needle in filigree.
+
+It will be seen by this list how varied were the forms of needlework
+taught at Bethlehem. The crêpe work mentioned in No. 6 is, probably
+owing to the perishable character of its material, very rare, but was
+extremely beautiful in effect. Bits of colored crêpe were gathered into
+flower petals and sewed upon satin, roses laid leaf upon leaf and built
+up to a charming perfection, while the stems and foliage were partially
+or wholly embroidered in silk.
+
+The ribbon embroidery of No. 5, has been revived by the New York Society
+of Decorative Art and practiced with great success. The flower
+embroideries, in the specimens exhibited, were of two sorts--the small
+groups being done with fine twisted silks in a simple "over and over"
+stitch, called at that time "satin stitch," alike on both sides, except
+that on the right side the flowers and leaves were raised from the
+surface by an under thread of cotton floss called "stuffing." This did
+not prevent, as it might easily have done, an unvarying regularity and
+smoothness, which was like satin itself, thread laid beside thread as if
+it were woven instead of sewed.
+
+In the larger flowers, the sewing silk had been split into flosses, or
+perhaps the prepared flosses were used in the "tent stitch," which is
+now known as "Kensington." The colors of all these specimens were as
+fresh as natural flowers, speaking eloquently in praise of early
+processes of dyeing.
+
+[Illustration: LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania
+Dutch early nineteenth century.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+These things seem to fairly exhale gentility, that quality-compact of
+everything superior in the life of early American womanhood. I have
+especially in mind one cushion where flowers, apparently as fresh in
+color as when the cushion was young, are laid upon a ground of silk of
+the pinky-ash color, once known as "ashes of roses." The real charm
+of the thing, that which lends it a tender romance, is the legend worked
+upon the back of the cushion in brown silk stitches which are easily
+mistaken for the round-hand copperplate writing of the period--"Wrought
+where the peaceful Lehi flows." One seems to breathe the very air of the
+secluded valley, peopled by brethren and sisters set apart from the
+strenuous duties of the builders of a new nation, and distinguished for
+learned and devoted effort toward the perfection of moral, and
+spiritual, rather than the conquests of material, life.
+
+The Sisters had many orders from the outside world, as well as from
+visitors, and the profit upon these helped to maintain the school. Many
+of these orders were in the shape of pocketbooks, pincushions, bags,
+etc., having a bunch, or wreath, or cluster of flowers on one side,
+wonderfully wrought in silken flosses or sewing silks, and on the other,
+some pretty sentiment or legend done in dark brown floss in the most
+perfect of "round-hand"; so perfect, in fact, that it would require the
+closest scrutiny to decide that it was not handwritten script.
+
+These plentiful orders for things were induced by the several
+attractions of the situation, the remoteness from warlike and political
+disturbances, and the relationship of so many young girl lives, as well
+as the interest which attached to the school and community, making a
+constant demand in the shape of small articles of use or luxury,
+decorated by the skillful fingers of the Sisters.
+
+Parallel with this fine practice of flower embroidery, was a period of
+far more important needlework, which we may call Picture Embroidery.
+This also owed its introduction to the Moravian School of Bethlehem,
+although it was probably of early English origin, going back to that
+period when English embroidery was the wonder of the world; and the
+_opus plumarium_, or feather-pen stitch, or tent stitch, or Kensington
+stitch, as it has been known in succeeding ages, first attracted
+attention as a medium of art.
+
+Passing from England to Germany it became purely ecclesiastical, and
+even now one occasionally finds in Germany, and less often in England,
+bits of ecclesiastical embroidery of unimaginable fineness,
+commemorating Christ's miracles and other incidents of Bible history. I
+know of one small specimen of ancient English art, covering a space of
+five by seven inches, where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty
+tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a
+man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not
+eating the forbidden fruit.
+
+Such elaboration in miniature embroidery made good the claim of English
+needlework to its first place in the world, since nothing more wonderful
+had or has been produced in the whole long history of needlework art. It
+was undoubtedly from this school, filtered through generations of
+secular practice, that the Moravian picture embroidery came to be a
+general American inheritance.
+
+To adapt this wonderful method to the uses of social life was an
+admirable achievement, and whether by the sisters of the Moravian
+school, or the growth of pre-American influence and time, we do not
+certainly know, the fact remains, however, that it was here so cunningly
+adapted to the circumstances and spirit of colonial and early American
+days as to seem to belong entirely to them, and it would seem quite
+clear that Bethlehem was the source of the most skillful needlework art
+in America. It was there that the fine ladies of the late eighteenth and
+early nineteenth centuries, who sat at the embroidery frame in the
+intervals when they were not "sitting at the harp," acquired their
+skill.
+
+It was the romantic period of embroidery that makes a very telling
+contrast to the earlier crewel and later muslin embroidery of the New
+England states. The pieces were seldom larger than eighteen or twenty
+inches square, the size probably governed by the width of the superb
+satin which was so often used as a background. Not invariably, however,
+for I have seen one or two pieces worked upon gray linen where the
+surface was entirely covered by stitchery, landscape, trees, and sky
+showing an unbroken surface of satiny texture. Pictures from Bible
+subjects are frequent, and these have the air of having been copied from
+prints; in fact, I have seen some where the print appears underneath the
+stitches, showing that it was used as a design. These Scripture pieces
+seem to have employed a lower degree of talent than those having
+original design, and were probably the somewhat perfunctory work of
+young girls whose interests were elsewhere. One picture which I have
+seen was treasured as a record of a very romantic elopement--the lover
+in the case, riding gayly away with his beloved sitting on a pillion
+behind him, and no witnesses to the deed but a small sister, standing at
+the gate of the homestead with outstretched hands and staring eyes.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--"THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"--Moravian
+embroidered picture, an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa.
+Worked by Sarah Kummer about 1790.
+
+_Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers_
+
+_Right_--"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"--Cross-stitch picture
+made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family, Bethlehem,
+Pa.
+
+_Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers_]
+
+The most important picture which I have seen in portrait needlework came
+to light at the Baltimore Exhibition, and was a piazza group of five
+figures, a burly sea-captain seated in a rocking chair in a nautical
+dress and his own grayish hair embroidered above his ruddy face, his
+wife in a white satin gown seated beside him, and his three daughters of
+appropriately different ages grouped around, while the ship _Constance_
+was tied closely to the edge of the blue water which bordered the
+foreground of the picture. The composition of this picture was evidently
+the work of some experienced artist, for its incongruous elements kept
+their places and did not greatly clash. Taken as a whole it was an
+astonishing performance, quite too ambitious in its grasp for the novel
+art of needlework, and yet a thing to delight the hearts of the
+descendants, or even casual possessors.
+
+The Moravian teaching and practice spread the principles of needlework
+art so widely that it developed in many different directions. The
+wonderful silk embroidery applied to flowers was, like the arts of
+drawing and painting, capable of being used in copying all forms of
+beauty. It was sometimes, not always, successfully applied to landscape
+representation, and grew at last into a scheme of needlework
+portraiture, in this form perpetuating family history. It was sometimes
+used in conjunction with painting, the faces of a family group being
+done in water color upon cardboard by professional painters who were
+members of the art guild, who wandered from one social circle to
+another, supplying the wants of embroideresses ambitious of distinction
+in their accomplishments. The small painted faces were cut from the
+cardboard upon which they had been painted and worked around, often with
+the actual hair of the original of the portrait. I have seen one picture
+of a Southern beauty, where the golden hair had been wound into tiny
+curls, and sewn into place, and the lace of the neckwear was so
+cleverly simulated as to look almost detachable. Of course such pictures
+were the result of individual experiment on the part of some very able
+and ambitious needlewoman.
+
+[Illustration: ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred
+Hoskins of Edenton, N. C., while attending an English finishing school
+in Baltimore in 1814.
+
+_Courtesy of Mrs. R. B. Mitchell, Madison, N. J._]
+
+One can imagine that the effect of them in social life was to add
+greatly to the vogue of the art of needlework. The most numerous of
+these relics were called "mourning pieces"--bits of memorial
+embroidery--the subject of the picture being generally a monument
+surmounted by an urn, overhung with the sweeping branches of a willow,
+while standing beside the monument is a weeping female figure, the face
+discreetly hidden in a pocket handkerchief. The inscriptions, "Sacred to
+the memory," etc., were written or printed upon the satin in India ink,
+and often the letters of the name were worked with the hair of the
+subject of the memorial.
+
+In these pieces it is rather noticeable that the mourning figure is
+always draped in white, which leads to the conclusion that it is a
+purely emblematic figure of an emotion, rather than a real mourner. The
+shading of the monument was generally done in India ink, so that the
+actual embroidery was confined to the trunk and long branches of
+weeping willow, and the dress of the figure, and the ground upon which
+willow and monument and figure stand. The faces being always hidden by
+the handkerchief, and a tinted satin serving for the sky, the execution
+of these memorial pictures was comparatively simple. They certainly bear
+an undue proportion to those happy family portraits where mother and
+children, or husband and wife, sit in love and simplicity before the
+pillared magnificence of the family mansion.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--FIRE SCREEN embroidered in cross-stitch worsted.
+_From the McMullan family of Salem._
+
+_Courtesy Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+_Right_--FIRE SCREEN, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen.
+
+_Courtesy Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: FIRE SCREEN worked about 1850 by Miss C. A. Granger, of
+Canandaigua, N. Y.]
+
+Perhaps the greater simplicity and ease of execution of the mourning
+pieces had something to do with their greater number. They may have been
+the first spelling of the difficult art of pictorial embroidery. The
+best of these picture embroideries were certainly wonderful creations as
+far as the use of the needle was concerned, and I fancy were done in the
+large leisure of some colonial home where early distinction in the art
+of needlework must have gone hand in hand with the skill of the
+traveling portrait painter. These dainty productions, with their
+delicately painted faces and hands, are far more often found than those
+with embroidered flesh. In some of these, faces painted with real
+miniature skill upon bits of parchment have been inserted or
+superimposed upon the satin, the edges, as I have said, carefully
+covered by embroidery, done with single hair threaded into the needle
+instead of silk. In one case which I remember, the yellow hair of a
+child was knotted into a bunch of solid looking curls covering the head
+of a small figure, while the face of the mother was surmounted by bands
+of a reddish brown. This little touch of realism gave a curious note of
+pathos to the picture of a life separated from the present by time and
+outgrown habits, but linked to it by this one tangible proof of actual
+existence.
+
+The drawing or plan of these pictures was evidently done directly upon
+the satin ground, as one often finds the outlines showing at the edge of
+the stitches; but in the few specimens I have found where they were
+worked upon linen it had been covered with a tracing on strong thin
+paper, and the entire design worked through and over both paper and
+canvas. Those which were done upon linen seemed to belong to an earlier
+period than those worked on satin, which was perhaps an American
+adaptation of the earlier method. Certainly the soft thick India satin,
+which was the ground of so many of them, made a delightful surface for
+embroidery, and blended with its colors into a silvery mass where work
+and background were equally effective. Two of these have survived the
+century or more of careful seclusion which followed the proud éclat of
+their production. One of the fortunate heirs to many of these exhibited
+treasures told me of a package or book containing heads in water color,
+evidently to be used as copies for the faces which might be found
+necessary for efforts in embroidery. The painting of these was perhaps a
+part of the education or accomplishment considered necessary to girls of
+prominent and successful families of the day.
+
+Under favorable circumstances, such as a convenient relation between
+artist and needlework, this art would have developed into needlework
+tapestry. The groups would have outgrown their frames, and left their
+picture spaces on the walls, and, stretching into life-size figures,
+have become hangings of silken broidery, such as we find in Spain and
+Italy, from the hands of nuns or noble ladies.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED PICTURE in silks, with a painted sky.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI. Embroidered picture in silks,
+with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very of Salem at the age of
+sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+The influence of the Bethlehem teaching lasted long enough to build up a
+very fine and critical standard of embroidery in America. It would be
+difficult to overestimate the importance of the influence of this school
+of embroidery upon the needlework practice of a growing country. Its
+qualities of sincerity, earnestness, and respect for the art of
+needlework gave importance to the work of hands other than that of
+necessary labor, and these qualities influenced all the various forms of
+work which followed it. The first divergence from the original work was
+in its application, rather than its method, for instead of having a
+strictly decorative purpose its application became almost exclusively
+personal. Flower embroidery of surpassing excellence was its general
+feature. The materials for the development of this form of art were
+usually satin, or the flexible undressed India silk which lent itself so
+perfectly to ornamentation. Breadths of cream-white satin, of a
+thickness and softness almost unknown in the present day, were stretched
+in Chippendale embroidery frames, and loops and garlands of flowers of
+every shape and hue were embroidered upon them. They were often done for
+skirts and sleeves of gowns of ceremony, giving a distinction even
+beyond the flowered brocades so much coveted by colonial belles.
+
+This beautiful flower embroidery was, like its predecessor, the rare
+picture embroidery, too exacting in its character to be universal. It
+needed money without stint for its materials, and luxurious surroundings
+for its practice. Some of the beautiful old gowns wrought in that day
+are still to be seen in colonial exhibitions, and are even occasionally
+worn by great-great-granddaughters at important mimic colonial
+functions.
+
+Floss embroidery upon silk and satin was not entirely confined to
+apparel, for we find an occasional piece as the front panel of one of
+the large, carved fire screens, which at that date were universally used
+in drawing-rooms as a shelter from the glare and heat of the great open
+fires which were the only method of heating. As the back of the screen
+was turned to the fire and the embroidered face to the room, its
+decoration was shown to admirable advantage, and one can hardly account
+for the rarity of the specimens of these antique screens, except upon
+the supposition that the roses, carnations, and forget-me-nots were
+still more effective when wrought upon the scant skirt of a colonial
+gown, instead of being shrouded in their careful coverings in the
+deserted drawing-room, and my lady of the embroidery might more
+effectively exhibit them in the lights of a ballroom. In recording the
+changes in the style and purposes of embroidery, from the days of
+homespun and home-dyed crewel to the almost living flowers wrought with
+lustrous flosses upon breadths of satin which were the best of the
+world's manufacture, one unconsciously traverses the ground of domestic
+and political history, from the days of the Pilgrims to the pomp of
+colonial courts.
+
+
+French Embroidery
+
+The character and purposes of the art varied with every political and
+national change. In the middle of the eighteenth century, a demand had
+gone out from the new and growing America, and wandering over the seas
+had asked for something fine and airy with which to occupy delicate
+hands, unoccupied with household toil. The carefully acquired skill of
+the earlier periods of our history became in succeeding generations
+almost an inheritance of facility, and easily merged into the elaborate
+stitchery called French embroidery. I can find no trace of its having
+been _taught_, but plenty of proofs of its existence are to be seen on
+the needlework pictures under glass still hanging in many an
+old-fashioned parlor, or relegated to the curiosity corner of modern
+drawing-rooms. It is possible that the close intimacy existing between
+France and England at that period may have influenced this art. Many
+French families of high degree were seeking safety or profit in this
+country, and the convent-bred ladies of such families would naturally
+have shared their acquirements with those whose favor and interest were
+important to them as strangers. There was another form of this French
+embroidery, the materials used being cambrics, linens, and muslins of
+all kinds, the most precious of which were the linen-cambrics and India
+mulls. The use of the former still survives in the finest of French
+embroidered pocket handkerchiefs, but the latter is seldom seen except
+in the veils and vests of Oriental women, or in the studio draperies of
+all countries.
+
+[Illustration: CAPE of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+[Illustration: COLLARS of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+The threads used were flosses of linen or cotton, preferably the
+latter, which were almost entirely imported. With these restricted
+materials, wonders of ornamentation were performed. The stitch, quite
+different from that of crewelwork or picture embroidery of the preceding
+period, was the simple over and over stitch we find in French embroidery
+of the present day. The leaves of the design or pattern were frequently
+brought into relief by a stuffing of under threads.
+
+Everything was embroidered; gowns, from the belt to lower hem, finished
+with scalloped and sprigged ruffles in the same delicate workmanship,
+were everyday summer wear. Slips and sacques, which were not quite as
+much of an undertaking as an entire gown, were bordered and ruffled with
+the same embroidery. The amount and beauty of specimens which still
+exist after the lapse of nearly a century is quite wonderful. Small
+articles, like collars, capes and pelerines, were almost entirely
+covered with the most exquisite tracery of leaf and flower, a perfect
+frostwork of delicate stitchery, with patches of lacework introduced in
+spaces of the design.
+
+The designs were seldom, almost never, original, being nearly always
+copied directly from what was called "boughten work," to distinguish it
+from that which was produced at home.
+
+Many beautiful and skillful stitches were used in this form of work.
+Lace stitches, made with bodkins or "piercers," or darning needles of
+sufficient size to make perforations, were skillfully rimmed and joined
+together in patterns by finer stitches, and open borders, and
+hemstitching, and dainty inventions of all kinds, for the embellishment
+of the fabrics upon which they were wrought.
+
+With these materials and these methods most of the women of the
+different sections of the country busied themselves from a period
+beginning probably about 1710 and extending to 1840, and it is safe to
+say, notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of life between those
+dates, that at no period in the history of woman was as much time and
+consummate skill bestowed upon wearing apparel. Many a young girl of the
+day embroidered her own wedding dress, and during the months or years of
+its preparation suffered and enjoyed the same ambition which goes on in
+the present, to the acquirement of some wonder of French composition, or
+costly ornament of point lace and pearls.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--BABY'S CAP White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+Nineteenth century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
+
+_Right_--BABY'S CAP Embroidered mull. 1825.
+
+_Courtesy Mrs. Isaac Pierson, Canandaigua, N. Y._]
+
+[Illustration: COLLAR of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+Everything was embroidered. The tender, downy head of the newly born
+baby was covered with a cap of delicatest material incrusted to hardness
+with needlework. The baby's caps of the period are a perfect chapter of
+human emotions; mother-love, emulation, pride, and declaration of family
+or personal position are skillfully expressed in a multiplicity of
+decorative stitches. A six-foot length of baptismal robe carried for
+half its length the same elaborate stitchery. Long delicate ruffles were
+edged with double rows of scallops. Double and triple collars and
+"pelerines" of muslin were to be found in the hands of all women of high
+or low degree. Articles of wearing apparel were done upon a soft fine
+muslin called mull, breadths of which were embroidered for skirts,
+lengths of it were scalloped and embroidered for flounces, and
+hand-lengths of it were done for the short waists and sleeves of the
+pretty Colonial gowns worn by our delicate ancestresses. One of these
+gowns, stretched to its widest, would hardly cover a front breadth of
+the habit of one of our well-nurtured athletic girls of the present, and
+the athletic girl can show no such handiwork as this.
+
+Beautiful embroidery it was that was lavished upon muslin gowns, baby's
+caps and long, long robes, and upon aprons, pelerines and capes. Over
+stitch instead of tent stitch was the order of the day. "Tent stitch and
+the use of the globes" was no longer advertised as a part of school
+routine. Instead of this, there were the most delicate overstitches and
+multitudinous lace-stitches which we nowhere else find, unless in the
+finest of Asian embroidery.
+
+A large part of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+century was a period of remarkable skill in all kinds of stitchery. It
+was not confined to embroidery, but was also applied to all varieties of
+domestic needlework. Hemstitched ruffles were a part of masculine as
+well as feminine wear, and finely stitched and ruffled shirts for the
+head of the household were quite as necessary to the family dignity as
+embroidered gowns and caps for its feminine members.
+
+It would be difficult to enumerate all the uses to which the national
+perfection of needle dexterity was put. It was, indeed, a national
+dexterity, for although its application was widely different in the
+eastern and southern states, the two schools of needlework, as we may
+term them, met and mingled to a common practice of both methods in the
+middle states.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the
+Westervelt collection.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS. 1850. From the
+collection of Mrs. George Coe.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+Perhaps one may account for the prevalence of this kind of work, as it
+existed at a period of very limited education or literary pursuits among
+women. Domestic life was woman's kingdom, and needlework was one of its
+chief conditions. But whatever cause or causes stimulated the vogue of
+this variety of embroidery, we find it was universal among rich and
+poor, in city and country, for nearly three-quarters of a century. The
+narrow roll of muslin, for scalloped flounces and ruffling, and the
+skeins of French cotton went everywhere with girls and women, except to
+church and to ceremonious functions where men were included. Needlework
+was far more than an interest, it was an occupation.
+
+The varieties of tambour work and open stitchery of various ornamental
+kinds were possible for all capacities. It was a general form of fine
+needlework, happily available to women of the farmhouse, as well as of
+the mansion, and its exceeding precision and beauty gave a character to
+the purely utilitarian stitchery of the day which has made a high
+standard for succeeding generations. The hemstitched ruffles of shirts,
+the stitched plaits of simpler ones, the buttonholed triangles at the
+intersection of seams--all these practically unknown to modern
+construction--were probably the result of the skillful and careful
+needlework ornamentation of simple fabrics.
+
+As an occupation, French embroidery practically displaced the making of
+cabinet pictures of graceful ladies in scant satin gowns which had
+occupied the embroidery frame, or decorated drawing-room walls. Flowers
+ceased to blossom upon pincushions, and the engrossing and prevalent
+occupation of needlework was entirely devoted to personal wear.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERY ON NET. Border for the front of a cap made
+about 1820.
+
+_Courtesy of Mrs. A. S. Hewitt_]
+
+[Illustration: VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net. American
+nineteenth century.
+
+_Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+At this period, however, ships were coming into Boston and other eastern
+ports almost daily or weekly, instead of at intervals of weary months.
+Ships were going to and returning from China and the Indies and the
+islands of the sea, laden on their return voyages not only with spices
+and liquors and sweets of the southern world, but with satins and
+velvets and silks and prints, and delicately printed muslins and
+cambrics; and the fair linen and cotton flosses disappeared from the
+hands of needlewomen. Manufacturers had brought their looms to weave
+designs into the fabrics they produced and to simulate the work of the
+needle in a way which made one feel that the very spindles thought and
+wrought with conscious love of beauty.
+
+The larger demands of luxurious living increased also the necessary work
+of the needle, and while the looms of France and Switzerland were busy
+weaving broidered stuffs, the needles of sewing women were kept at work
+fashioning the necessary garments of the millions of playing and working
+human beings. It was the era which gave birth to the "Song of the
+Shirt," a day of personal and exacting practice.
+
+
+Lacework
+
+The disappearance of the practice of French embroidery was as sudden as
+the dropping of a theater curtain, but a coexistent art called Spanish
+lacework lingered long after muslin embroidery had ceased to be. It was
+chiefly used in the elaboration of shawls, and large lace veils, which
+were a very graceful addition to Colonial and early American costume.
+There is no difficulty in tracing this kind of decorative needlework. It
+came from Mexico into New Orleans, and from there, by various secrets of
+locomotion, spread along the southern states.
+
+The veils were yard squares of delicate white or black lace, heavily
+bordered and lightly spotted with flowers, while the shawls were
+sometimes nearly double that size, and of much heavier lace, as they had
+need to be, to carry the wealth of decorative darning lavished upon
+them.
+
+The design was always a foliated one, generally proceeding from a common
+center, representing a basket or a knot of ribbon, which confined the
+branching forms to the point of departure. The edges were heavily
+scalloped, with an extension of the ornamentation which included a rose
+or leaf for the filling of every scallop. The centers of flowers, and
+even of leaves, were often filled with beautiful variations of lace
+stitches worked into the meshes of the ground, and were very curious and
+interesting.
+
+[Illustration: LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 × 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the
+Dutch. The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on which the
+design was darned with linen. Made about 1800 and used in the end of
+linen pillow cases.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+Darning with flosses upon both white and black bobbinet, or silk net,
+was a very common form of the art, and veils of white with seed or
+all-over designs darned in white silk floss, may be called the "personal
+needlework" of the period, and some of the shawls were superb stretches
+of design and stitching. This art, although so beautiful in effect,
+demanded very little of the skill necessary to the preceding methods of
+embroidery. The lace was simply stretched or basted over paper or white
+cloth, upon which the design was heavily traced in ink; the spaces which
+were to be solidly filled were sometimes covered with a shading of red
+chalk, and when this was done, it was a matter of simple running over
+and under the meshes of the net, in directions indicated by the shape of
+the leaf or flower. The work could be heavier or lighter, according to
+the design and size or weight of the flosses used. I have seen a wedding
+veil worked upon a beautiful white silk net, carrying a sprinkling of
+orange flowers, darned with white silk flosses, and a heavy wreath
+around the border. Certainly no veil of priceless point lace could be so
+etherially beautiful as was this relic of the past, and certainly no
+commercial product, however costly, could carry in its transparent folds
+the sentiment of such a bridal veil, wrought in love by the bride who
+was to wear it.
+
+I have seen one beautiful shawl, where the entire design was done in
+shining silver-white flosses, upon a ground of black net, with the
+effect of a disappearance of the background, the wreaths and groups of
+flowers seeming to float around the figure of the wearer.
+
+In one or two instances, also, I have seen shawls in varicolored flosses
+producing a silvery mass of ornamentation which was most effective, but
+they were experiments which evidently did not commend themselves to
+North American taste.
+
+The same method of darning was used upon what was then called, "bobbinet
+footing," narrow lengths of bobbinet lace which were extensively used as
+ruffles for caps and trimming and garniture of capes and various
+articles of personal wear.
+
+Cap bodies were also worked in this method; in fact, the decorative
+treatment of caps must have been a trying question. The dignity of the
+married woman depended somewhat upon the size of the cap she wore, and
+it was as necessary to convention that the crow-black locks of the
+matron of twenty-five should be hidden, as that the scant locks of sixty
+should be decently shrouded.
+
+Insertings of darned footing, alternating with bands of muslin, were
+largely used in the construction of gowns, and, in short, this style of
+needlework, while not as universal or absorbing as French embroidery,
+continued longer in vogue and perhaps amused or solaced some who had
+little skill or time for the more exacting methods of embroidery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V -- BERLIN WOOLWORK
+
+
+It surprises us in these latter days of demand for the best conditions
+in the prosecution of decorative work, that it should have lived at all
+through the days of existence in one-roomed log cabins of early settlers
+and the conflicting demands of pioneer life. It survived them all, and
+the little, fast-arriving Puritan children were taught their stitches as
+religiously as their commandments; and so American embroidery grew to be
+an art which has enriched the past and future of its executants.
+
+After the two periods of French and Spanish needlework passed by, there
+appeared what was known as Berlin woolwork. Those who in earlier times
+were devoted to fine embroidery solaced their idleness with this new
+work--certainly a poor substitute for the beautiful embroidery of the
+preceding generation, but answering the purpose of traditional
+employment for the leisure class. This came into vogue and was rather
+extensively used for coverings of screens, chairs, sofas, footstools and
+the various specimens of household furniture made by workmen who had
+served with Adam, Chippendale and Sheraton, and who had brought books of
+patterns with them to the prosperous, growing market of the New World.
+Berlin woolwork was a method of cross-stitch upon canvas in colored
+wools or silks--in fact, an extension of sampler methods into pictures
+and screens, or the more utilitarian chair and sofa covers. It was
+sometimes varied by using broadcloth or velvet as a foundation, the
+canvas threads being drawn out after the picture was complete. We
+occasionally find entire sets of beautiful old mahogany chairs, with
+cushions of cross-stitch embroidery, the subjects ranging over
+everything in the animal or vegetable world, so that one might sit in
+turn upon horses, bead-eyed and curled lap dogs, or wreaths of lilies
+and roses.
+
+Occasionally, also, a glassed and framed picture of elaborate design and
+beautiful workmanship is seen, but as a rule it must be confessed that
+in America this method of embroidery, as an art, failed to achieve
+dignity. This was not in the least owing to the actual technique of the
+process, since beautiful tapestries have been accomplished, taking
+canvas as a medium and foundation for a dexterous use of design and
+color.
+
+The square blocks of the canvas stitch are no more objectionable in an
+art process than the block of enamel of which priceless mosaics are
+made, but one can easily see that if every design for mosaic work could
+be indefinitely reproduced and sold by the thousands, with numbered and
+colored blocks of glass, something--we hardly know what--would be lost
+in even the most exact reproductions.
+
+Original design, however simple, is the expression of a thought, and
+passes directly from the mind of the originator to the material upon
+which it is expressed; but when the design becomes an article of
+commercial supply it loses in interest, and if the process of production
+is simple, requiring little thought and skill, the work also fails to
+call out in us the reverence we willingly accord to skillful and
+painstaking embroidery.
+
+[Illustration: BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliquéd on blue
+woolen ground.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point. Single
+cross-stitch.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+Yet we must acknowledge there are many examples of Berlin woolwork which
+possess the merits of beautiful color and exact and even workmanship.
+Some of them are done upon the finest of canvas with silks of exquisite
+shadings, and where figures are represented the faces are worked with
+silk in "single stitch," which means one crossing of the canvas instead
+of two, as in ordinary cross-stitch. The latter was of course better
+suited for furniture coverings, both in strength and quality of surface,
+while the method of single stitch succeeded in presenting a smooth and
+well-shaded surface, sufficiently like a painted one to stand for a
+picture. Indeed, veritable pictures were produced in this method and
+were effective and interesting. In these specimens the faces and hands,
+while worked in the same cross-stitch, were varied by being done on a
+single crossing of the canvas with one stitch, while the costumes and
+accessories of the picture were done over the larger square of two
+threads of the canvas, with the double crossing of the stitch.
+
+The faces were, in some cases, still further differentiated by being
+wrought in silk instead of wool threads.
+
+The embroidered chair and sofa covers had quite the effect of
+tapestries, and were far better than a not uncommon variation of the
+same needlework, where the broadcloth or velvet background held the
+embroidery.
+
+The designs were copied from patterns printed in color upon cross-ruled
+paper, and consisted of bunches of flowers of various sorts, or pictures
+of dogs, and horses, and birds. A white lap dog worked upon a dark
+background was the favorite design for a footstool, and this small
+object tapered out the existence of decorative cross-stitch, until it
+grew to be in use only as a decoration for toilet slippers. The final
+end of this style of work was long deferred on account of the fact that
+a pair of cloth slippers, embroidered by the hands of some affectionate
+girl or doting woman, was a token which was not too unusual to carry
+inconvenient significance. It might mean much or little, much tenderness
+or affection, or a work of idleness tinctured with sentiment.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse
+needlepoint.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_
+
+_Right_--TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand weave originated
+at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+The mechanical and commercial effect of this stitchery discouraged its
+use; its printed patterns and the regularity of its counted stitches
+giving neither provocation nor scope to originality of thought or
+design. This was not the fault of the stitch itself, since
+"cross-stitch" was the first form of needle decoration. It is, in fact,
+the A B C of all decorative stitchery, the method evolved by all
+primitive races except the American Indian. It followed, more or less
+closely, the development of the art of weaving. When this had passed
+from the weaving together of osiers into mats or baskets, and had
+reached the stage of the weaving of hair and vegetable fiber into cloth,
+the decoration of such cloth with independent colored fiber was the next
+step in the creation of values, and, naturally, the form of decorative
+stitches followed the lines of weaving. Simple as was its evolution, and
+its preliminary use, cross-stitch has a past which entitles it to
+reverence. With many races it has remained a habitual form of
+expression, and, as in Moorish and Algerian work, is carried to a
+refinement of beauty which would seem beyond so simple a method. It has
+given form to a lasting style of design, to geometrical borders, which
+have survived races and periods of history, and still remain an
+underlying part of the world of decorative linens.
+
+It is interesting to note that it had no place in aboriginal embroidery,
+and marks its creation as following the art of weaving. It is a long
+step from this traditional past of its origin to the short past of the
+stitchery of America, where the little fingers of small Puritan maids
+followed the lines evolved by the generations of the earlier world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI -- REVIVAL OF EMBROIDERY, AND THE FOUNDING OF THE SOCIETY OF
+DECORATIVE ART
+
+
+When French needlework had had its day, and the evanescent life of
+Berlin woolwork had passed, for a period of half a century needlework
+ceased to flourish in America. Indeed, the art seemed to have died out
+root and branch, and only necessary and utilitarian needlework was
+practiced. It seems strange, after all the wonderful triumphs of the
+needle in earlier years, that for the succeeding half or three-quarters
+of a century needlework as an art should actually have ceased to be. It
+had died, branch and stem and root, vanished as if it had never been.
+During at least half a century we were a people without decorative
+needlework art in any form. The eyes and thoughts of women were turned
+in other directions.
+
+Of course there is always a reason for a change in public taste,
+something in the development of the time leads and governs every trend
+of popular thought. It may be the attraction of new inventions, or the
+perfection of new processes, or even, and this is not uncommon, the
+charm and fascination of some rare personality, whose ruling is absolute
+in its own immediate vicinity, and whose example spreads like circles in
+water far and far beyond the immediate personal influence. We cannot
+trace this apparent dearth of the art to one particular cause, we only
+know that in America the practice and study of music succeeded to its
+place in almost every household. The needle, that honored implement of
+woman, bade fair to be a thing almost of tradition, something which
+would be in time relegated to museums and collections, to be studied
+historically, as we study the implements of the Stone Age, and other
+prehistoric periods.
+
+I remember an amusing story told by a Baltimore friend, not given to the
+manufacture of instances, that during those years of dearth soon after
+the Civil War she was visiting a lovely southern family who had lived
+through the days of privation. One day there arose a great cry and
+disturbance in the house, which turned out to be a quest for _the_
+needle, where was _the_ needle. Nobody could find it, although it could
+be proved that at a certain date it had been quilted into its accustomed
+place on the edge of the drawing-room curtain of the east window.
+Finally it was found on the wrong curtain, minus the point, and this
+disability gave rise to a discussion. Should it be taken to town, and
+have the point renewed by the watchmaker? This decision was discouraged
+by the daughter of the house, who related that the last time she had
+taken it for the same purpose, the watchmaker had said to her, "Miss
+Cassy, I have put a point on that needle three times, and I would
+seriously advise you to buy a new one."
+
+It was only in America that the needle had ceased to be an active
+implement. In England it had never been so constantly or feverishly
+employed. For the second time in its long history, its work became
+purely personal. The same necessity which impressed itself upon the poor
+little mother of mankind, when she sought among the fig leaves for
+wherewithal to clothe herself, was upon the domestic woman, who sewed
+cloth into skirts instead of vegetable fiber into aprons.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--EMBROIDERED MITS
+
+_Right_--WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+[Illustration: WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post
+bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton, by Mrs. Gideon
+Granger, Canandaigua, New York.]
+
+It is curious to contrast the effect of this loss of embroidery in
+the two countries, England and America. Doubtless there were other
+reasons than the lost popularity of needlework as an art, that in
+England it should have resulted in the life or death practice of
+necessary needlework, and in America, that the facile fingers of woman
+simply turned to the ivory keys of the piano for occupation. But the
+fact remains that starvation threatened the woman of one country, while
+in the other they were practicing scales. In England it was a period of
+stress and strain, of veritable "work for a living," the period of "The
+Song of the Shirt." Happily, in this blessed land, where hunger was
+unknown, we were not conscious of its terrors, and perhaps hardly knew
+why the "cambric needle" and the darning needle were the only ones in
+the market. Embroidery needles had "gone out." Then came the relief of
+the sewing machine, born in America, where it was scarcely needed, but
+speedily flying across the ocean to its life-saving work in England,
+where the tragedy of the poor seamstress was on the stage of life. Like
+many another form of relief, it was not entirely adequate to the
+situation. Its first effect was to create a need of remunerative work.
+The sewing machine took upon itself the toil of the seamstress, but it
+left the seamstress idle and hungry. This was a new and even darker
+situation than the last, but Englishwomen came to the rescue with a
+resuscitated form of needlework and embroidery tiptoed upon the empty
+stage, new garments covering her ancient form, and was welcomed with
+universal acclaim.
+
+Most cultivated and fortunate Englishwomen had a certain knowledge of
+art and were eager to put all of their uncoined effort at the service of
+that body of unhappy women, who, without money, had the culture which
+goes with the use and possession of money. These unfortunate sisters,
+who were rather malodorously called decayed gentlewomen, became eager
+and petted pupils of a new and popular organization called the South
+Kensington School. Its peculiar claims upon English society gave it from
+the first the help of the most advanced and intelligent artistic
+assistance. The result of this was not only a resuscitation of old
+methods of embroidery, but the great gain to the school, or society, of
+design and criticism of such men as Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, and
+William Morris.
+
+It was with this vogue that it appeared in America, and attracted the
+attention of those who were afterward to be interested in the formation
+of a society which was founded for almost identical purposes. Not indeed
+to prevent starvation of body, but to comfort the souls of women who
+pined for independence, who did not care to indulge in luxuries which
+fathers and brothers and husbands found it hard to supply. So, from what
+was perhaps a social and mental, rather than a physical, want, grew the
+great remedy of a resuscitation of one of the valuable arts of the
+world, a woman's art, hers by right of inheritance as well as peculiar
+fitness.
+
+With true business enterprise, the new English Society prepared an
+important exhibit for our memorial fair, the Centennial, held in
+Philadelphia to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of national
+independence. This exhibit of Kensington Embroidery all unwittingly
+sowed the seed not only of great results, but in decorative art worked
+in many other directions. The exhibits of art needlework from the New
+Kensington School of Art in London, their beauty, novelty and easy
+adaptiveness, exactly fitted it to experiment by all the dreaming
+forces of the American woman. They were good needlewomen by inheritance
+and sensitive to art influences by nature, and the initiative capacity
+which belongs to power and feeling enabled them at once to seize upon
+this mode of expression and make it their own. It was the means of
+inaugurating another era of true decorative needlework, perfectly
+adapted to the capacity of all women, and destined to be developed on
+lines peculiarly national in character. The effect of this exhibit was
+not exactly what was expected in the sale of its works, and long
+afterward, when discussing this apparent failure, in the face of an
+immediate adoption in America of the Society's methods and productions,
+I explained it to myself and an English friend, by the national
+difference in the race feeling for art, and especially for color.
+
+[Illustration: DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch with
+colored wool.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+It seems to me, after the observation and intimacy of years with the
+growing art of decoration in this country, that the color gift is a race
+gift with us. English art-work is nearly always characterized by subdued
+and modified harmony, while that of America has vivid and striking notes
+which play upon a higher key, and still melt as softly into each
+other as the perfect modulations of the best English art. I was very
+conscious of this during the year of my directorship of the Woman's
+Building and exhibits in the World's Columbian Fair at Chicago, that
+place of wonderful comparisons of the art-work of the world. I could
+nearly always recognize work of American origin by its singing
+color-quality, as different from the sharp semibarbaric notes of
+Oriental art as from the minor cadences of English decorative work. But
+to return to the effect of the English exhibit at the Philadelphia
+Centennial: it was followed by the immediate formation of the Society of
+Decorative Art in New York City, which became the parent of like
+societies in every considerable city or town in the United States. By
+its good fortune in having a president who belonged by right of birth,
+and certainly of ability and achievement, to the best of New York
+society, the movement enlisted the sympathy and interest of the
+influential class of New York women, while there was waiting in the
+shadow a troop of able women who were shut out from the costly gayeties
+of society by comparative poverty, but connected with it by friendships
+and associations, often, indeed, by ties of blood.
+
+Embroidery became once more the most facile and successful of pursuits.
+Graduates from the Kensington School were employed as teachers in nearly
+all of the different societies, and in this way every city became the
+center of this new-old form of embroidery, for what is called
+"Kensington Embroidery" is in fact a far-away repetition of old triumphs
+of the British needle. I use the word "British" advisedly, for it was
+when England was known as Britain among the nations that her embroidery
+was a thing of almost priceless value. In modern English embroidery, the
+days of Queen Anne have been the limit of backward imitation; and, in
+fact, ancient English embroidery was a process of long and assiduous
+labor, as well as of knowledge and inspiration. Our hurried modern
+conditions would not encourage the repetition of the hand-breadth
+pictures in embroidery of the earliest specimens, where countless
+numbers of stitches were lavished upon a single production. The
+embroidered picture of The Garden of Eden described in chapter four is a
+specimen of the minute representation. These specimens are, to the art
+of needlework, what the Dutch school of painting is to the great mural
+canvases of the present day.
+
+The development of the nineteenth century in America was only at first
+an exact reflection of English methods. The first thing which marked the
+influence of national character and taste was, that English models and
+designs almost immediately disappeared, only a few such, consisting of
+those which had been given to the art by masters of design like Morris
+and Marcus Ward, were retained, and American needlewomen boldly took to
+the representation of vivid and graceful groups of natural flowers,
+following the lead of Moravian practice and of flower painting, rather
+than that of decorative design.
+
+As a natural result, crewels were soon discarded in favor of silks, and
+natural extravagance, or national influence, led to the use of costly
+materials instead of the linens of English choice and preference. So the
+old flower embroidery of Bethlehem had a second birth. American girl
+art-students soon found their opportunity in the creation of applied
+design, and before embroidery had ceased to be a matter of
+representation of flowers in colored silks, the flowers grew into
+restrained and appropriate borders, or proper and correct space
+decoration, and the day of women designers for manufacturers had come.
+
+The circulars of the first Society of Decorative Art were not only
+comprehensive, but were ambitious. Its objects were set forth as
+follows:
+
+     1. To encourage profitable industries among women who possess
+     artistic talent, and to furnish a standard of excellence and a
+     market for their work.
+
+     2. To accumulate and distribute information concerning the various
+     art industries which have been found remunerative in other
+     countries, and to form classes in Art Needlework.
+
+     3. To establish rooms for the exhibition and sale of Sculptures,
+     Paintings, Wood Carvings, Paintings upon Slate, Porcelain and
+     Pottery, Lacework, Art and Ecclesiastical Needlework, Tapestries
+     and Hangings, and, in short, decorative work of any description,
+     done by women, and of sufficient excellence to meet the recently
+     stimulated demand for such work.
+
+     4. To form Auxiliary Committees in other cities and towns of the
+     United States, which committees shall receive and pronounce upon
+     work produced in, or in the vicinity of, such places, and which, if
+     approved by them, may be consigned to the salesrooms in New York.
+
+     5. To make connections with potteries, by which desirable forms for
+     decoration, or original designs for special orders, may be
+     procured, and with manufacturers and importers of the various
+     materials used in art work, by which artists may profit.
+
+     6. To endeavor to obtain orders from dealers in China, Cabinet
+     Work, or articles belonging to Household Art throughout the United
+     States.
+
+     7. To induce each worker thoroughly to master the details of one
+     variety of decoration, and endeavor to make for her work a
+     reputation of commercial value.
+
+     The Society meets an actual want in the community by furnishing a
+     place where orders can be given directly to the artist for any kind
+     of art or decorative work on exhibition.
+
+     It is believed that, by the encouragement of this Society, the
+     large amount of work done by those who do not make it a profession
+     will be brought to the notice of buyers outside a limited circle of
+     friends. The aggregate of this work is large, and when directed
+     into remunerative channels will prove a very important department
+     of industry.
+
+     The necessary expenses of the Society for the first, and possibly
+     the second, year will be defrayed by a membership fee of Five
+     Dollars, as well as by donations; but after that time it is
+     expected that all expenses will be met by commissions upon the sale
+     of articles consigned to it.
+
+     The contributions of all women artists of acknowledged ability are
+     earnestly requested. By their co-operation it is intended that a
+     high standard of excellence shall be established in what is offered
+     to the public, and, by seeing truly artistic decorative work, it is
+     hoped many women who have found the painting of pictures
+     unremunerative may turn their efforts in more practical directions.
+
+     All work approved by the Committee of Examination will be
+     attractively exhibited without expense to the artist, but in case
+     of sale a commission of 10 per cent will be charged upon the price
+     received.
+
+There was good teaching from the first, but very independent judgment,
+and it was not long before the more liberal and less chastened American
+mind followed national impulses. Why, said the practical American, shall
+we spend time and effort in doing things which are not adequate in final
+effect to the labor and cost we bestow upon them, and which do not
+really accord with costly surroundings, and, in addition to these
+detriments, can and probably will be eaten by moths when all is done?
+The result of this interrogative reasoning was an immediate resort to
+satins and silks and flosses, wherewith larger and more important things
+than tidies were created--lambrequins, hangings, bedspreads, screens,
+and many other furnishings, all wrought in exquisite flosses, and more
+or less beautiful in color.
+
+The institution of this Society of Decorative Art was in every respect a
+timely and popular movement. It followed the example of the English
+Society in making needlework the chief object of instruction. Our
+artists became interested in the matter of design, as the English
+artists had been, and under their influence the scope of embroidery was
+much enlarged. I remember the first contribution which indicated
+original talent was a piece of needlework by Mrs. W. S. Hoyt of Pelham,
+which was peculiarly ingenious, making a curious link between the
+cross-stitch tapestries of the German school and the woven tapestries of
+France. This needlework was done upon a fabric which imitated the corded
+texture of tapestries, and was stamped in a design which carried the
+color and idea of a tapestry background. Upon this surface Mrs. Hoyt had
+drawn a group of figures in mediæval costumes, afterward working them in
+single cross-stitch over the ribs produced by the filling threads of the
+fabric. The figures and costumes were done in faded tints which
+harmonized with the background, the stitches keeping the general effect
+of surface in the fabric. It will be seen that the result was extremely
+like that of a tapestry of the fifteenth century. This was followed by
+an exhibit of various landscape pictures of Mrs. Holmes of Boston, a
+daughter-in-law of the poet and writer. Mrs. Holmes had chosen silks and
+bits of weavings for her medium, using them as a painter uses colors
+upon his palette. A stretch of pale blue silk, with outlined hills lying
+against it, made for her a sky and background, while a middle distance
+of flossy white stitches, advancing into well-defined daisies, brought
+the foreground to one's very feet. Flower-laden apple branches against
+the sky were lightly sketched in embroidery stitches, like the daisies.
+It was a delicious bit of color and so well managed as to be as
+efficient a wall decoration as a water color picture.
+
+In what may be called pictorial art in textiles Mrs. Holmes was not
+alone, although her work probably incited to the same sort of
+experiment. Miss Weld of Boston sent a picture made up in the same way,
+of a background of material which lent itself to the representation of a
+field of swampy ground where the spotted leaves of the adder's tongue,
+the yellow water-lily, with its compact balls, and the flaming cardinal
+flower are growing, while swamp grasses are nodding above. This was as
+good in its way as any sketch of them could be, and affected one with
+the _sentiment_ of the scene, as it is the mission of art to do. Miss
+Weld, Miss Carolina Townshend of Albany, Mrs. William Hoyt of Pelham and
+Mrs. Dewey of New York, each contributed very largely to the formation
+of characteristic and progressive needlework art in America. There were
+other individuals whose work was inciting many, who have also, perhaps
+unknown to themselves, helped in this progress. Indeed, I remember many
+pieces of embroidery, loaned for the Bartholdi Exhibition of 1883, which
+would have done credit to any period of the art, and each piece
+undoubtedly had its influence.
+
+The work of schools or societies had been much less marked by original
+development. During the ten years of their existence the four largest
+societies, those of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, have
+been under the direction of English teachers, and have followed more or
+less closely the excellencies of the English School. Even in Boston,
+where, owing to the decided cultivation of art and the early
+introduction of drawing in the public schools, one would have looked
+for a rather characteristic development, English designs and English
+methods have been somewhat closely followed.
+
+In attempting to account for this fact one must remember that it is
+against the nature of associated authority to follow individual or
+original suggestions. There must be a broad and well-trodden path for
+committees to walk together in, and the track of the Kensington School
+is broad and authoritative enough for such following. The example and
+incitement of the various societies were the seed of much good and
+progressive art in America. In saying this I do not by any means confine
+the credit of the growth or development of needlework to this society
+alone, for there have been other influences at work. What I mean to say
+is this, that the other kindred societies, like the Woman's Exchange,
+the Needlework Societies, the Household Art Societies, and the
+Blue-and-White Industries started from this one root, and are as much
+indebted to the original society as things must always be to the central
+thought which inspired them. Compared with English work of the same
+period, they were distinguished by a certain spontaneity of motive
+and a luxuriance of effect, which has made these specimens more valuable
+to present possessors, and will make them far more precious as
+heirlooms. This sudden efflorescence of the art was, however, almost in
+the hands of amateurs, except for the occasional effort by some of the
+advanced contributors of the New York and Boston societies.
+
+[Illustration: QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: DETAIL of above coverlet.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+The commercial development of embroidery in this country has been in the
+direction of embroidery upon linen, and in this line each and every
+society of decorative art has been a center of valuable teaching. At the
+Columbian Exposition, to which all prominent societies contributed, the
+perfection of design, color and method, the general level of excellence,
+was on the highest possible plane. In its line nothing could be better,
+and it was encouraging to see that it was _not_ amateur work, _not_ a
+thing to be taken up and laid down according to moods and circumstances,
+but an educated profession or occupation for women, the acquirement of a
+knowledge which might develop indefinitely.
+
+Of course the trend of the decorative needlework was almost entirely in
+the direction of stitchery pure and simple, devoted to table linen and
+luxurious household uses, and this grew to a point of absolute
+perfection. Table-centers and doilies embroidered in colors on pure
+white linen reached a point of beauty which was amazing. When I saw, at
+the World's Columbian Exposition, the napery of the world, wrought by
+all races of women, I was delighted to see that the line of linen
+embroidery which was the direction of the common effort did not in the
+least surpass the work sent by the Decorative Art societies of most of
+our American cities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII -- AMERICAN TAPESTRY
+
+
+The Society of Decorative Art, has proved itself a means for the
+accomplishment of the two ends for which it was founded--namely, the
+fostering and incitement of good taste in needlework and artistic
+production, and the encouragement of talent in women, as well as
+providing a means of remunerative employment for their gifts in this
+direction.
+
+While the success of this Society was a source of great satisfaction to
+me, I had in my mind larger ambitions, which, by its very philanthropic
+purposes, could not be satisfied, ambitions toward a truly great
+American effort in a lasting direction.
+
+I therefore allied myself with a newly formed group of men, all
+well-known in their own lines of art, Louis Tiffany, famed for his
+Stained Glass, Mr. Coleman for color decoration and the use of textiles,
+and Mr. De Forest for carved and ornamental woodwork. My interests lay
+in the direction and execution of embroideries. I can speak
+authoritatively as to the effect upon it of the other arts, and I can
+hardly imagine better conditions for its development. The kindred arts
+of weaving and embroidery were carried on with those of stained glass,
+mural painting, illustration, and the other expressions of art peculiar
+to the different members. The association of different forms of art
+stimulated and developed and was the means of producing very important
+examples both in embroidery, needle-woven tapestries and loom weaving.
+
+As I was the woman member of this association of artists, it rested with
+me to adapt the feminine art, which was a part of its activities, to the
+requirements of the association. This was no small task. It meant the
+fitting of any and every textile used in the furnishing of a house to
+its use and place, whether it might be curtains, portieres, or wall
+coverings. I drew designs which would give my draperies a framing which
+carried out the woodwork, and served as backgrounds for the desired
+wreaths and garlands of embroidered flowers. I learned many valuable
+lessons of adaptation for the beautiful embroideries we produced. The
+net holding roses was a triumph of picturesque stitchery, and most
+acceptable as placed in the house of the man whose fortunes depended
+upon fish, and many another of like character.
+
+[Illustration: THE WINGED MOON
+
+Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.]
+
+Then one day appeared Mrs. Langtry in her then radiance of beauty,
+insisting upon a conference with me upon the production of a set of
+bed-hangings which were intended for the astonishment of the London
+world and to overshadow all the modest and schooled productions of the
+Kensington, when she herself should be the proud exhibitor. She looked
+at all the beautiful things we had done and were doing, and admired and
+approved, but still she wanted "something different, something unusual."
+I suggested a canopy of our strong, gauze-like, creamy silk
+bolting-cloth, the tissue used in flour mills for sifting the superfine
+flour. I explained that the canopy could be crosses on the under side
+with loops of full-blown, sunset-colored roses, and the hanging border
+heaped with them. That there might be a coverlet of bolting-cloth lined
+with the delicatest shade of rose-pink satin, sprinkled plentifully with
+rose petals fallen from the wreaths above. This idea satisfied the
+pretty lady, who seemed to find great pleasure in the range of our
+exhibits, our designs and our workrooms, and when her order was
+completed, she was triumphantly satisfied with its beauty and
+unusualness. The scattered petals were true portraits done from nature,
+and looked as though they could be shaken off at any minute. I came to
+see much of this beautiful specimen of womanhood, who played her part in
+the eyes of the world; and of things of more lasting importance than her
+somewhat ephemeral career, I should be tempted to tell amusing
+conclusions. She was an Oriental butterfly, which flitted along our
+sober, serious by-path of business and labor, looking for honey of any
+sort to be gathered on its sober track.
+
+When Mr. Tiffany came to me with an order for the drop-curtain of a
+theater, I did not trouble myself about a scheme for it, knowing that it
+had probably taken exact and interesting form in his own mind. It was a
+beautiful lesson to me, this largeness of purpose in needlework. The
+design for this curtain turned out to be a very realistic view of a
+vista in the woods, which gave opportunity for wonderful studies of
+color, from clear sun-lit foregrounds to tangles of misty green, melting
+into blue perspectives of distance. It was really a daring experiment in
+methods of appliqué, for no stitchery pure and simple was in place in
+the wide reaches of the picture. So we went on painting a woods interior
+in materials of all sorts, from tenuous crêpes to solid velvets and
+plushes. It was one of Mrs. Holmes' silk pictures on a large scale, and
+was perhaps more than reasonably successful. I remember the great
+delight in marking the difference between oak and birch trees and
+fitting each with its appropriate effect of color and texture of leaf;
+and the building of a tall gray-green yucca, with its thick satin leaves
+and tall white pyramidal groups of velvet blossoms, standing in the very
+foreground, was as exciting as if it were standing posed for its
+portrait, and being painted in oils.
+
+The variety of our work was a good influence for progress. We were
+constantly reaching out to fill the various demands, and, beyond them,
+to materialize our ideals. As far as art was concerned in our work, what
+we tried to do was not to repeat the triumphs of past needlework, but to
+see how far the best which had been done was applicable to the present.
+
+If tapestries had been the highest mark of the past, to see whether and
+how their use could be fitted to the circumstances of today, and, if we
+found a fit place for them in modern decoration, to see that their
+production took account of the methods and materials which belonged to
+present periods, and adapted the production to modern demands.
+
+[Illustration: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+We soon came to the ideal of tapestries which loomed above and beyond us
+and had been reached by every nation in turn which had applied art to
+textiles, but in all except very early work the accomplishment had been
+more of the loom than of hand work. My dream was of American Tapestries,
+made by embroidery alone, carrying personal thought into method. We
+decided that there was no reason for the limitation of the beautiful art
+of needlework to personal use, or even to its numerous domestic
+purposes. This most intimate of the arts of decoration has been in the
+form of wall hangings for the bare wall spaces of architecture from the
+time when dwellings passed their first limited use of protection and
+defense. After this first use of houses came the instinct and longing
+for beauty, and the feeling which prompts us in these wider days of
+achievement to cover our wall spaces with pictures, moved our far-off
+forefathers and mothers to offer their skill in spinning, and weaving,
+and picturing with the needle hangings to cover the bareness of the
+home. This impulse grew with the centuries, until tapestries were a
+natural art expression of different races of men, so that we have
+Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch and English tapestries, each with
+national tastes and characteristics of production. As time went on,
+inevitable machinery undertook the task of making wall hangings, with
+the whole-hearted help of all who had given their lives to art, and
+tapestries had become a part of the riches of the world. When the
+greater part of the world's wealth was in the possession of Popes and
+Princes, it was usual to expend a goodly portion of it in works of art.
+Pictures and tapestries and exquisitely wrought metal work, weavings and
+embroideries, made priceless by costly materials and the thoughts and
+labor of artists, were reckoned not as a sign of wealth but as actual
+wealth. They were really riches, as much as stocks and bonds are riches
+today. Such things were accumulated as anxiously and persistently as one
+accumulates land or houses, or railroad bonds or stocks, and the buyer
+was not poorer; but in fact he was richer for money expended in this
+fashion. This everyday financial fact lay underneath and supported the
+beautiful pageant of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gilding them
+with a radiance which has attracted the admiration and excited the
+wonder of all succeeding years.
+
+That flower and culmination of labor which we call art was the capital
+of those early centuries, and took the place of the Bank, the Bourse,
+and the Exchange which later financial ideas have created.
+
+It is in a great measure to this fact, as well as to the intense love
+for, and appreciation of, art which distinguished this period, that we
+owe the wonderful treasures which have enriched the later world. They
+belong no longer to princes and prelates, but to governments and
+museums, and are object lessons to the student and the artisan, and an
+inheritance for both rich and poor of all mankind.
+
+Except in the light of these treasures of art, it would be difficult to
+understand how far-reaching and comprehensive was the greed of beauty
+which possessed and distinguished the centers of tapestry production.
+The museums of the world are made up of what remains of them. The
+pictures and tapestries, the weavings and embroideries, the carvings and
+metal work which the world is studying, belonged to the daily life of
+those past centuries. The stamp of thought and the seal of art were set
+upon the simplest conveniences of life. The very keys of the locks and
+hinges of the doors were designed, not by mere workers in metal, but by
+sculptors and artists who were pre-eminent for genius. It was in the
+spirit of this period that Benvenuto Cellini modeled saltcellars as well
+as statues, and his compeers designed carvings and gildings for state
+carriages, and painted pictures upon the panels. Painters of divine
+pictures designed cartoons and borders for tapestries, and wreaths and
+garlands for ceiling pilasters.
+
+Among the names of painters who designed cartoons for tapestries, we
+find those of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Guido and Giulio
+Romano, Albert Dürer, Rubens and Van Dyck. Indeed, there is hardly a
+great name among the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+which has not contributed to the value of the tapestries dating from
+those times. Among them all none have a greater share of glory than the
+series known as "The Acts of the Apostles," designed by Raphael for Pope
+Leo X, in the year 1515. The history of these cartoons is full of
+interest. After the weaving of the first set of these tapestries, which
+was hung in the Sistine Chapel and regarded as among the greatest
+treasures of the world, the cartoons remained for more than a hundred
+years in the manufactory at Brussels. During this period one or more
+sets must have been woven from them, but in 1630 seven were transferred
+to the Mortlake Tapestry works near London, having been purchased by
+Charles I, who was advised of their existence by Rubens. The Mortlake
+tapestry had been established by James I, who was greatly aided by the
+interest of the then Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Buckingham. It is
+charming to think of "Baby Charles" and "Steenie" busying themselves
+with the encouragement of art in the way of the production of tapestry
+pictures, and after the accession of the Prince, to follow the progress
+of this taste in the purchase of the famous cartoons, and the employment
+of no less a genius than Van Dyck in the composition of new and more
+elaborate borders for them. It was probably during the reign of Charles
+that these glorious compositions went into use as illustrations of
+Biblical text, for we find "Paul preaching at Athens," "Peter and Paul
+at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple," and "The Miraculous Draught of
+Fishes" figuring as full-page frontispieces to many old copies of King
+James' Bible. After the tragic close of the reign of King Charles, the
+treasures of tapestries he had accumulated were dispersed and sold by
+order of Cromwell; but the cartoons remained the property of the nation
+and, though lost to sight for another hundred years or so, finally
+reappeared from their obscurity, at Hampton Court, and in these later
+years, at the Kensington Museum, have again taken their place as one of
+the most valuable lessons of earlier centuries. It was probably the
+story of these cartoons which inspired the determination which had taken
+possession of us, to do a real tapestry, something greatly worthy of
+accomplishment.
+
+[Illustration: THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES
+
+Arranged (from photographs made in London of the original cartoon by
+Raphael, in the Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+needle-woven tapestry by the Associated Artists.]
+
+When we came to the decision to create tapestries, the actual substance
+of them, as well as the art, was a thing to be considered. The wool
+fiber upon which they were usually based was a prey to many enemies.
+Dust may corrupt and moths utterly destroy fiber of wool, but dust does
+not accumulate on threads of silk, neither are they quite acceptable to
+the appetite of moths. Therefore, we reasoned, if we did work which was
+worthy of comparative immortality, it must be done with comparatively
+imperishable material. Fiber of flax and fiber of silk shared this
+advantage, and the silk was tenacious of color, which was not the case
+with flax; therefore we chose silk and went bravely to our task of
+creating American tapestries.
+
+Having decided upon our material, we consulted with our friendly and
+interested manufacturers, and finally ordered a broad, heavily marked,
+loosely woven fabric which would hold our precious stitches safely and
+show them to advantage. The woof of the canvas upon which we were to
+experiment was also of silk, not fine and twisted like the warp, but
+soft and full enough to hold silk stitchery. In this way the face of the
+canvas, or ground, could be quite covered by a full thread of embroidery
+silk passed under the slender warp and actually sewn into the woof.
+
+[Illustration: MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL
+
+Drawn by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1884.]
+
+Being thus fully equipped for the production of real tapestries, well
+adapted to the processes of what I called "needle weaving," since the
+needle was really used as a shuttle to carry threads over and under the
+already fixed warp, the next decision rested upon the subject of this
+new application of the art and the knowledge we had gained by study and
+practice and love of textile art. With a courage which we now wonder at,
+we selected perhaps the most difficult, as it certainly is the most
+beautiful, of surviving tapestries, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,"
+the cartoon of which, designed by Raphael, is at present to be seen and
+studied at the Kensington Museum in London. The decision to copy this
+was perhaps influenced by the fact that it was the only original cartoon
+of which I had knowledge, and my summer holiday in London was spent in
+its study, and schemes for its exact reproduction. As it was spread upon
+a wall in museum fashion, a drawing could not be actually verified by
+measurements, but an expedient came to me which proved to be
+satisfactory. I had two photographs, as large as possible, made from
+the cartoon, and one of them, being very faintly printed, copied exactly
+in color; the other was ruled and cut into squares, and was again
+photographed and enlarged to a size which would bring them, when joined,
+to the same measurements as the original cartoon. These, very carefully
+put together, made a working drawing for my tapestry copy, and the
+lighter photograph, which had been most carefully water-colored, gave
+the color guide for the copy.
+
+It was interesting to find the perforations along the lines of the
+composition still showing in the photographed cartoon, and we made use
+of them by going over them with pin pricks, fastening the cartoon over
+the sheet of silk canvas woven for the background, so that there was no
+possibility of shifting. Prepared powder was sifted through the lines of
+perforation and fixed by the application of heat, and we then had the
+entire composition exactly outlined upon the ground. After that the work
+of superimposing color and shading by needle weaving was a labor of love
+and diligent fingers during many months. Every inch of stitchery was
+carefully criticized and constantly compared with the colored copy,
+and at last it was a finished tapestry and was hung in a north light on
+one of the great spaces of the studio, where it was an object of expert
+examination and general admiration.
+
+[Illustration: APHRODITE
+
+Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry worked by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.]
+
+It is by far the most important work accomplished by needle weaving
+which has ever been made in America, and is as veritable a copy of the
+original as if it were painted with brush and pigment, instead of being
+woven with threads of silk. The low lights of the evening sky, the
+reflections of the boats, and the stooping figures of the fishermen, the
+perspective of the distant shore, and the wonderful grouping in the
+foreground, keep their charm in the tapestry as they do in the picture.
+Even the mystery of the twilight is rendered, with the subtle effect we
+feel, but can scarcely define, in the original drawing.
+
+It has been a curiously direct process from the hand of the great
+master, to this new reproduction, although it stands so far from his
+time and life. His very thought was painted by his very hand upon the
+paper of the cartoon, and this painted thought has been photographed
+upon another paper which has served as a guide to the copy.
+
+It makes us sharers in the art riches of Raphael's own time, to see a
+new embodiment of his thought appearing as a part of the nineteenth
+century's accomplishments and possessions.
+
+After this achievement we naturally began to look for appropriate use
+for the small tapestries, but here came our stumbling block. The breed
+of princes, who had been the former patrons of such works of art, were
+all asleep in their graves, and knew not America, or its ambitions, and
+our native breed was not an hereditary one, building galleries in
+palaces, and collecting there the largest of precious accomplishments in
+artistic skill in order to perpetuate their own memories, as well as to
+enrich their descendants. Our princes were perhaps as rich as they, and
+possibly as powerful, but their ambitions did not usually extend to a
+line of posterity. Their palaces were contracted to a "three score and
+ten" size; for each of them, no matter how wide his capability of
+enjoyment, knew that it was personal and ended when his little spark of
+life should be extinguished. I gladly record, however, that in these
+later days some of them have made the American world their heirs, and
+are building and enriching museums and colleges, making them palaces of
+growth and enlightenment, and so giving to the many what an older race
+of princes built and enriched and guarded for the few.
+
+But in the meantime what were we to do about our tapestries? They were
+costly, very costly to produce, and although we took account of the
+delight of their creation and put it on the credit side of our books,
+along with the fact that the weekly pay roll of the tapestry room went
+for the comfort and maintenance of the students whom we loved and
+cherished, I soon realized the fact that a commercial firm could not be
+burdened with the fads of any one member. Before I had carried this
+conclusion to its logical end, we had opportunities of using our skill
+worthily in several of the new great houses of the time. When the
+Cornelius Vanderbilt house was erected on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh
+Street we received an order for a set of tapestries for the drawing-room
+walls. These were executed from ideal subjects and of single figures. I
+remember the "Winged Moon" among them, which was an ideal figure of the
+new moon lying in a cradle of her own wings. This was but one of the
+set, one or two of which we afterward made in replica for an exhibit in
+London. There was no lack of subjects in our background of American
+history. The legends and beliefs of our North American Indians were full
+of them, and one of the first we selected was the lovely story of
+"Minnehaha, Laughing Water," from Longfellow's "Hiawatha." The sketch
+had been sent to us by Miss Dora Wheeler, as the prize composition of
+the Saturday Composition Class at Julien's Studio in Paris.
+
+The literary past of the country furnished subjects enough and to spare,
+and if we wished to walk into the shadowy realms of legend and fiction,
+there were the picturesque legends of the American Indian from which to
+choose. Our subjects were often one-figure designs, as such pieces were
+suitable in size to wall spaces and door openings. Of course commercial
+considerations could not be lost sight of in our enthusiasm for progress
+in textile art. Potter Palmer, the multimillionaire of Chicago, was
+building at the time a palace home on the Lake Shore, and one auspicious
+day Mrs. Palmer bestowed her beautiful presence upon us, and was
+mightily taken with our tapestries. Her clever mind was attracted by the
+"bookishness" of some of the panels of incidents from American
+literature, and several of them went to beautify the great house on the
+Lake Shore, in the form of several panels of portraits. Mrs. Palmer was
+a delightful patron, her own enjoyment of art, in any of its forms,
+amounted to enthusiasm, and her great physical beauty, to a beauty
+lover, made every visit from her an epoch. I have never seen the face of
+an adult woman who has had the experience of wifehood and motherhood
+which retained so perfectly the flawless beauty of childhood. I have
+often gazed at the angelic face of some child, and wondered why each
+year of life should wipe out some exquisite line of drawing, or absorb
+the entrancing shadows which rest upon the face of childhood. It was a
+great satisfaction to personally assist in the furnishing of the home of
+this beautiful aristocrat, whose own law allowed of no infringement by
+our mighty three, having been shaped in a mind enriched by much
+classical study and constant acquaintance with the beautiful.
+
+When our embroideries and needlework had taken their place in this
+country, we were asked to make part of an Exhibition of American Art in
+London. This we were very glad to do, for the artistic gratification of
+being able to measure what we were doing with the best art of the kind
+abroad. It was also pleasant to be considered worthy company with the
+best in our own land, to rub shoulders with our best painters, our great
+makers of stained glass, leaders who take genuine pleasure in ideal
+work. Of course this applies to amateur work only, as professional
+decoration must accord with the general plan which has been selected.
+
+[Illustration: FIGHTING DRAGONS
+
+Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered by The Associated Artists,
+1885.]
+
+I had reason to think that the Exhibition made by the Associated Artists
+at Chicago was of lasting use to all lovers of needlework, the world
+over, since so many other races came there to get their world lessons. I
+learned much that was of value to me from familiar study of the exhibits
+from different countries, from their excellencies and differences and
+the reasons why such wide divergences existed, and from observation of
+the people themselves who produced them--for many of the exhibits were
+in charge of practical needleworkers who knew the history of their art
+from its very beginning. I found more of interest in Oriental art
+from seeing that it was not merely a perfunctory repetition of stitches
+and patterns, but that there was a stanch, almost a religious, integrity
+in doing the thing exactly as it had been done by generations of
+forefathers, and that the silks and tissues and flosses and threads of
+gold were the best the world produced. In the presence of such fidelity,
+what mattered it that the borders and blocks were formed of angles, or
+zigzags, or squares, or any other fixed and mechanical shapes? The
+spirit of it was true to its race and traditions. In the face of it, all
+our beautiful copies of flowers, and growths, and gracious forms of
+nature seemed almost experimental--the art of growing and changing
+nations.
+
+But as we do not make the early art of long existent races models upon
+which to shape our search for the most beautiful, the persistence of
+Eastern form in embroidery need not prevent our progress in design. I
+made an interesting note of this persistence of Eastern design, when,
+many years ago, I had an opportunity of examining some mummy wrappings
+from a burial ground at Lima, Peru. They were wonderful weavings of
+aboriginal cloth, bordered with embroidery done in dyed or colored
+threads of flax, in designs as purely Eastern as can be found in any
+ancient or modern Eastern embroidery. How could it happen that the
+ornamental designs of the Far East and the Far West should touch each
+other? Was it similarity of thought knowledge, the kinship of the human
+mind, or some long-forgotten means of transmission of the material and
+actual, of which we all-knowing moderns do not even dream? This
+wonderful South American embroidery of past ages antedated many antique
+remains of the art of stitchery which we treasure with as wide a margin
+of time as lies between their day and ours.
+
+Embroidery has become a dependence and a business for thousands of
+women, and it is this which secures its permanence. We may trust
+skillful executants who live by its practice to keep ahead of the
+changing fancies of society and invent for it new wants and new
+fashions. And this, because their chance of living depends upon it, and
+it promises to be a permanent and growing art. It may, and will,
+undoubtedly, take on new directions, but it is no longer a lost art. On
+the contrary, it is one where practice has attained such perfection that
+it is fully equal to any new demands and quite competent to answer any
+of the higher calls of art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII -- THE BAYEUX TAPESTRIES
+
+
+While a description of this most important work of women's hands may
+seem somewhat irrelevant in a book devoted to the development of the art
+of embroidery in America, it is so important a link in the subject of
+stitchery, executed as it was in the eleventh century, that a short
+chapter on this most interesting and vital subject may not come amiss.
+
+Among all our present possessions of early skill, perhaps nothing is
+more widely known than what is called the Bayeux Tapestry. This much
+venerated work is not tapestry at all, but a pictorial record in
+outline, done with a needle, as simply as though written in ink, at
+least according to our present understanding of what is known as
+tapestry.
+
+We read of the subject, and the name of William the Conqueror looms
+large in the imagination. We think of the tapestry as a great
+illustrated page of history, large in proportion not alone to the deeds
+it chronicles, but to their importance in the story of one of the
+greatest, perhaps, of the modern races; and across this illustrated page
+we fancy the prancing of war horses and the prowess of the knight, the
+passing of seas and the march of armies, with all the attendant tragedy
+of circumstance.
+
+But this is only in one's mind. The reality is a more or less tattered
+strip of grayish-white linen, two feet in width and two hundred and
+thirty feet long, and along this frail bridge between the past and
+present march the actors in the great conquest. It seems but an
+inadequate pathway, but it has borne its phalanxes of men, its two
+hundred horses, its five hundred and fifty-five dogs and other animals,
+its forty-one ships, its numberless castles and trees, its roads and
+farms safely through all the intervening years from 1066 to 1919, and it
+still holds them.
+
+In truth, we wonder much over this production of the past, and not alone
+over the heroes who career so mildly in their armor of colored crewels
+on the linen background. We wonder, in the first place, how a continuous
+web of over two hundred feet in length could have been woven. Then, we
+know that lengths of woven stuffs are limited only by the requirements
+of commerce, and that Matilda was of Flanders, and her father had
+learned the princely trick of loving and encouraging manufactures, and
+had, indeed, taught it to his daughter, and that Flanders was a noted
+center of manufacture. Then we decide that if Matilda had called for a
+strip of linen two thousand feet long, whereon to write the warlike
+history of a spouse who began his gentle part toward her (for so history
+avers) by pulling her from her horse and rolling her in the mud because
+she refused to marry him, it would have been forthcoming as easily as
+two hundred. Should the Queen of England require a stretch of linen as
+long as from England to America, whereon to record the successes of her
+reign, who doubts that it would be supplied her?
+
+[Illustration: THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY]
+
+So, when the question of this web is disposed of, we wonder who drew all
+these figures of men and horses, for Queen Matilda and her ladies to
+overlay with stitchery, and why his name has not come down to us. We
+decide within our minds, for it never occurs to us to impute such
+ability in drawing to the Queen or her ladies, that it was the work of
+some monkish brother who varied his illuminating labor upon missals
+and copies of the Scripture by doing these worldly and interesting
+things.
+
+We think of the never to be forgotten Gerard in _The Cloister and the
+Hearth_, and wonder if it was some monastery-trained youth like him who
+rested from the creation of saints and angels upon vellum, to draw
+fighting knights upon linen, and whether, perchance, his hushed heart
+burned within him at the stir and valor of the deeds he portrayed. And
+then some one, better informed than we, points out the figure of a
+dwarf, nicely labeled as Turold--for many of the actors in this
+embroidered story are labeled in delicate stitches--and tells us that
+his was the hand that set the copy for all the happy and beloved maids
+of the Queen, and the hapless and perhaps equally beloved Saxon maids.
+We wonder, again, how these skillful and noble Saxons like to find
+themselves thus writing their own infelicities and humiliations for all
+the world to see, and then--for so does the human mind go groping into
+motives and springs of action--we wonder if their famous skill in
+needlework, of which the wide-awake Matilda must surely have known, put
+it into her head to make this curious life-record of her great lord,
+and we reflect that if it were so, it would only be another facet of her
+many-sided ability.
+
+But that was underneath the surface. Outside was the queenly
+magnificence and wifely glorification of her lot, a smooth current of
+irresistible prosperity. Underneath was the whirling and buzzing of the
+wheels of thought, the springs of motion which governed the great
+current.
+
+In truth, two such clever thought centers as William of Normandy and
+Matilda of Flanders seldom in the world have made a conjunction, or we
+would have had more great conquests to record. We may fancy what we will
+in the far background which this slender length of linen reaches, all
+the byplay which accompanied the guarded life of the castle, the
+religious life of the cathedral and monastery, the colored and bannered
+pomp of duke and noble.
+
+It was all mightily picturesque, with its contrasts of gorgeousness and
+privation, but probably Matilda the dexterous thought that times were
+good enough when she could sit in safety, surrounded by her maids and
+priests, and write her royal journal as she pleased, with a threaded
+stylus; and well for us that she elected to do this, although her
+records are written in so quaint a fashion that amusement and interest
+are twin spectators of the result.
+
+Two borders, upper and lower, remind one irresistibly of a child's
+processional picture on a slate. The figures are done in outline only,
+colors corresponding to those used in the body of the work. Each border
+is some six inches wide, and has the air of a little running commentary
+or enlargement of the main story. There are variations and incidents
+which could not perhaps be put down in the main body, where all the
+figures are worked solidly in the stitch which has been rechristened
+"Kensington stitch." The horses are worked in red-brown and gray
+crewels, some of them duly spotted and dappled, the banners and
+gonfalons carefully wrought in the colors and devices belonging to them.
+The whole work follows scrupulously the scenes of the Conquest, giving
+the lives of the actors both in Normandy and England, as well as the
+transit from one country to the other.
+
+The first scene evidently represents Edward the Confessor giving
+audience to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. The next gives the
+embarkation of Harold, and the third his capture in France.
+
+Then comes the death of Edward, and the tapestry story struggles
+ineffectually with the incidents of his death and funeral; and the
+election of Harold as King of England, showing him seated crowned and in
+royal robes under a very primitive canopy. After this, the scene shifts
+again to France, and portrays the preparations for invasion made by the
+Duke of Normandy, who was called by the people of the country he invaded
+"William the Conqueror," and who have continued to know him only by that
+name through all succeeding centuries, the shame and sorrow of
+vanquishment quite buried under the glory of the performance, Saxon and
+Norman uniting in esteem of the successful result.
+
+All this history is duly set forth in archaic simplicity by the stitches
+of Queen Matilda, who, in preserving the record of the deeds of her
+doughty lord, has set down also a record of herself as the ideal wife,
+who glorifies her husband, and merges all she is of woman into that
+condition--and still it is only a strip of linen worked in crewels. All
+the triumphs of the great Conqueror are written upon it, but none of the
+disappointments. The needlework story does not relate (how could it when
+Matilda's active, trained and industrious fingers had been stilled by
+death?) the sorrows which overcame even her fortunate hero--that his
+body was robbed of its clothing, and lay naked and dishonored beside a
+disputed grave, where even the solemn claim of death to burial was
+resisted until an old wrong "done in the body" was righted. And though
+his son reigned after him, and he founded a royal line, perhaps one of
+the greatest enjoyments of his successful life consisted in watching the
+fingers of his well-beloved Matilda as they worked this linen record.
+
+Of course it is the great events it portrays and the human interest it
+holds which make this tapestry exceedingly valuable, for, artistically,
+it is of no more value than a child's sampler. But, simple as it is,
+volumes have been written about it. Scholars and historians have pored
+over its pictured history, money without stint has been spent in paper
+reproductions of it, and, finally, the whole important embroidery
+society of Leeds, England, spent two industrious years in copying it,
+and earned fame and envy thereby.
+
+The wonderful remains of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify
+the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of
+the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of
+time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to
+work that is widely different from that of the ages when embroidery was
+a natural recourse and almost universal practice, but it is an art which
+has done too much for the progress of the world, in all its different
+phases, to die, or to cease to progress. There will always be quiet
+souls, whose lives have been made so by circumstances, who will find
+solace in the practice of needlework, so we may safely leave with them
+an art which has done so much for mankind.
+
+                    THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+The following corrections have been applied to the text:
+
+Porcupine quill work seems to have
+been no longer practiced,
+    'no' is missing in the original text
+
+which were novelties to the imported artisan.
+    corrected from 'novelites'
+
+Miss Mather or Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker
+    'of' corrected to 'or'
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in
+America, by Candace Wheeler
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in America, by 
+Candace Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Development of Embroidery in America
+
+Author: Candace Wheeler
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2008 [EBook #24165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Constanze Hofmann and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p><a id="illu008" name="illu008"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 420px;">
+  <img src="images/illu008.jpg" width="399" height="600"
+      alt="Frontispiece" />
+<p class="source right">Painted by Dora Wheeler Keith</p>
+<p class="caption">CANDACE WHEELER<br />
+From the painting by her daughter Dora Wheeler Keith.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>THE DEVELOPMENT OF
+EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA</h1>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>By</i><br />
+CANDACE WHEELER</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>Illustrated</i></p>
+
+<div class="center">
+  <img class="newsection" src="images/illu009.jpg" width="100" height="146"
+      alt="Publisher's logo" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="titlepage">HARPER &amp; BROTHERS PUBLISHERS<br />
+NEW YORK AND LONDON<br />
+MCMXXI
+</p>
+
+
+
+<p class="titlepage smcap">Development of Embroidery in America</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">
+Copyright, 1921, by Harper &amp; Brothers<br />
+Printed in the United States of America<br />
+X-V<br />
+</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table summary="Table of Contents">
+<tr style="font-size: 0.8em;">
+  <td>CHAP.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td class="right">PAGE</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td></td>
+  <td><a href="#INTRODUCTORY_THE_STORY_OF_THE_NEEDLE">Introductory. The Story of the Needle</a></td>
+  <td class="right">3</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>I.   </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_I_BEGINNINGS_IN_THE_NEW_WORLD">Beginnings in the New World</a></td>
+  <td class="right"> 10</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>II.  </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_II_THE_CREWELWORK_OF_OUR_PURITAN_MOTHERS">The Crewelwork of Our Puritan Mothers</a></td>
+  <td class="right"> 17</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>III. </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_III_SAMPLERS_AND_A_WORD_ABOUT_QUILTS">Samplers and a Word About Quilts</a></td>
+  <td class="right"> 48</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>IV.  </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_IV_MORAVIAN_WORK_PORTRAITURE_FRENCH_EMBROIDERY_AND">Moravian Work, Portraiture, French Embroidery and Lacework</a></td>
+  <td class="right"> 62</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>V.   </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_V_BERLIN_WOOLWORK">Berlin Woolwork</a></td>
+  <td class="right"> 96</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>VI.  </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VI_REVIVAL_OF_EMBROIDERY_AND_THE_FOUNDING_OF_THE_SOCIETY_OF">Revival of Embroidery, and the Founding of the Society of Decorative Art</a>    </td>
+  <td class="right">102</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>VII. </td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VII_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY">American Tapestry</a></td>
+  <td class="right">121</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td>VIII.</td>
+  <td><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII_THE_BAYEUX_TAPESTRIES">The Bayeux Tapestries</a></td>
+  <td class="right">144</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="ILLUSTRATIONS" id="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>ILLUSTRATIONS<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii"> [vii]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#illu008">CANDACE WHEELER.</a> From the painting by her daughter
+    Dora Wheeler Keith <span class="ralign">Frontispiece</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu029-1">MOCCASINS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.</a>
+    Made by Sioux Indians <span class="ralign"><i>Facing</i> 12</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu029-2">PIPE BAGS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.</a> Made by Sioux Indians <span class="ralign">12</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu033-1">MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.</a> Made by Sioux Indians <span class="ralign">14</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu033-2">MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.</a> Made by Plains Indians <span class="ralign">14</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu039">CREWEL DESIGN</a>, drawn and colored, which dates back
+    to Colonial times <span class="ralign">18</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu045-1">TESTER</a> embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+    homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass.,
+    in 1640, by Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth <span class="ralign">22</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu045-2">RAISED EMBROIDERY ON BLACK VELVET.</a> Nineteenth century American <span class="ralign">22</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu051-1">QUILTED COVERLET</a> made by Ann Gurnee <span class="ralign">26</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu051-2">HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET</a> with King George's Crown embroidered
+    with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+    home at Fort Lee, N.&nbsp;J., where Washington was entertained <span class="ralign">26</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu051-3">CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET</a>, made about 1830, of homespun wool with
+    "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter
+    worked in the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red,
+    yellow, and dark green. From the Westervelt collection <span class="ralign">26</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu059-1">BED SET</a>, Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and worked
+    by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework,
+    Deerfield, Mass. <span class="ralign">32</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu059-2">BED COVERS</a> worked in candle wicking <span class="ralign">32</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu079">SAMPLER</a> worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the possession
+    of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J. <span class="ralign">50</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu083-1">SAMPLER</a> embroidered in colors on &eacute;cru linen, by Mary Ann Marley,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii"> [viii]</a></span>
+    aged twelve, August 30, 1820 <span class="ralign">52</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu083-2">SAMPLER</a> embroidered in brown on &eacute;cru linen, by Martha Carter
+    Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished
+    at her death <span class="ralign">52</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu087-1">SAMPLER</a> worked by Christiana Baird. Late eighteenth
+    century American <span class="ralign">54</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu087-2">MEMORIAL PIECE</a> worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to
+    the memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805 <span class="ralign">54</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu087-3">SAMPLER</a> of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806,
+    by Sarah Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L.&nbsp;I. <span class="ralign">54</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu091-1">SAMPLER</a> worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N.&nbsp;Y., in 1810 <span class="ralign">56</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu091-2">SAMPLER</a> worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N.&nbsp;Y., in 1793 <span class="ralign">56</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu091-3">PETIT POINT PICTURE</a> which belonged to President John Quincy Adams,
+    and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection <span class="ralign">56</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu097-1">SAMPLER</a> in drawnwork, &eacute;cru linen thread, made by Anne Gower,
+    wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628 <span class="ralign">60</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu097-2">SAMPLER</a> embroidered in dull colors on &eacute;cru canvas by Mary
+    Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant,
+    married July, 1675, accused of witchcraft in 1692,
+    but escaped to New York <span class="ralign">60</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu097-3">SAMPLER</a> worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born
+    February 19, 1780, in Bristol <span class="ralign">60</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu103-1">NEEDLEBOOK</a> of Moravian embroidery made about 1850, now in
+    the possession of Mrs. J.&nbsp;N. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa. <span class="ralign">64</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu103-2">MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY</a> worked by Emily E. Reynolds, Plymouth, Pa.,
+    in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian Seminary
+    in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter <span class="ralign">64</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu107">MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY</a> from Louisville, Ky. <span class="ralign">66</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu113-1">LINEN TOWELS</a> embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania Dutch
+    early nineteenth century <span class="ralign">70</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu119-1">"THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"</a>&mdash;Moravian embroidered picture,
+    an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa. Worked by
+    Sarah Kummer about 1790 <span class="ralign">74</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu119-2">"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"</a>&mdash;Cross-stitch picture<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix"> [ix]</a></span>
+    made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family,
+    Bethlehem, Pa. <span class="ralign">74</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu123">ABRAHAM AND ISAAC.</a> Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred Hoskins,
+    of Edenton, N.&nbsp;C., while attending an English finishing school
+    in Baltimore in 1814 <span class="ralign">76</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu127-1">FIRE SCREEN</a> embroidered in cross-stitch worsted <span class="ralign">78</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu127-2">FIRE SCREEN</a>, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+    cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen <span class="ralign">78</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu127-3">FIRE SCREEN</a> worked about 1850 by Miss C.&nbsp;A. Granger,
+    of Canandaigua, N.&nbsp;Y. <span class="ralign">78</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu131-1">EMBROIDERED PICTURE</a> in silks, with a painted sky <span class="ralign">80</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu131-2">CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI.</a> Embroidered picture in silks,
+    with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very, of Salem,
+    at the age of sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school <span class="ralign">80</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu137-1">CAPE</a> of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century American <span class="ralign">84</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu137-2">COLLARS</a> of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century American <span class="ralign">84</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu141-1">BABY'S CAP.</a> White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+    Nineteenth century American <span class="ralign">86</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu141-2">BABY'S CAP.</a> Embroidered mull. 1825 <span class="ralign">86</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu141-3">COLLAR</a> of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century American <span class="ralign">86</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu145-1">EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT</a>, 1829. From the
+    Westervelt collection <span class="ralign">88</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu145-2">EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS</a>, 1850. From the collection
+    of Mrs. George Coe <span class="ralign">88</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu149-1">EMBROIDERY ON NET.</a> Border for the front of a cap made about 1820 <span class="ralign">90</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu149-2">VEIL</a> (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net.
+    American nineteenth century <span class="ralign">90</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu153-1">LACE WEDDING VEIL</a>, 36 × 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+    collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier <span class="ralign">92</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu153-2">HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK</a> called "Benewacka" by the Dutch.
+    The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on
+    which the design was darned with linen. Made about 1800
+    and used in the end of linen pillow cases <span class="ralign">92</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu161-1">BED HANGING</a> of polychrome cross-stitch appliqu&eacute;d<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x"> [x]</a></span>
+    on blue woolen ground <span class="ralign">98</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu161-2">NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN</a> made in fine and coarse point.
+    Single cross-stitch <span class="ralign">98</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu165-1">HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY</a> of fine and coarse needlepoint <span class="ralign">100</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu165-2">TAPESTRY</a> woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+    and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand
+    weave originated at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms <span class="ralign">100</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu171-1">EMBROIDERED MITS</a> <span class="ralign">104</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu171-2">WHITE COTTON VEST</a> embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+    century American <span class="ralign">104</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu171-3">WHITE MULL</a> embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+    century American <span class="ralign">104</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu171-4">EMBROIDERED VALANCE</a>, part of set and spread for high-post
+    bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton,
+    by Mrs. Gideon Granger, Canandaigua, New York <span class="ralign">104</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu177-1">DETAIL</a> of linen coverlet worked in colored wool <span class="ralign">108</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu177-2">LINEN COVERLET</a> embroidered in Kensington stitch
+    with colored wool <span class="ralign">108</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu189-1">QUILTED COVERLET</a> worked entirely by hand <span class="ralign">118</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu189-2">DETAIL</a> of quilted coverlet <span class="ralign">118</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu195">THE WINGED MOON.</a> Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed
+    in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists, 1883 <span class="ralign">122</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu201">SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL</a> <span class="ralign">126</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu207">THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES.</a> Arranged (from photographs
+    made in London of the original cartoon by Raphael, in the
+    Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+    needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists <span class="ralign">130</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu211">MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL.</a> Drawn by Dora Wheeler
+    and executed in needle-woven tapestry by
+    The Associated Artists, 1884 <span class="ralign">132</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu215">APHRODITE.</a> Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry
+    worked by The Associated Artists, 1883 <span class="ralign">134</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu223">FIGHTING DRAGONS.</a> Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered
+    by The Associated Artists, 1885 <span class="ralign">140</span></li>
+
+<li><a href="#illu231">THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY</a> <span class="ralign">146</span></li>
+</ul>
+
+
+
+<h1><a name="THE_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EMBROIDERY_IN_AMERICA" id="THE_DEVELOPMENT_OF_EMBROIDERY_IN_AMERICA"></a>THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3"> [3]</a></span></h1>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="INTRODUCTORY_THE_STORY_OF_THE_NEEDLE" id="INTRODUCTORY_THE_STORY_OF_THE_NEEDLE"></a>INTRODUCTORY <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE</h2>
+
+
+<p>The story of embroidery includes in its history all the work of the
+needle since Eve sewed fig leaves together in the Garden of Eden. We are
+the inheritors of the knowledge and skill of all the daughters of Eve in
+all that concerns its use since the beginning of time.</p>
+
+<p>When this small implement came open-eyed into the world it brought with
+it possibilities of well-being and comfort for races and ages to come.
+It has been an instrument of beneficence as long ago as "Dorcas sewed
+garments and gave them to the poor," and has been a creator of beauty
+since Sisera gave to his mother "a prey of needlework, 'alike on both
+sides.'" This little descriptive phrase&mdash;alike on both sides&mdash;will at
+once suggest to all needlewomen a perfection of method almost without
+parallel. Of course it can be done, but the skill of it must have been
+rare, even in those far-off days of leisure when duties and pleasures
+did not crowd out painstaking tasks, and every art was carried as far as
+human assiduity and invention could carry it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4"> [4]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>A history of the needlework of the world would be a history of the
+domestic accomplishment of the world, that inner story of the existence
+of man which bears the relation to him of sunlight to the plant. We can
+deduce from these needle records much of the physical circumstances of
+woman's long pilgrimage down the ages, of her mental processes, of her
+growth in thought. We can judge from the character of her art whether
+she was at peace with herself and the world, and from its status we
+become aware of its relative importance to the conditions of her life.</p>
+
+<p>There are few written records of its practice and growth, for an art
+which does not affect the commercial gain of a land or country is not
+apt to have a written or statistical history, but, fortunately in this
+case, the curious and valuable specimens which are left to us tell their
+own story. They reveal the cultivation and amelioration of domestic
+life. Their contribution to the refinements are their very existence.</p>
+
+<p>A history of any domestic practice which has grown into a habit marks
+the degree of general civilization, but the practice of needlework does
+more. To a careful student each small difference<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5"> [5]</a></span> in the art tells its
+own story in its own language. The hammered gold of Eastern embroidery
+tells not only of the riches of available material, but of the habit of
+personal preparation, instead of the mechanical. The little Bible
+description of captured "needlework alike on both sides" speaks
+unmistakably of the method of their stitchery, a cross-stitch of colored
+threads, which is even now the only method of stitch "alike on both
+sides."</p>
+
+<p>It is an endless and fascinating story of the leisure of women in all
+ages and circumstances, written in her own handwriting of painstaking
+needlework and an estimate of an art to which gold, silver, and precious
+stones&mdash;the treasures of the world&mdash;were devoted. More than this, its
+intimate association with the growth and well-being of family life makes
+visible the point where savagery is left behind and the decrees of
+civilization begin.</p>
+
+<p>I knew a dear Bible-nourished lonely little maid who had constructed for
+herself a drama of Eve in Eden, playing it for the solitary audience of
+self in a corner of the garden. She had brought all manner of fruits and
+had tied them to the fence palings under the apple boughs. This little
+Eve<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6"> [6]</a></span> gathered grape leaves and sewed them carefully into an apron, the
+needle holes pierced with a thorn and held together by fiber stripped
+from long-stemmed plantain leaves. Here she and her audience of self hid
+under the apple boughs and waited for the call of the Lord.</p>
+
+<p>The long ministry of the needle to the wants of mankind proves it to
+have been among the first of man's inventions. When Eve sewed fig leaves
+she probably improvised some implement for the process, and every
+daughter of Eve, from Eden to the present time, has been indebted to
+that little implement for expression of herself in love and duty and
+art. For this we must thank the man who, the Bible relates, was "the
+father of all such as worked in metals, and made needles and gave them
+to his household." He is the first "handy man" mentioned in
+history&mdash;blest be his memory!</p>
+
+<p>If the day should ever come, not, let us hope, in our time or that of
+our children, when the manufacturer shall find that it no longer pays to
+make needles, what value will attach to individual specimens! If they
+were only to be found in occasional bric-&agrave;-brac shops or in the
+collections of some far-seeing hoarder of rarities, it would be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7"> [7]</a></span>
+difficult to overrate the interest which might attach to them. How, from
+the prodigal disregard of ages and the mysteries of the past, would
+emerge, one after another, recovered specimens, to be examined and
+judged and classified and arranged!</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps collections of them will be found in future museums under
+different headings, such as:</p>
+
+<p>"Needles of Consolation," under which might come those which Mary Stuart
+and her maids wrought their dismal hours into pathetic bits of
+embroidery during the long days of captivity, or the daughter of the
+sorrowful Marie Antoinette mended the dilapidations of the pitiful and
+ragged Dauphin; or:</p>
+
+<p>"Needles of Devotion," wielded by canonized and uncanonized saints in
+and out of nunneries; or:</p>
+
+<p>"Needles of History," like those with which Matilda stitched the prowess
+of William the Conqueror into breadths of woven flax.</p>
+
+<p>Possibly there may arise needle experts who, upon microscopic
+examination and scientific test, will refer all specimens to positive
+date and peculiar function, and by so doing let in floods of light upon
+ancient customs and habits. It is idle<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"> [8]</a></span> to speculate upon a condition
+which does not yet exist, for, happily, needles for actual hand sewing
+are yet in sufficient demand to allow us to indulge in their purchase
+quite ungrudgingly.</p>
+
+<p>I was once shown a needle&mdash;it was in Constantinople&mdash;which the
+dark-skinned owner declared had been treasured for three hundred years
+in his family, and he affirmed it so positively and circumstantially
+that I accepted the statement as truth. In fact, what did it matter? It
+was an interesting lie or an interesting truth, whichever one might
+consider it, and the needle looked quite capable of sustaining another
+century or so of family use. Its eye was a polished triangular hole made
+to carry strips of beaten metal, exactly such as we read of in the Bible
+as beaten and cut into strips for embroidery upon linen, such
+embroidery, in fact, as has often been burned in order to sift the pure
+gold from its ashes.</p>
+
+<p>Not only the history, but the poetry and song of all periods are starred
+with real and ideal embroideries&mdash;noble and beautiful ladies, whose
+chief occupations seem to have been the medicining of wounds received in
+their honor or defense, or the broidering of scarfs and sleeves with
+which to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9"> [9]</a></span> bind the helmets of their knights as they went forth to
+tourney or to battle. In these old chronicles the knights fought or made
+music with harp or voice, and the women ministered or made embroidery,
+and so pictured lives which were lived in the days of knights and ladies
+drifted on. The sword and the needle expressed the duties, the spirit,
+and the essence of their several lives. The men were militant, the women
+domestic, and wherever in castle or house or nunnery the lives of women
+were made safe by the use of the sword the needle was devoting itself to
+comforts of clothing for the poor and dependent, or luxuries of
+adornment for the rich and powerful. So the needle lived on through all
+the civilizations of the old world, in the various forms which they
+developed, until it was finally inherited by pilgrims to a new world,
+and was brought with them to the wilderness of America.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I_BEGINNINGS_IN_THE_NEW_WORLD" id="CHAPTER_I_BEGINNINGS_IN_THE_NEW_WORLD"></a>CHAPTER I <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> BEGINNINGS IN THE NEW WORLD<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10"> [10]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The history of embroidery in America would naturally begin with the
+advent of the Pilgrim Mothers, if one ignored the work of native
+Indians. This, however, would be unfair to a primitive art, which
+accomplished, with perfect appropriateness to use and remarkable
+adaptation of circumstance and material, the ornamentation of personal
+apparel.</p>
+
+<p>The porcupine quill embroidery of American Indian women is unique among
+the productions of primitive peoples, and some of the dresses, deerskin
+shirts, and moccasins with borders and flying designs in black, red,
+blue, and shining white quills, and edged with fringes hung with the
+teeth and claws of game, or with beautiful small shells, are as truly
+objects of art as are many things of the same decorative intent produced
+under the best conditions of civilization.</p>
+
+<p>To create beauty with the very limited resources of skins, hair, teeth,
+and quills of animals, colored with the expressed juice of plants, was a
+problem very successfully solved by these dwellers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11"> [11]</a></span> in the wilderness,
+and the results were practically and &aelig;sthetically valuable.</p>
+
+<p>In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D.&nbsp;C., there has happily
+been preserved a most interesting collection of these early efforts. The
+small deerskin shirts worn as outer garments by the little Sioux were
+perhaps among the most interesting and elaborate. They are generally
+embroidered with dyed moose hair and split quills of birds in their
+natural colors, large split quills or flattened smaller quills used
+whole. The work has an embossed effect which is very striking. A coat
+for an adult of Sioux workmanship, made of calfskin thicker and less
+pliant than the deerskin ordinarily used for garments, carries a broad
+band of quill embroidery, broken by whorls of the same, the center of
+each holding a highly decorated tassel made of narrow strips of
+deerskin, bound at intervals with split porcupine quills. These
+ornamental tassels carry the idea of decoration below the bands, and
+have a changeable and living effect which is admirable. In a smaller
+shirt, the whole body is covered at irregular intervals with whorls of
+the finest porcupine quill work, edged by a border of interlaced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12"> [12]</a></span> black
+and white quills, finished with perforated shells. Many of the designs
+are edged with narrow zigzag borders of the split quills in natural
+colors carefully matched and lapped in very exact fashion. There is one
+small shirt, made with a decorative border of tanned ermine skins in
+alternate squares of fur and beautifully colored quill embroidery, not
+one tint of which is out of harmony with the soft yellow of the deerskin
+body. The edge of the shirt is finished in very civilized fashion, with
+ermine tails, each pendant, banded with blue quills, at alternating
+heights, making a shining zigzag of blue along the fringe. The
+simplicity of treatment and purity of color in this little garment were
+fascinating, and must have invested the small savage who wore it with
+the dignity of a prince.</p>
+
+<p>The mother who evolved the scheme and manner of decoration carried her
+bit of genius in an uncivilized squaw body, but had none the less a true
+feeling for beauty, and in this mother task lifted the plane of the art
+of her people to a higher level.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu029-1" name="illu029-1"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 650px;">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb029-1.jpg" width="315" height="363"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full029-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">MOCCASINS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux
+Indians.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear">
+   <a id="illu029-2" name="illu029-2"></a>
+   <a id="illu029-3" name="illu029-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 120px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb029-2.jpg" width="104" height="369"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full029-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 130px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb029-3.jpg" width="119" height="370"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full029-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">PIPE BAGS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux Indians.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The purely decorative ability which lived and flourished before the
+advent of civilization lost its distinctive simplicity of character when
+woven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"> [13]</a></span> cloth of brilliant red flannel and the tempting glamour of
+colored glass beads came into their horizon, although they accepted
+these new materials with avidity. Porcupine quill work seems to have
+been <ins class="correction" title="word missing in original">no</ins> longer practiced, although a few headbands of ceremony are to be
+found among the tribes, and now and then one comes across a veritable
+treasure, an evidence of long and unremitting toil, which has been
+preserved with veneration.</p>
+
+<p>Of course many valuable results of the best early embroideries still
+exist among the Indians themselves.</p>
+
+<p>A very striking feature of both early and late work is the fringing,
+which plays an important part in the decoration of garments. The fringe
+materials were generally of the longest procurable dried moose hair, the
+finely cut strips of deerskin, or, in some instances, the tough stems of
+river and swamp grasses twisted, braided and interwoven in every
+conceivable manner, and varied along the depth of the fringes by small
+perforated shells, teeth of animals, seeds of pine, or other shapely and
+hard substances which gave variety and added weight. Beads of bone and
+shell are not uncommon, or small bits of hammered<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14"> [14]</a></span> metal. In one or two
+instances I have seen long deerskin fringes with stained or painted
+designs, emphasized with seeds or shells at centers of circles, or
+corners of zigzags. This ingenious use of a decorative fringe gave an
+effect of elaborate ornament with comparatively small labor.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the best lesson we have to learn from this bygone phase of
+decorative effort is in the possibilities of genuine art, where scant
+materials of effect are available.</p>
+
+<p>A thoughtful and exact study of early Indian art gives abundant
+indication of the effect of intimacy with the moods and phenomena of
+Nature, incident to the lives of an outdoor people.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the designs which decorate the larger pieces, like shirts and
+blankets, were evidently so inspired. The designs of lengthened and
+unequal zigzags are lightning flashes translated into embroidery; the
+lateral lines of broken direction are water waves moving in masses.
+There are clouds and stars and moons to be found among them, and if we
+could interpret them we might even find records of the sensations with
+which they were regarded.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu033-1" name="illu033-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb033-1.jpg" width="306" height="286"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full033-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK<br />
+Made by Sioux Indians.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu033-2" name="illu033-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb033-2.jpg" width="395" height="296"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full033-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK<br />
+Made by Plains Indians.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It would seem to argue a want of inventive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15"> [15]</a></span> faculty, that the
+aboriginal women never conceived the idea of weaving fibers together in
+textiles, but were contented with the skins of animals for warmth of
+body covering. The two alternatives of so close and warm a substance as
+tanned skins, or nakedness, seem to a civilized mind to demand some
+intermediate substance. This, however, was not felt as a want, at least
+not to the extent of inspiring a textile. Perhaps we should never have
+had the unique porcupine quill embroidery except for the close-grained
+skin foundation, which made it possible and permanent. Certainly the
+cleverness with which the idea of weaving has been used in the evolution
+of the Indian blanket shows that only the initial thought was lacking.
+The subsequent use of the arts of spinning and weaving, with the
+retention of the original idea of decoration in design and coloring, has
+made the Indian blanket an article of great commercial value.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, these productions are valuable to their producers, and even
+to other members of the tribes, and were carefully preserved from
+casualties, so that there are still many examples of Indian manufacture,
+such as belts of wampum,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16"> [16]</a></span> and headbands of ceremony, to be found among
+existing tribes.</p>
+
+<p>These early specimens are not only intrinsically valuable, but give many
+a clue to what may be called the spiritual side of the aborigines. They
+had not learned the limits of representation, and as this history deals
+with results of life and not with the impulse toward expression which
+lies at the root of design, we need not attempt more than a suggestion
+of some of the results. The unguided impulses of Indian art, as seen or
+imagined in their work, lies behind the work itself and can be read only
+by its materialization.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II_THE_CREWELWORK_OF_OUR_PURITAN_MOTHERS" id="CHAPTER_II_THE_CREWELWORK_OF_OUR_PURITAN_MOTHERS"></a>CHAPTER II <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> THE CREWELWORK OF OUR PURITAN MOTHERS<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17"> [17]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The crewelwork of New England was the first ornamental stitchery
+practiced in this country by women of European race, and in their hands
+made its first appearance even during the days of privation and nights
+of fear which were their portion in this strange new world to which they
+had come.</p>
+
+<p>The seed of it was brought by that winged creature of destiny, the
+<i>Mayflower</i>, hidden in the folds or decorating the borders of the
+precious household linen which was a part of the gear of the first
+Pilgrims. In its hollow interior there was room for bed dressings and
+table napery, even when the high-posted bedsteads and tables which they
+had adorned were abandoned, or exchanged for peace of mind and liberty
+of action.</p>
+
+<p>It may have declared itself in the very first years of settlement,
+before they had encountered the savage antagonism of the aborigines, and
+while they still had only the privations incident<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18"> [18]</a></span> to pioneer life; or
+it may have been after the long struggle for ascendancy and possession
+was over, and they could settle down in hard-won homes. Upon neighboring
+or contiguous farms there they gradually drew together the threads of
+memory concerning former peaceful occupations, and wove them once more
+into the warp of daily life. They could visit one another, exchanging
+domestic experiences, or reminiscences of spiritual struggles of their
+own or of fellow Pilgrims, and old-time hand occupations would be a
+mutual lullaby and an exorcism of anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>The real beginning of embroidery as a national art was probably at a
+later period, for its previous practice would be but a continuation of
+old-world occupations or diversions of life.</p>
+
+<p>The devoted mothers of the American race, who sailed the seas in those
+far-off days, might have brought some favorite "piece" of embroidery
+among their most intimate belongings, wherewithal to while away the
+hours of weary days upon the limitless breadths of ocean. There would be
+intervals of calm between storms, and periods when even the merest shred
+of a home-practiced art would be doubly and trebly valued,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19"> [19]</a></span> like a
+piece of heavenly raiment to a naked and banished angel.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu039" name="illu039"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad">
+<img src="images/thumb039.jpg" width="388" height="577"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full039.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">CREWEL DESIGN, drawn and colored, which dates back to
+Colonial times.</p>
+<p class="source center clear">In the possession of the Dunham family of Cooperstown.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The most natural effort of the woman standing in the midst of such new
+and strenuous conditions as surrounded the Pilgrim mothers in America,
+would be to reproduce something which had meant peace and tranquillity
+in former days. We can imagine her, searching the closely packed
+iron-bound chests which held most of the worldly goods of the traversing
+pilgrims&mdash;those famous chests, the boards of which had been carefully
+doweled and faithfully put together to resist outward and inward
+pressure&mdash;packed and repacked with constant misgivings and hopeful
+foresight. In those crowded treasure chests it was possible there might
+be found skeins of crewel, and even working patterns which some hopeful
+instinct had prompted her to preserve.</p>
+
+<p>While the Puritan mother was scheming to add embroidery to her
+occupations, she did not forget to train each small maid of the family
+to the use of the needle. Ruth and Peace and Harmony and Mercy made
+their samplers as faithfully as though they were growing up under the
+shade of the apple trees of old England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20"> [20]</a></span> instead of among the blackened
+stumps of newly cut forests.</p>
+
+<p>So the old art survived its transplantation and rooted itself in spite
+of storms of terror, and during and after the test of fire and blood,
+and spread, after the manner of art and knowledge, until it became the
+joy and comfort of a new race, a vehicle of feminine dexterity and an
+expression of the creative instinct with which in a greater or lesser
+degree we are all endowed.</p>
+
+<p>We can easily believe that stores of linen and precious china, as well
+as the small wheels for the spinning of the flax, could not be denied to
+the devoted women who chose to share the hard fortunes of their Pilgrim
+husbands and fathers. It is probable that in one form or another
+possessions of crewel embroidery were transported with them.</p>
+
+<p>I know of no well-authenticated specimen which came in actual substance
+in that elastic vessel, but undoubtedly there were such, while many and
+many existed in the minds and memories of the women of the new colony,
+to come to life and take on actual form, color and substance when the
+days of their privations were numbered. If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21"> [21]</a></span> such actual treasured things
+existed and were preserved through the early days of colonial life,
+every stitch of them would hold within itself traditions of tranquillity
+in a world where homes stood, and fields were tilled in safety, because
+of the vast plains of ocean which lay between them and savage tribes.</p>
+
+<p>In the earliest days of the colonies we could hardly expect more than
+the necessary practice of the needle, but when we come to the second
+period, when neighborhoods became towns, and cabins grew into more or
+less well-equipped farmhouses, Puritan women gladly reverted to the
+accomplishments of pre-American conditions. The familiar crewelwork of
+England was the form of needlework which became popular.</p>
+
+<p>In looking for materials with which to recreate this art, they had not
+at that time far to seek. Wool and flax were farm products, necessities
+of pioneer life, and their manufacture into cloth was a well-understood
+domestic art.</p>
+
+<p>Domestic animals had shared the tremendous experiment of transplantation
+of a fragment of the English race, and had suffered, no doubt, with
+their masters and owners, the struggles with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22"> [22]</a></span> savages and unaccustomed
+circumstances, but they had survived and increased "after their kind."
+Even through the strenuous wars against their very existence by
+uncivilized man, they lived and increased. Cows "calved," and sheep
+"lambed," and wool in abundance was to be had.</p>
+
+<p>The enterprising Puritan woman pulled the long-fibered straggling lock
+of wool, sorted out and rejected from the uniform fleeces, carded it
+with her little hand cards into yard-long finger-sized rolls, and
+twisted it upon her large wheel spindle, producing much such thread as
+an Italian peasant woman spins upon her distaff to-day as she walks upon
+the shore at Bai&aelig;.</p>
+
+<p>If the pioneer was a natural copyist, she doubled and twisted it, to
+make it in the exact fashion of the English crewel; if adventurous and
+independent, she worked it single threaded. This yarn had all the pliant
+qualities necessary for embroidery, and was in fact uncolored crewel.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu045-1" name="illu045-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu045-2" name="illu045-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb045-1.jpg" width="409" height="289"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full045-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption">TESTER embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass., in 1640, by
+Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb045-2.jpg" width="144" height="430"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full045-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">Raised embroidery on black velvet. Nineteenth century
+American.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="clear">So, also, the production of flax thread, when the crop of flax was
+grown, and the long stems had struggled upward to their greatest
+heights, and finished themselves in a cloud of multitudinous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23"> [23]</a></span> blue
+flax flowers, beautiful enough to be grown for beauty alone, they pulled
+and made into slender bundles, and laid under the current of the brook
+which neighbored most pioneer houses, until the thready fibers could be
+washed and scraped from the vegetable outer coat, the perishable parts
+of their composition, and combed into separateness. Then it was ready
+for the small flax wheel of the housewife. Every woman had both wool
+wheel and flax wheel, the latter of all grades of beauty, from those
+made for the use of queens and ladies of high degree&mdash;royal for
+elaboration&mdash;to the modest ashen wheel, derived from a long line of
+industrious and careful foremothers, or copied by the clever Pilgrim
+fathers, from some adventurous wheel which had made the long voyage from
+civilized Holland to uncivilized America.</p>
+
+<p>For color, the simplest and most at hand expedient was a dip in the
+universal indigo tub, which waited in every "back shed" of the Puritan
+homestead. One single dip in its black-looking depths and the skein of
+spun lamb's wool acquired a tint like the blue of the sky. Immersion of
+a day and night gave an indelible stain of a darker<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24"> [24]</a></span> blue, and a week's
+repose at the bottom of the pot made the wool as dark in tint as the
+indigo itself. For variety in her blues, the enterprising housewife used
+the sunburned "taglocks" which were too hopelessly yellow for webs of
+white wool weaving, and gave them a short immersion in the tub, with the
+result of a beautiful blue-green, tinged through and through with a
+sunny luster, and this color was sun-fast and water-fast, capable of
+holding its tint for a century.</p>
+
+<p>We know how knots of living wool grow golden by dragging through dew and
+lying in the sun, and how the ladies of Venice sat upon the roofs of
+their palaces with locks outspread upon the encircling brims of
+crownless hats, in order to capture the true Venetian tint of hair. We
+do not know by what alchemy the sun <i>silvers</i> a web spread out to
+whiten, and yet <i>gilds</i> the human tresses of ladies and yellows the
+"taglocks" of sheep. Chemists may be able to explain, but simple woman,
+unversed in the mysteries of chemistry, cannot. Whatever may have been
+the science of it, this golden hue added to medium and dark blue a triad
+of shades, which proved to be most effective when placed upon pure
+white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"> [25]</a></span> of bleached linen, or the gray-cream of the unbleached web.</p>
+
+<p>The color seekers soon learned that every indelible stain was a dye, and
+if little God-fearing Thomas came home with a stain of ineffaceable
+green or brown on the knees of his diminutive tow breeches, the mother
+carefully investigated the character of it, and if it was unmoved by the
+persuasive influence of "soft soap and sun," she added it to a list
+which meant knowledge. It is to be hoped that this was often considered
+an equivalent for the "trouncing" which was the common penalty of
+accident or inadvertence suffered by the Puritan child. In truth,
+Solomon's unwholesome caution, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," was
+all too strictly observed in those conscience-ridden Puritan days. I had
+a child's lively disapproval of Solomon, since the curse of his
+sarcastic comment came down with the Puritan strain in my own blood, and
+I have a smarting recollection of it.</p>
+
+<p>God-fearing Thomas and his brothers added to their mother's artistic
+equipment not only a list of variously shaded brown from the bark of the
+black walnut tree, and of yellows from the leaves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26"> [26]</a></span> and twigs of the
+sumac and wild cherry, but numberless others. She was an untiring color
+hunter, an experimenter with the juices of plants and flowers and
+berries, and with every unwash-outable stain. She set herself to the
+exciting task of repetition and variation. She tried the velvet shell of
+young butternuts upon threads of her white wool, and found a spring
+green, and if she spread over it a thinnest wash of hemlock bark, they
+were olive, and if she dipped them in mitigated indigo, lo! they were of
+the green of sea hollows. The butternut in all stages of its growth,
+from the smallest and greenest to the rusty black of the ripe ones, and
+the blackest black of the dried shell, was a mine of varied color; and
+the brass kettle of from ten to twenty quarts capacity, which served so
+many purposes in domestic life, could be tranquilly carrying out some of
+her propositions in the corner of the wide chimney while dinner was
+cooking, or in the ashes of the burned-out embers while the household
+slept.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu051-1" name="illu051-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb051-1.jpg" width="389" height="261"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full051-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">QUILTED COVERLET made by Ann Gurnee.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu051-2" name="illu051-2"></a>
+                 <a id="illu051-3" name="illu051-3"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 270px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb051-2.jpg" width="186" height="236"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full051-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET with King George's Crown
+embroidered with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+home at Fort Lee, N.&nbsp;J., where Washington was entertained.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb051-3.jpg" width="202" height="213"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full051-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET, made about 1830 of homespun wool
+with "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter worked in
+the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red, yellow, and dark green.
+From the Westervelt collection.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="clear">It was interesting and skillful work to extract these colors, and the
+emulation of it and the glory of producing a new one was not without
+its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27"> [27]</a></span> excitement. There was a certain "fast pink" which was the secret
+of one ingenious ungenerous Puritan woman, who kept the secret of the
+dye, when rose pink was the unattainable want of feminine New England.
+She died without revealing it, and as in those days there were no
+chemists to boil up her rags and test them for the secret, the "Windham
+pink," so said my grandmother, "made people sorry for her death,
+although she did not deserve it." This little neighborly fling passed
+down two generations before it came to me from the later days of the
+colony.</p>
+
+<p>Yellows of different complexions were discovered in mayweed, goldenrod
+and sumac, and the little-girl Faiths and Hopes and Harmonys came in
+with fingers pink from the handling of pokeberries and purple from
+blackberry stain, tempting the sight with evanescent dyes which would
+not keep their color even when stayed with alum and fortified with salt.
+All this made Mistress Windham's memory the more sad. A good reliable
+rose red was always wanting. Madder could be purchased, for it was
+raised in the Southern colonies, but the madder was a brown red. Finally
+some enterprising merchantman<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28"> [28]</a></span> introduced cochineal, and the vacuum was
+filled. With a judicious addition of logwood, rose red, wine red and
+deep claret were achieved.</p>
+
+<p>The dye of dyes was indigo, for the blue of heaven, or the paler blue of
+snow shadows, to a blue which was black or a black which was blue, was
+within its capacity. And the convenience of it! The indigo tub was
+everywhere an adjunct to all home manufactures. It dyed the yarn for the
+universal knitting, and the wool which was a part of the blue-gray
+homespun for the wear of the men of the household. "One-third of white
+wool, one-third of indigo-dyed wool, and one-third of black sheep's
+wool," was the formula for this universal texture. Perhaps it was not
+too much to say that the gray days of the Pilgrim mother's life were
+enriched by this royal color.</p>
+
+<p>The soft yarns, carefully spun from selected wool, took kindly to the
+natural dyes, and our friend, the Puritan housewife, soon found herself
+in possession of a stock of home-manufactured material, soft and
+flexible in quality, and quite as good in color as that of the lamented
+English crewels. The homespun and woven linens with which her chests
+were stocked were exactly the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29"> [29]</a></span> ground for decorative needlework of the
+kind which she had known in her English childhood, long before questions
+of conscience had come to trouble her, or the boy who had grown up to be
+her husband had been wakened from a comfortable existence by the
+cat-o'-nine-tails of conscience, and sent across the sea to stifle his
+doubts in fighting savagery.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the Puritan mother could stop thinking for a while about the
+training of Thomas and Peace and Harmony, and the rest of the dozen and
+a half of children which were the allotted portion of every Puritan
+wife, while she selected out intervals of her long busy days, as one
+selects out bits of color from bundles of uninteresting patches, and
+devoted them to absolutely superfluous needlework.</p>
+
+<p>What a joy it must have been to ponder whether she should use deep pink
+or celestial blue for the flowers of her pattern, instead of remembering
+how red poor baby Thomas's little cushions of flesh had grown under the
+smart slaps of her corset board when he overcame his sister Faith in a
+fair fight about nothing, and what a relief the making of crewel roses
+must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30"> [30]</a></span> have been from the doubts and cares of a constantly increasing
+family!</p>
+
+<p>She sorted out her colors, three shades of green, three of cochineal
+red, two of madder&mdash;one of them a real salmon color&mdash;numberless shades
+of indigo, yellows and oranges and browns in goodly bunches, ready for
+the long stretches of fair solid white linen split into valances or
+sewed into a counterpane. Truly she was a happy woman, and she would
+show Mistress Schuyler, with her endless "blue-and-white," what she
+could do with <i>her</i> colors! Then she had a misgiving, and reflected for
+a moment on the unregeneracy of the human soul, and that poor Mistress
+Schuyler's quiet airs of superiority really came from her Dutch blood,
+for her mother was an English Puritan who had married a Hollander, and
+her own husband revealed to her in the dead of night, when all hearts
+are opened, his belief that "Brother Schuyler had been moved to emigrate
+much more by greed of profitable trade with the savages than by longings
+for liberty of conscience."</p>
+
+<p>She went back to her "pattern," which she just now remembered had been
+lent her by poor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31"> [31]</a></span> Mistress Schuyler, and was soon absorbed in making
+long lines of pin pricks along the outlines of the pattern, so that she
+could sift powdered charcoal through and catch the shapes of leaves and
+curves on her fair white linen.</p>
+
+<p>Her foot was on the rocker of the cradle all the time, and the last baby
+was asleep in it. The hooded cherry cradle which had rocked the three
+girls and four boys, counting the wee velvet-scalped Jonathan, against
+whose coming the cradle had been polished with rottenstone and whale oil
+until it shone like mahogany.</p>
+
+<p>Should the roses of the pattern be red or pink? and the columbines blue
+or purple? She could make a beautiful purple by steeping the sugar paper
+which wrapped her precious cone of West Indian "loaf sugar," and
+sugar-paper purple was reasonably fast. So ran the thoughts of the dear,
+straight-featured Puritan wife as she sorted her colors and worked her
+pattern.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of her experience of the new life of the colonies, the
+chief end of her embroidery was to help in creating a civilized home, to
+add to what had been built simply for shelter and protection, some of
+the features which lived and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"> [32]</a></span> grew only in the atmosphere of safety and
+content. Hospitality was one of the features of New England life, and
+the first addition to the family shelter was a bedroom, which bore the
+title of the "best bedroom," and a tall four-post bed, which was the
+"best bed." The adornment of this holy altar of friendship was an urgent
+duty.</p>
+
+<p>When I began this allusion to the "best bedroom," I left the housewife
+sorting her tinted crewels for its adornment, and she still sat, happily
+cutting the beautiful homespun linen into lengths for the two bed
+valances, the one to hang from the upper frame which surrounded the top
+of her four-post bedstead, and the other, which hung from the bed frame
+itself, and reached the floor, hiding the dark space beneath the bed.
+The "high-post bedstead" had long groups of smooth flutes in the upward
+course of its posts, and no footboard, a plain-sawed headboard and
+smooth headposts. There must be a long curtain at the head of the bed,
+which would hide both headboard and plain headposts, and this curtain
+she meant should have a wide border of crewelwork at the top and bunches
+of flowers scattered at intervals on its surface.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu059-1" name="illu059-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb059-1.jpg" width="403" height="293"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full059-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">BED SET. Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and
+worked by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. Deerfield,
+Mass.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu059-2" name="illu059-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb059-2.jpg" width="305" height="286"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full059-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">BED COVERS worked in candle wicking.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33"> [33]</a></span>None of Mistress Schuyler's "blue-and-white" for her! It should carry
+every color she could muster, and the upper valance should have the same
+border as the head curtain. The lower valance would not need it, for the
+counterpane would hang well over, and she meant somehow to bend the
+border design into a wreath and work it in the center of the
+counterpane, and double-knot a fringe to go entirely around it, the same
+as that which should edge the upper valance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a luxurious bed dressing when it was finished, and nothing in it
+of material to differentiate it from the embroideries which were being
+done in England at the very time. There were no original features of
+design or arrangement. The close-lapping stitches were set in exactly
+the same fashion, and, considering the absolute necessity of growing and
+manufacturing all the materials, it was a wonderful performance.</p>
+
+<p>It was not alone bed hangings which were subjects of New England
+crewelwork; there were mantel valances, which covered the plain wooden
+mantels and hung at a safe distance above the generous household fires.
+These were wrought with borders of crewelwork, and finished with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34"> [34]</a></span>
+elaborate thread and crewel fringes. They were knotted into
+diamond-shaped openings, above the fringes, three or four rows of them,
+the more the better, for in the general simplicity of furnishing, these
+things were of value. Then there were table covers and stand covers and
+wall pockets of various shapes and designs, and, in short, wherever the
+housewife could legitimately introduce color and ornamentation,
+crewelwork made its appearance.</p>
+
+<p>In the very infancy of the art of embroidery in America, the primitive
+needlewoman was possessed of means and materials which fill the
+embroiderers of our rich later days with envy. Homespun linen is no
+longer to be had, and dyes are no longer the pure, simple, hold-fast
+juices which certain plants draw from the ground; and try as we may to
+emulate or imitate the old embroidered valances which hung from the
+testers of the high-post bedsteads and concealed the dark cavities
+beneath, and the coverlet besprinkled with bunches of impossible flowers
+done in home-concocted shades of color upon heavy snow-white linen, we
+fall far short of the intrinsic merits of those early hangings.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35"> [35]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There are many survivals of these embroideries in New England families,
+who reverence all that pertains to the lives of their founders. Bed
+hangings had less daily wear and friction than pertained to other
+articles of decorative use, and generally maintained a healthy existence
+until they ceased to be things of custom or fashion. When this time came
+they were folded away with other treasures of household stuffs, in the
+reserved linen chest, whence they occasionally emerge to tell tales of
+earlier days and compare themselves with the mixed specimens of
+needlework art which have succeeded them, but cannot be properly called
+their descendants.</p>
+
+<p>The possession of a good piece of old crewelwork, done in this country,
+is as strong a proof of respectable ancestry as a patent of nobility,
+since no one in the busy early colonial days had time for such work save
+those whose abundant leisure was secured by ample means and liberal
+surroundings. The incessant social and intellectual activity demanded by
+modern conditions of life was uncalled for. No woman, be she gentle or
+simple, had stepped from the peaceful obscurity of home into the field
+of the world to war for its prizes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36"> [36]</a></span> or rewards. If the man to whom she
+belonged failed to win bread or renown, the women who were bound in his
+family starved for the one or lived without the luster of the other.</p>
+
+<p>I have shown that even in the early days of flax growing and indigo
+dyeing the New England farmer's wife had come into her heritage, not
+only of materials, but of the implements of manufacture. She had the
+small flax wheel which dwelt in the keeping room, where she could sit
+and spin like a lady of place and condition, and the large woolen wheel
+standing in the mote-laden air of the garret, through which she walked
+up and down as she twisted the yarn.</p>
+
+<p>Later, the colonial dame, if she belonged to the prosperous class&mdash;for
+there were classes, even in the beginning of colonial life&mdash;had her
+beautifully shaped mahogany linen wheel, made by the skillful artificers
+of England or Holland, more beautiful perhaps, but not more capable than
+that of the farm wife, whittled and sandpapered into smoothness by her
+husband or sons, and both were used with the same result.</p>
+
+<p>The pioneer woodworker had a lively appreciation of the new woods of the
+new country, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37"> [37]</a></span> made free use of the abundant wild cherry for the
+furniture called for by the growing prosperity of the settlements, its
+close grain and warm color giving it the preference over other native
+woods, excepting always the curly and bird's-eye maple, which were
+<ins class="correction" title="novelites">novelties</ins> to the imported artisan.</p>
+
+<p>I remember that "curly maple" was a much prized wood in my own
+childhood, and that after carefully searching for the outward marks of
+it among the trees of the farm, I asked about the shape of its leaves
+and the color of its bark, so that I might know it&mdash;for children were
+supposed to know species of trees by sight in my childhood. "Why," said
+my mother, "it looks like any other maple tree on the outside; it is
+only that the wood is curly, just as some children have curly hair."
+Even now, after all these years, a plane of curly maple suggests the
+curly hair of some child beloved of nature.</p>
+
+<p>The beautiful curly, spotted and satiny maple wood was, however, "out of
+fashion" when the roving shipmasters began to bring in logs of Santo
+Domingo mahogany in the holds of their far-wandering barks, and the
+cabinetmakers to cut beautiful shapes of sideboards, and curving legs<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"> [38]</a></span>
+and backs of chairs, as well as the tall carved headposts and the head
+and footboards of luxurious beds from them. It was not only that they
+were a repetition of English luxury, but that they made more of
+themselves in plain white interiors, by reason of insistent color, than
+the blond sisterhood of maples could do. Cherry, which shared in a
+degree its depth of color, held its world for a longer period, but no
+wood could withstand the magnificence of pure mahogany red, with the
+story of its vegetable life written along its planes in lines and waves,
+deepening into darks, and lightening into ocher and gold along its
+surfaces.</p>
+
+<p>If the cabinetry of New England is a digression, it is perhaps excusable
+on the ground of its close connection with the crewel work of New
+England, of which we are treating, and to which we shall have something
+of a sense of novelty in returning, since at least the complexion of our
+colonial embroidery has experienced a change.</p>
+
+<p>So, in spite of the success of the early Puritan woman in producing
+tints necessary to the various needs of colored crewelwork, the
+supremacy of indigo as a dye led to a lasting fashion of embroidery<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39"> [39]</a></span>
+known as "blue-and-white." It was the assertion of absolute and tried
+merit in materials which led to its success. We sometimes see this
+emergence of persistent goodness in instances of some human career,
+where indefatigable integrity outruns the glamour of personal gift. This
+was the fortune of the "blue-and-white," which not only created a style,
+but has achieved persistence and has broken out in revivals all along
+the history of American embroidery. It has been somewhat identified with
+domestic weaving, for the loom has always been a member of the New
+England family, the great home-built loom, standing in the far end of
+the kitchen, capable of divers miracles of creation between dawn and
+sunset.</p>
+
+<p>On this much-to-be-prized background of homespun linen the different
+shades of indigo blue could be, and were, very effectively used, and it
+is worthy of note that it repeated the simple contrasts of the Canton
+china or the "blue Canton" which were the prized gifts brought to their
+families by the returning New England seamen in the profitable "India
+trade," which soon became a commercial fact.</p>
+
+<p>"Blue-and-white" had at first been evolved by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40"> [40]</a></span> tight-bound
+circumstances. Excellent practice in shades of blue had given it a
+certified place in the embroidery art of America, but we do not find it
+in collections of old English embroidery. It is one of the small
+monuments which mark the path of the woman colonist, narrowed by
+circumstances, which created a recognized style. It is not to be
+wondered at that blue-and-white crewelwork made a place for itself in
+the history of embroidery which was a permanent one. The circumstances
+of Puritan life being so simple and direct would induce a corresponding
+simplicity of taste, and simplicity is apt to seize upon first
+principles.</p>
+
+<p>Every colorist knows that strong but peaceful contrast is one of the
+first laws of color arrangement, and the unconscious yoking of white and
+blue placed one of the strongest color notes against unprotesting and
+receptive white. This made a new manner or style of embroidery. Its
+permanence may have been influenced by the art of one of the oldest
+peoples of the world, and as we have said, the prevalence of Canton
+china upon the dressers and filling the mantel closets and serving the
+tables of the rich, was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41"> [41]</a></span> beginning to appear in all houses of growing
+prosperity, even where pewter ware and dishes carved from wood still
+held the place of actual service.</p>
+
+<p>The Puritan housewife could arrange her grades of blue according to the
+Chinese colors of this oldest domestic art of the world, and be
+correspondingly happy in the result. Chinese design, however, had no
+influence in the growing practice of embroidery, and here also an
+instinctive law prevailed. She recognized that even the highly
+artificial landscape art of her idolized plates would not suit the
+flexible and broken surfaces of her equally cherished linen, or the
+surroundings of her life.</p>
+
+<p>It was small wonder that this became a favorite style of embroidery and
+has in it the seeds of permanence. A table setting of snow-white or
+cream-white homespun, scalloped and embroidered in lines of blue
+crewels, shining with the precious Canton blue, was, and would be even
+at this day, a thing to admire.</p>
+
+<p>The first deviation from the habitual crewelwork is to be found in the
+"blue-and-white," for although the same stitch was employed, it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"> [42]</a></span> was
+more often in outline than solid. The designs were sketches instead of
+"patterns" as had formerly been the case. Although this variety of work
+comes under the head of colonial crewelwork, there was in it the
+beginning of the changes and variety effected by differing circumstances
+and influences&mdash;those vital circumstances which leave their traces
+constantly along the history of needlework. It was owing to various
+reasons that outline embroidery largely took the place of solid
+crewelwork.</p>
+
+<p>The question of design must have been a rather difficult one, as there
+were no designs, and almost no sources of design for needlework, and at
+this stage of the art in New England original design seems not to have
+suggested itself. It would certainly have been quite natural to have
+copied pine trees and broken outlines of hills, but as this class of
+embroidery was almost entirely used for hangings and decorative
+furnishings, the Pilgrim mothers seem to have had an instinctive sense
+that such design was incongruous. Consequently they copied English
+models. We find designs of crewelwork of the period in English museums
+identically the same as in the New England<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43"> [43]</a></span> work, thorned roses and
+voluminously doubled pinks, held together in borders of long curved
+lines or scattered at regular intervals in groups and bunches.</p>
+
+<p>My grandmother explained to me in that long-ago period, where her great
+age and my inquisitive youth met and exchanged our several and
+individual surplus of thought and talk, that to a certain extent ladies
+of colonial days copied many of their designs from what were called
+India chintzes. These chintzes seem to have been the intermediate wear
+between homespun of either flax or wool and the creamy satins or the
+thick "paduasoy," the more flexible "lutestring" silks, worn by great
+ladies of the period, and the wrought India muslins for less
+conventional occasions. India chintzes were printed upon white or tinted
+grounds of hand-spun cotton, in colors so generously full of substance
+as to have almost the effect of brocaded stuffs, and adaptations from
+their designs were suitable for embroidery. I remember the
+three-cornered and square bits of India chintz which my grandmother
+showed me in long-preserved "housewives," or "huz-ifs," as she called
+them. They<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44"> [44]</a></span> were lengths of domestic linen on which small squares or
+triangles of chintz were sewn, making a series of small pockets, each
+one stuffed with convenient threads or bits of colored sewing silks, or
+needle and thimble. These were pinned at the belt of the active
+housewife, and hung swaying against her skirts if she rose from her
+sewing, or were conveniently at hand if she sat patching or
+embroidering. I remember that some of my grandmother's "huz-ifs" still
+held threads of different colored crewels wound on bits of cardboard,
+and any embroiderer might envy the convenience of such holders.</p>
+
+<p>I do not see, in fact, why there should not be a revival of "huz-ifs," a
+pleasant new fashion, founded upon the old, holding in harmonious
+variety all the wonders of modern manufacture, as well as making
+mementos of former gowns of one's own and of one's friends. They might
+be studied gradations of color and design, and be enriched by harmonious
+bindings. If my dwindling time holds out, perhaps I shall institute or
+assist at such a renewal of old conveniences, in spite of sharp contrast
+of purposes, adding to home costume a grace of pendent color.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45"> [45]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I was talking of design, when "huz-ifs" intruded, and was saying that at
+the period when "blue-and-white" took on the "outline practice" design
+was a difficult question; indeed, it is always a difficult question for
+embroiderers. It is so important a part or quality of the art of
+embroidery. In fact, it is the business of the successful embroiderer to
+know as much about design as she must about stitchery and color.</p>
+
+<p>After the advent of "blue-and-white," embroidery took on many different
+features. Curiously enough, when it was confined to decorative uses, its
+character immediately changed. Crewelwork of the period was not given to
+hangings and furniture, but to clothing. An embroidered apron became of
+much more importance than a bed valance or counterpane. The young girl
+began by embroidering her school aprons with borders of forget-me-nots
+and mullein pinks, in colored crewels.</p>
+
+<p>I remember seeing among my grandmother's savings an apron of gray
+unbleached linen, quite dark in color, with a border of single pinks
+entirely around it. The design had evidently been drawn from the flower
+itself, and the whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"> [46]</a></span> performance was essentially different from that
+of a slightly earlier period. The materials of homespun linen and
+home-dyed crewels were the same. The thing which was different and
+showed either a cropping-out of original thought or a bias toward the
+style of embroidery lately introduced by the famous school of Bethlehem,
+Pennsylvania, was an over-and-over stitch instead of the old crewel
+method. This over-and-over stitch was apparent in all crewel embroidery
+devoted to personal wear, but was never found in articles used for house
+or decorative purposes. It was certainly a proper distinction, as the
+<i>flat</i> of crewel was not capable of shadow and was more inherently a
+part of the textile, as much so, indeed, as a stamped or woven
+decoration would have been.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long before the over-and-over stitch demanded silks and
+flosses instead of crewels for its exercise, and silk or satin for the
+background of its exploits. There were satin bags covered with the most
+delicate stitchery, and black silk aprons with wreaths of myrtle done
+with silks or flosses, and, finally, satin pelerines exquisitely
+embroidered in designs of carefully shaded roses.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47"> [47]</a></span> Although nothing
+remarkable or epoch-making happened in the art of embroidery, it
+retained an even more than respectable existence. The skill, taste, and
+love for the creation of beauty, which were the heritage of the race,
+were kept alive.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III_SAMPLERS_AND_A_WORD_ABOUT_QUILTS" id="CHAPTER_III_SAMPLERS_AND_A_WORD_ABOUT_QUILTS"></a>CHAPTER III <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> SAMPLERS AND A WORD ABOUT QUILTS<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48"> [48]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>A chapter upon Samplers, by right, should precede the discussion of
+colonial embroidery, although the practice of mothers in crewelwork was
+simultaneous with it. They were carried on at the same time, but the
+embroidery was work for grown-up people, while samplers were baby
+work&mdash;a beginning as necessary as being taught to walk or talk, to the
+future of the child. Fortunately, the very infant interest in samplers
+has tended to their preservation, and when the child grew to womanhood
+the sampler became invested with a mingling of family interests and
+affections, and she, the executant, came to look upon it with
+motherliness. The loving pride of the mother in the child's
+accomplishment also tended to the care and preservation of the first
+work of the small hands.</p>
+
+<p>As late as the twenties of the eighteenth century, infant schools still
+existed and samplers were wrought by infant fingers. Eighty-five years
+ago, I myself was in one of a row of little chairs in the infant school,
+with a small spread of canvas<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49"> [49]</a></span> lying over my lap and being sewn to my
+skirt by misdirected efforts. My box held a tiny thimble and spools of
+green and red sewing silk, and I tucked it under alternate knees for
+safety.</p>
+
+<p><i>Sarah Woodruff!</i>&mdash;I wonder where she is now?&mdash;sat next to me in my
+sampler days, and her canvas was white, while mine was yellow. Her
+border was worked with blue, and mine with green. With a child's
+inscrutable and wonderful awareness of underlying facts, I knew that
+Sarah Woodruff's father was richer than mine, and that the white canvas
+and blue border, which the teacher said "went with it," was an
+indication of it. I have it now, the little faded yellow parallelogram
+of canvas, on which the germ of the very fingers with which I am now
+writing wrought with painstaking care&mdash;"Executed by Candace Thurber, her
+age six years." They have since had various fortunes and experiences,
+these fingers, and have wrought to the satisfaction, I hope, of their
+foregone line of Puritan ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>The sampler has special claims upon the world, because it is probable
+that all forms of textile design originated with it. In fact, design for
+needlework began with small squares formed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50"> [50]</a></span> by crossing stitches at the
+junction of textile fiber.</p>
+
+<p>In sequences these squares formed lines, blocks, and corner, and in
+double-line juxtaposition made the form of border probably the oldest
+ornamental decoration in the world, generally known as a Roman border.
+This decoration escaped from textiles into stone and building materials,
+and in fact appeared in the elaboration of all materials, from the
+fronts of temples to the ornamentation of a crown. The most ancient
+examples of design are founded upon a square, and this points inevitably
+to the stitch covering the crossing of threads, the cross-stitch, which
+preceded all others and remained the only decorative stitch until
+weaving sprang into so fine an art that interstices between threads are
+unnoticeable. Then, and not until then, the long over-stitch, the <i>opus
+plumarium</i>, which we call "Kensington," was invented, and served to make
+English embroidery famous in early English history. This was the stitch
+used by the Pilgrim mothers in their crewel embroidery, as we use it
+to-day in most of our decorative presentations.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu079" name="illu079"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb079.jpg" width="282" height="259"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full079.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the
+possession of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>In spite of the achievements of the <i>opus plumarium</i>,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51"> [51]</a></span> we are indebted
+to simple cross-stitch, to the obligations of the mathematical square of
+hand weavings, for all the wonderful borderings which have been evolved
+by ages of the use of the needle, since decoration began. We do not stop
+to think of the artistic intelligence or gift which made mathematical
+spaces express beautiful form, any more than we stop in our reading to
+think of the sensitive intelligence which drew a letter and made it the
+expression of sound, and yet most of us use the result of some
+exceptional intelligence and feel the exaltation of what we call
+culture.</p>
+
+<p>The stitch itself is entitled to the greatest respect, as the very first
+form of decoration with the needle&mdash;an art growing out of and controlled
+by the earlier art of weaving. Decorative bands of cross-stitch come to
+us on shreds of linen found in the sepulchers of Egypt and the burial
+grounds of the prehistoric races of South America. I have seen, in a
+collection of textiles found in their ancient burial places, the most
+elaborate and beautiful of cross-stitch borders, wrought into the
+fabrics which enriched Pizarro's shiploads of loot sent from Vicuna,
+Peru, to the court of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52"> [52]</a></span> Spain at the time of the wonderful and barbarous
+"Conquest." All of the old "Roman" borders are found in this collection,
+the best designs the world has produced, those which architects of the
+period used upon the fronts and in the interiors of their first
+creations. And here arises the ever recurring question of
+thought-sharing between the most widely removed of the earlier human
+races. How did early Peruvians and far-off Latins think in the same
+forms, and how did they come to select certain ones as the best, and
+cleave to them as a common inheritance? But leaving the puzzle of design
+and returning to the cross-stitch, which was its first interpretation or
+medium, and to the little Puritans who shared its acquaintance and
+practice with the women of all ages, we may see how the New England
+sampler opened the door of inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>As Eve sewed her garments of leaves in the Garden of Eden, so each one
+of these little Puritan Eves, so far removed in the long history of the
+race from the first one, was heir to her ingenuities as well as her
+failings, from her patching together of small and inadequate things, to
+her creative function in the kingdom of the world, as well as to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"> [53]</a></span> her
+attempts to sweeten life, and to her failures and successes.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu083-1" name="illu083-1"></a></p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb083-1.jpg" width="294" height="336"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full083-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption clear">SAMPLER embroidered in colors on &eacute;cru linen, by
+Mary Ann Marley, aged twelve, August 30, 1820. <i>From Providence, R.&nbsp;I.</i><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+<p><a id="illu083-2" name="illu083-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb083-2.jpg" width="327" height="339"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full083-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption clear">SAMPLER embroidered in brown on &eacute;cru linen, by Martha Carter
+Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished at her death.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The learning to do an A or a B in cross-stitch was the beginning of
+household doing, which is the business of woman's life. The decorative
+and the useful were evenly balanced in sampler making. All this skill in
+lettering could be applied to the stores of household linen in the way
+of marking, for cross-stitch letters, done in colored threads, were a
+part of the finish of sheets and pillowcases and fine toweling which
+made so important a part of the riches of the household, and it led by
+easy grades of familiarity to more comprehensive methods of decoration.
+In truth, the letters first practiced in cross-stitch opened the door to
+all future elaborations, and were the vehicle of moral instruction as
+well; for little Puritans took their first doses of Bible history in
+carefully embroidered text, and their notions of pictorial art from
+cross-stitch illustrations. One finds upon some of the early examples
+pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the ever present
+author of sin, climbing the stem of the tree of life, or Jacob's dream
+of angels ascending and descending a ladder,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54"> [54]</a></span> intersecting clouds of
+blue and smoke-colored stitches.</p>
+
+<p>These pictorial samplers are certainly interesting, but those which
+confine themselves to simple cross-stitch with borders, and the name of
+the little child who wrought them, touch a note of domestic life which
+is more than interesting.</p>
+
+<p>The sampler was purely English in its derivation and followed the
+English with great fidelity, although redolent of Puritan life and
+thought. Sometimes, indeed, it carried cross-stitch to the very limit of
+its capability in an attempt to render Bible scenes pictorially, but for
+the most part it was confined to the practice of various styles of
+lettering consolidated into text or verse.</p>
+
+<p>The material upon which they were worked was generally of canvas, either
+white or yellow, and this was of English manufacture. As all
+manufactures were things of price, later samplers were often worked upon
+coarse homespun linens, which, barring the variations in the size of the
+threads inevitable in hand-spinning, made a fairly good material for
+cross-stitch.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu087-1" name="illu087-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu087-2" name="illu087-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 250px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb087-1.jpg" width="196" height="222"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full087-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 220px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb087-2.jpg" width="197" height="194"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full087-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="caption clear"><i>Left</i>&mdash;SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late
+eighteenth century American.<br />
+<i>Right</i>&mdash;MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to the
+memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu087-3" name="illu087-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<img src="images/thumb087-3.jpg" width="290" height="338"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full087-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption"> SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806, by Sarah
+Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L.&nbsp;I.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sampler making was a home rather than a school taught industry, going
+down from mother<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55"> [55]</a></span> to daughter along with darning and other processes
+of the needle, and having no relation, except that of its dexterity, to
+the distinct style of decorative embroidery called crewelwork, which
+accompanied it, or even preceded it.</p>
+
+<p>The collecting of samplers has become rather a fad in these days, and as
+they are almost exclusively of New England origin, it gives an
+opportunity of acquaintance with the little Puritan girl which is not
+without its charm. As most of their samplers were signed with their
+names, the acquaintance becomes quite intimate, and one feels that these
+little Puritans were good as well as diligent. Here is Harmony
+Twitchell's name upon a blue and white sampler. What child whose name
+was Harmony could quarrel with other children, or how could this other,
+whose long-suffering name was Patience, be resentful of the roughnesses
+of small male Puritans? Hate-evil and Wait-still and Hope-still and
+Thanks and Unity must have sat together like little doves and made
+crooked A's and B's and C's and picked out the frayed sewing-silk
+threads under the reproofs of the teacher of the Infant School, Miss
+Mather <ins class="correction" title="of">or</ins> Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker, whose father was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56"> [56]</a></span> a
+clergyman, or even Miss Bradford, whose uncle was the Governor?</p>
+
+<p>All this is in the story of the sampler, and so the teaching and
+practice of the canvas went constantly forward. The method was so
+simple, quite within the capacity of an alphabet-studying child. To make
+an A in cross-stitch was to create a link between the baby mind and the
+letter represented. There was no choice, no judgment or experience
+needed. The limit of every stitch was fixed by a cross thread, one
+little open space to send the needle down and another through which to
+bring it back, and the next one and the next, then to cross the threads
+and the thing was done. Yes, the little slips could make a sampler,
+every one of them, and when it was made, sometimes it was put in a frame
+with a glass over it, and Patience's mother would show it to visitors,
+and Patience would taste the sweets of superiority, than which there is
+nothing to the childish heart, nor even to mature humanity, so sweet.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu091-1" name="illu091-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu091-2" name="illu091-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 230px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb091-1.jpg" width="197" height="207"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full091-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy Mrs. E.&nbsp;M. Sanford, Madison, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 230px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb091-2.jpg" width="200" height="188"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full091-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Mrs. E.&nbsp;M. Sanford, Madison, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="caption clear"><i>Left</i>&mdash;SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N.&nbsp;Y., in
+1810.<br />
+<i>Right</i>&mdash;SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N.&nbsp;Y., in 1793.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu091-3" name="illu091-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb091-3.jpg" width="403" height="356"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full091-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York</p>
+<p class="caption"> PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John
+Quincy Adams, and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>There were Infant Schools in my own days, little congregations of
+children not far removed from babyhood, who were taught the alphabet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57"> [57]</a></span>
+from huge cards, and repeated it simultaneously from the great
+blackboard which was mounted in the center of the room. In the schools,
+as well as at home, every little girl-baby was taught to sew, to
+overhand minutely upon small blocks of calico, the edges turned over and
+basted together. When a perfect capacity for overhand sewing was
+established, the next short step was to the sampler, and the tiny
+fingers were guided along the intricacies of canvas crossings. The dear
+little rose-tipped fingers! the small hands! velvet soft and satin
+smooth, diverse even in their littlenesses! They were taught even then
+to be dexterous with woman's special tool, the very same in purpose and
+intent with which queens and dames and ladies had played long before.</p>
+
+<p>The sampler world was a real world in those days, full of youth and as
+living as the youth of the world must always be, but now it is dead as
+the mummies, and the carefully preserved remains are only the shell
+which once held human rivalries and passions.</p>
+
+
+<h3>Quilts</h3>
+
+<p>The domestic needlework of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
+centuries, should not<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58"> [58]</a></span> be overlooked in a history of embroidery, it
+being often so ambitiously decorative and the stitchery so remarkable.
+The patchwork quilt was an instance of much of this effort. It was
+unfortunate that an economic law governed this species of work, which
+prevented its possible development. The New England conscience, sworn to
+utility in every form, had ruled that no material should be <i>bought</i> for
+this purpose. It could only take advantage of what happened, and it
+seldom happened that cottons of two or three harmonious colors came
+together in sufficient quantity to complete the five-by-five or
+six-by-six which went to the making of a patchwork quilt. Nevertheless
+one sometimes comes across a "rising sun" or a "setting sun" bedquilt
+which is remarkable for skillful shading, and was an inspiration in the
+house where it was born, and where the needlework comes quite within the
+pale of ornamental stitchery.</p>
+
+<p>This variety of domestic needlework, and one or two others which are
+akin to it, survived in the northern and middle states in the form of
+quilting until at least the middle of the nineteenth century, while in
+the southern states, especially in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59"> [59]</a></span> the mountains of Kentucky and North
+Carolina, it still survives in its original painstaking excellence.</p>
+
+<p>Among the earlier examples of these quilts one occasionally finds one
+which is really worthy of the careful preservation which it receives. I
+remember one which impressed itself upon my memory because of the
+humanity interwoven with it, as well as the skill of its making. It was
+a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate
+block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in
+alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully
+applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut
+away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt
+was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of
+correct construction. The quilting was a marvel&mdash;a large carefully drawn
+design, evidently inspired by branching rose vines without flowers, only
+the leafage and stems being used, and all these bending forms filled in
+with a diamonded background of exquisite quilting. The palely colored
+center was distinguished only by its needlework, leaving the rose border
+to emphasize and frame it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"> [60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>There was a bit of personal history attached to this quilt in the shape
+of a small tag, which said:</p>
+
+<p>"This quilt made by Delia Piper, for occupation after the death of an
+only son. Bolivar, Southern Missouri, 1845."</p>
+
+<p>The same kind friend who had introduced me to this quilt, finding me
+appreciative of woman's efforts in fine stitchery, took me to call upon
+other pieces which were equally worthy of admiration. One was a white
+quilt of what was called "stuffed work," made by working two surfaces of
+cloth together, the upper one of fine cambric, the lower one of coarse
+homespun. Upon the upper one a large ornamental basket was drawn, filled
+with flowers of many kinds, the drawing outlines being followed by a
+back stitchery as regular and fine as if done by machine, looking, in
+fact, like a string of beaded stitches, and yet it was accomplished by a
+needle in the hand of a skillful but unprofessional sewer. The picture,
+for it was no less, was completed by the stuffing of each leaf and
+flower and stem with flakes of cotton pushed through the homespun
+lining. The weaving of the basket was a marvel of bands of buttonholed
+material, which stood out in appropriate thickness.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61"> [61]</a></span> The centers of
+the flowers had simulated stamens done in knotted work.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu097-1" name="illu097-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu097-2" name="illu097-2"></a>
+   <a id="illu097-3" name="illu097-3"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 420px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 190px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb097-1.jpg" width="160" height="360"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full097-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 180px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb097-2.jpg" width="141" height="361"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full097-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<p class="source center clear">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption"><i>Left</i>&mdash;SAMPLER in drawnwork, &eacute;cru linen thread, made by
+Anne Gower, wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628.<br />
+<i>Right</i>&mdash;SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on &eacute;cru canvas by Mary
+Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant, married July 1675,
+accused of witchcraft in 1692, but escaped to New York. <i>From the Curwen
+estate.</i></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 420px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb097-3.jpg" width="298" height="358"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full097-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+<p class="caption">SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born February 19,
+1780, in Bristol.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="clear">I think this stuffed work was rather rare, for I have only seen two
+specimens, and as it required unusual and exhaustive skill in
+needlework, the production was naturally limited. The practice was one
+of the exotic efforts of some one of large leisure and lively ambitions
+who belonged to the class of prosperous citizens.</p>
+
+<p>"Patchwork," as it was appropriately called, was more often a farmhouse
+industry, which accounts for its narrow limits, since, with choice of
+material, even a small familiarity with geometrical design might bring
+good results. It might have easily become good domestic art. Geometrical
+borders in two colors would have taken their place in decorative work,
+and the applied work, so often ventured upon, was the beginning of one
+very capable method. The skillful needlework, the elaborate quilting,
+the stitchery and stuffing are worthy of respect, for the foundation of
+it all was great dexterity in the use of the needle.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV_MORAVIAN_WORK_PORTRAITURE_FRENCH_EMBROIDERY_AND" id="CHAPTER_IV_MORAVIAN_WORK_PORTRAITURE_FRENCH_EMBROIDERY_AND"></a><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62"> [62]</a></span>CHAPTER IV <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> MORAVIAN WORK, PORTRAITURE, FRENCH EMBROIDERY, AND
+LACEWORK</h2>
+
+
+<p>While the ladies and house mistresses of New England were busy with
+their crewelwork, the children with their little samplers, and farm
+housemothers sewed patchwork in the intervals of spinning and weaving,
+an entirely different development of needlework art had taken place,
+beginning in Pennsylvania. Embroidery in America did not grow
+exclusively from seed brought over in the Mayflower. It sprang from many
+sources, but its finest qualities came from the influence of what was
+called "Bethlehem Embroidery."</p>
+
+<p>The advent of this style of needlework was interesting. It originated in
+a religious community founded in 1722 at Herrnhut, Germany, by Count
+Zinzendorf. It was a strictly religious, semimonastic group of single
+men and single women, whose hearts were filled with zeal for mission
+work. At that period, I suppose America seemed a possible and promising
+field for such efforts, and accordingly forty-five of the brothers and
+as many of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63"> [63]</a></span> the sisters turned their faces toward this new world. One
+can fancy that when the thought first entered their minds, of coming to
+a land peopled by savage Indians, with but a bare sprinkling of "the
+Lord's people," they trembled even in their dreams at the thought of the
+cruel incidents they might encounter in that wilderness toward which
+they were impelled by apostolic zeal, and the unquiet sea upon which
+they were about to embark foreshadowed an unknown future. But there was
+small danger for them upon the sea; surely they could not sink in
+troubled waters, these etherial souls! The heavenly quality of them
+would upbear the vessel and cargo. They would come safe to land, no
+matter how tempestuous the elements!</p>
+
+<p>I suppose, at all periods of the world, prophet and martyr stuff might
+be sifted out from the man-stuff of the times if the race had need of
+them. In normal states of growth, we call them "cranks" and look for no
+results from their existence. But the elusive spirit of love never dies.
+It appears and reappears in the history of all races and times, and
+leaves its mark upon them in various shapes of beneficence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64"> [64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These missionary brothers and sisters had chosen as the theater of their
+labor that part of our broad land which was pleasantly christened
+Pennsylvania, and selecting a portion of the southern area, they founded
+their colony and called it "Ephrata."</p>
+
+<p>It existed for forty years, constantly increasing its membership, and
+living a life reaching out toward a perfection of goodness which seemed
+quite possible to their apostolic souls.</p>
+
+<p>Time, however, brought changes of circumstance and of mind, and after
+many philanthropic phases, in 1749 the mingled elements and aspirations
+of the enlarged congregation were merged into two boarding schools, one
+for boys, which was the germ of Lehigh University, and another for girls
+at Bethlehem, which, under the careful fostering of the sisters, became
+the birthplace of the famous Moravian needlework. So were melted into
+the modern form of scholastic instruction the various efforts of
+religious activity, the eternal reaching out for conditions in human
+life in which it is easy and natural to be good and happy. It had not
+been accomplished in this semimonastic life, but the efforts toward it
+had their influence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65"> [65]</a></span> and, you may judge by the quality of its
+founders, had never died.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu103-1" name="illu103-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 380px;">
+<img src="images/thumb103-1.jpg" width="353" height="291"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full103-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">NEEDLEBOOK of Moravian embroidery, made about 1850. <i>Now
+in the possession of Mrs. J.&nbsp;U. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa.</i></p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu103-2" name="illu103-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
+<img src="images/thumb103-2.jpg" width="411" height="272"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full103-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Claire Reynolds Tubbs, Gladstone, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY worked by Emily E. Reynolds,
+Plymouth, Pa., in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian
+Seminary in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The two schools very early in their history seem to have established a
+reputation for learning and culture which made them a desirable
+influence in the formative lives of the children of the most thoughtful,
+as well as the most prominent and prosperous, American families. Indeed,
+the school for girls became so popular as to lead to an extension and
+founding of several branches in other of the southern states. The art
+and practice of fine needlework became a popular and necessary feature
+of them, distinguishing them from all other schools. "Tambour and fine
+needlework" were among the extras of the school, and charged for, as we
+learn from school records, at the rate of "seventeen shillings and
+sixpence, Pennsylvania currency."</p>
+
+<p>It was not alone tambour and fine needlework, as we shall see later,
+that was taught by the Moravian Sisters, but the ribbon work, cr&ecirc;pe
+work, and flower embroidery, and picture production upon satin. These
+pictures, however important as performances, were not the most common
+form of needlework taught by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66"> [66]</a></span> Sisters. Flower embroidery was the
+usual form of practice, and it was of a quality which made each one a
+wonder of execution and skill. The materials were satin of a superb
+quality for the background, or Eastern silk of softness and strength,
+and the silks used in the stitchery were generally "slack twisted" silk
+threads of very pure quality, and in certain cases, where they would not
+be likely to fray, lustrous flosses of Eastern make. The stitch used in
+these flower pieces was an over-and-over stitch, or what was called
+satin-stitch, which was without the lap of Kensington stitch. There was
+in every piece of embroidery done under the instruction of the
+accomplished and devoted Sisters certain virtues, certain effects of
+conscientious and patient work, mingled with the love of good and
+beautiful art, which were plainly visible. It had in all its flower
+pieces, and they were many, the quality of beautiful charm. The ministry
+of nature may have had something to do with this, since the lives of the
+executants were open to its influences.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu107" name="illu107"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 480px;">
+<img src="images/thumb107.jpg" width="440" height="362"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full107.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY from Louisville, Ky.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One can make a mental picture of those early days beside the peaceful
+"Lehi," where the Sisters taught and nurtured the young girls of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"> [67]</a></span> very
+young America, and trained them in such beautiful and womanly
+accomplishments. The scattered bits of needlework which remain to us are
+so fine, so clear, so thoroughly exhaustive of all excellence in
+technique, that they are to the art of embroidery what the ivory
+miniature is to painting. We cannot but hail the memory of the Sisters
+of Bethlehem with respect and admiration.</p>
+
+<p>I became familiar with the work of this community when I was arranging
+an historic exhibition of American Embroidery for the Bartholdi Fair in
+1883. Few people may remember that, among the means for the installation
+of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty which welcomes the world at the
+entrance to the harbor of New York, was an effort called the Bartholdi
+Fair, held in the then almost new and very popular Academy of Design at
+the northwestern corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street.
+Knowing the value of Bethlehem work, I made an effort to secure a
+representative collection, with the result of gathering a most
+interesting group of specimens, mainly by the interest and help of Mr.
+Henry Baldwin of Lehigh University, to whom I was referred for
+assistance in my purpose. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68"> [68]</a></span> before me now the correspondence which
+ensued, a most painstaking, kind and patient one on his part, giving me
+much interesting history of the Bethlehem mission, as well as its life
+and progress. Among the legends is one&mdash;that during our Revolutionary
+war, Pulaski recruited some of his Legion at Bethlehem, and ordered a
+banner, which was carried by his troops until he fell in the attack upon
+Savannah. This banner is now in the rooms of the Maryland Historical
+Society, and I find the question of its having been an order from Count
+Pulaski, or a gift to the Legion, is one of very lively interest in the
+community.</p>
+
+<p>This exhibit of 1883 was as complete an historical collection of
+American needlework as was possible, and I have a list of ten articles
+loaned from collections in Bethlehem, which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<ol>
+<li>Embroidered pocketbook of black silk with flowers in bright colors.
+Former property of Bishop Bigler.</li>
+
+<li>Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers, date 1800.</li>
+
+<li>Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers and vines,
+dated 1786.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69"> [69]</a></span></li>
+
+<li>Sampler, dated 1740.</li>
+
+<li>Yellow velvet bag embroidered with ribbon work.</li>
+
+<li>Black velvet bag embroidered in cr&ecirc;pe work with flowers.</li>
+
+<li>White satin workbag embroidered in fine tracery of vines.</li>
+
+<li>A box with embroidered pincushion on top.</li>
+
+<li>A blue silk pocketbook with very fine ribbon work.</li>
+
+<li>A paper box done with needle in filigree.</li>
+</ol>
+
+<p>It will be seen by this list how varied were the forms of needlework
+taught at Bethlehem. The cr&ecirc;pe work mentioned in No. 6 is, probably
+owing to the perishable character of its material, very rare, but was
+extremely beautiful in effect. Bits of colored cr&ecirc;pe were gathered into
+flower petals and sewed upon satin, roses laid leaf upon leaf and built
+up to a charming perfection, while the stems and foliage were partially
+or wholly embroidered in silk.</p>
+
+<p>The ribbon embroidery of No. 5, has been revived by the New York Society
+of Decorative Art and practiced with great success. The flower
+embroideries, in the specimens exhibited,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70"> [70]</a></span> were of two sorts&mdash;the small
+groups being done with fine twisted silks in a simple "over and over"
+stitch, called at that time "satin stitch," alike on both sides, except
+that on the right side the flowers and leaves were raised from the
+surface by an under thread of cotton floss called "stuffing." This did
+not prevent, as it might easily have done, an unvarying regularity and
+smoothness, which was like satin itself, thread laid beside thread as if
+it were woven instead of sewed.</p>
+
+<p>In the larger flowers, the sewing silk had been split into flosses, or
+perhaps the prepared flosses were used in the "tent stitch," which is
+now known as "Kensington." The colors of all these specimens were as
+fresh as natural flowers, speaking eloquently in praise of early
+processes of dyeing.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu113-1" name="illu113-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu113-2" name="illu113-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 500px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb113-1.jpg" width="144" height="381"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full113-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb113-2.jpg" width="156" height="383"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full113-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu113-3" name="illu113-3"></a>
+   <a id="illu113-4" name="illu113-4"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 200px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb113-3.jpg" width="157" height="381"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full113-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 200px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb113-4.jpg" width="150" height="383"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full113-4.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+<p class="caption">LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania
+Dutch early nineteenth century.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>These things seem to fairly exhale gentility, that quality-compact of
+everything superior in the life of early American womanhood. I have
+especially in mind one cushion where flowers, apparently as fresh in
+color as when the cushion was young, are laid upon a ground of silk of
+the pinky-ash color, once known as "ashes of roses."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71"> [71]</a></span> The real charm
+of the thing, that which lends it a tender romance, is the legend worked
+upon the back of the cushion in brown silk stitches which are easily
+mistaken for the round-hand copperplate writing of the period&mdash;"Wrought
+where the peaceful Lehi flows." One seems to breathe the very air of the
+secluded valley, peopled by brethren and sisters set apart from the
+strenuous duties of the builders of a new nation, and distinguished for
+learned and devoted effort toward the perfection of moral, and
+spiritual, rather than the conquests of material, life.</p>
+
+<p>The Sisters had many orders from the outside world, as well as from
+visitors, and the profit upon these helped to maintain the school. Many
+of these orders were in the shape of pocketbooks, pincushions, bags,
+etc., having a bunch, or wreath, or cluster of flowers on one side,
+wonderfully wrought in silken flosses or sewing silks, and on the other,
+some pretty sentiment or legend done in dark brown floss in the most
+perfect of "round-hand"; so perfect, in fact, that it would require the
+closest scrutiny to decide that it was not handwritten script.</p>
+
+<p>These plentiful orders for things were induced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72"> [72]</a></span> by the several
+attractions of the situation, the remoteness from warlike and political
+disturbances, and the relationship of so many young girl lives, as well
+as the interest which attached to the school and community, making a
+constant demand in the shape of small articles of use or luxury,
+decorated by the skillful fingers of the Sisters.</p>
+
+<p>Parallel with this fine practice of flower embroidery, was a period of
+far more important needlework, which we may call Picture Embroidery.
+This also owed its introduction to the Moravian School of Bethlehem,
+although it was probably of early English origin, going back to that
+period when English embroidery was the wonder of the world; and the
+<i>opus plumarium</i>, or feather-pen stitch, or tent stitch, or Kensington
+stitch, as it has been known in succeeding ages, first attracted
+attention as a medium of art.</p>
+
+<p>Passing from England to Germany it became purely ecclesiastical, and
+even now one occasionally finds in Germany, and less often in England,
+bits of ecclesiastical embroidery of unimaginable fineness,
+commemorating Christ's miracles and other incidents of Bible history.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73"> [73]</a></span> I
+know of one small specimen of ancient English art, covering a space of
+five by seven inches, where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty
+tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a
+man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not
+eating the forbidden fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Such elaboration in miniature embroidery made good the claim of English
+needlework to its first place in the world, since nothing more wonderful
+had or has been produced in the whole long history of needlework art. It
+was undoubtedly from this school, filtered through generations of
+secular practice, that the Moravian picture embroidery came to be a
+general American inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>To adapt this wonderful method to the uses of social life was an
+admirable achievement, and whether by the sisters of the Moravian
+school, or the growth of pre-American influence and time, we do not
+certainly know, the fact remains, however, that it was here so cunningly
+adapted to the circumstances and spirit of colonial and early American
+days as to seem to belong entirely to them, and it would seem quite
+clear that Bethlehem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"> [74]</a></span> was the source of the most skillful needlework art
+in America. It was there that the fine ladies of the late eighteenth and
+early nineteenth centuries, who sat at the embroidery frame in the
+intervals when they were not "sitting at the harp," acquired their
+skill.</p>
+
+<p>It was the romantic period of embroidery that makes a very telling
+contrast to the earlier crewel and later muslin embroidery of the New
+England states. The pieces were seldom larger than eighteen or twenty
+inches square, the size probably governed by the width of the superb
+satin which was so often used as a background. Not invariably, however,
+for I have seen one or two pieces worked upon gray linen where the
+surface was entirely covered by stitchery, landscape, trees, and sky
+showing an unbroken surface of satiny texture. Pictures from Bible
+subjects are frequent, and these have the air of having been copied from
+prints; in fact, I have seen some where the print appears underneath the
+stitches, showing that it was used as a design. These Scripture pieces
+seem to have employed a lower degree of talent than those having
+original design, and were probably the somewhat perfunctory<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75"> [75]</a></span> work of
+young girls whose interests were elsewhere. One picture which I have
+seen was treasured as a record of a very romantic elopement&mdash;the lover
+in the case, riding gayly away with his beloved sitting on a pillion
+behind him, and no witnesses to the deed but a small sister, standing at
+the gate of the homestead with outstretched hands and staring eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu119-1" name="illu119-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb119-1.jpg" width="306" height="341"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full119-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers</p>
+<p class="caption">"THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"&mdash;Moravian
+embroidered picture, an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa.
+Worked by Sarah Kummer about 1790.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu119-2" name="illu119-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb119-2.jpg" width="311" height="344"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full119-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers</p>
+<p class="caption">"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"&mdash;Cross-stitch picture
+made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family, Bethlehem,
+Pa.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The most important picture which I have seen in portrait needlework came
+to light at the Baltimore Exhibition, and was a piazza group of five
+figures, a burly sea-captain seated in a rocking chair in a nautical
+dress and his own grayish hair embroidered above his ruddy face, his
+wife in a white satin gown seated beside him, and his three daughters of
+appropriately different ages grouped around, while the ship <i>Constance</i>
+was tied closely to the edge of the blue water which bordered the
+foreground of the picture. The composition of this picture was evidently
+the work of some experienced artist, for its incongruous elements kept
+their places and did not greatly clash. Taken as a whole it was an
+astonishing performance, quite too ambitious in its grasp for the novel
+art of needlework, and yet a thing to delight<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76"> [76]</a></span> the hearts of the
+descendants, or even casual possessors.</p>
+
+<p>The Moravian teaching and practice spread the principles of needlework
+art so widely that it developed in many different directions. The
+wonderful silk embroidery applied to flowers was, like the arts of
+drawing and painting, capable of being used in copying all forms of
+beauty. It was sometimes, not always, successfully applied to landscape
+representation, and grew at last into a scheme of needlework
+portraiture, in this form perpetuating family history. It was sometimes
+used in conjunction with painting, the faces of a family group being
+done in water color upon cardboard by professional painters who were
+members of the art guild, who wandered from one social circle to
+another, supplying the wants of embroideresses ambitious of distinction
+in their accomplishments. The small painted faces were cut from the
+cardboard upon which they had been painted and worked around, often with
+the actual hair of the original of the portrait. I have seen one picture
+of a Southern beauty, where the golden hair had been wound into tiny
+curls, and sewn into place, and the lace of the neckwear<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77"> [77]</a></span> was so
+cleverly simulated as to look almost detachable. Of course such pictures
+were the result of individual experiment on the part of some very able
+and ambitious needlewoman.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu123" name="illu123"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb123.jpg" width="401" height="372"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full123.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Mrs. R.&nbsp;B. Mitchell, Madison, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred
+Hoskins of Edenton, N.&nbsp;C., while attending an English finishing school
+in Baltimore in 1814.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>One can imagine that the effect of them in social life was to add
+greatly to the vogue of the art of needlework. The most numerous of
+these relics were called "mourning pieces"&mdash;bits of memorial
+embroidery&mdash;the subject of the picture being generally a monument
+surmounted by an urn, overhung with the sweeping branches of a willow,
+while standing beside the monument is a weeping female figure, the face
+discreetly hidden in a pocket handkerchief. The inscriptions, "Sacred to
+the memory," etc., were written or printed upon the satin in India ink,
+and often the letters of the name were worked with the hair of the
+subject of the memorial.</p>
+
+<p>In these pieces it is rather noticeable that the mourning figure is
+always draped in white, which leads to the conclusion that it is a
+purely emblematic figure of an emotion, rather than a real mourner. The
+shading of the monument was generally done in India ink, so that the
+actual embroidery was confined to the trunk and long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78"> [78]</a></span> branches of
+weeping willow, and the dress of the figure, and the ground upon which
+willow and monument and figure stand. The faces being always hidden by
+the handkerchief, and a tinted satin serving for the sky, the execution
+of these memorial pictures was comparatively simple. They certainly bear
+an undue proportion to those happy family portraits where mother and
+children, or husband and wife, sit in love and simplicity before the
+pillared magnificence of the family mansion.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu127-1" name="illu127-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu127-2" name="illu127-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 520px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 220px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb127-1.jpg" width="174" height="199"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full127-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 250px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb127-2.jpg" width="202" height="179"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full127-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="caption clear"><i>Left</i>&mdash;FIRE SCREEN embroidered in cross-stitch worsted.
+<i>From the McMullan family of Salem.</i></p>
+<p class="caption"><i>Right</i>&mdash;FIRE SCREEN, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu127-3" name="illu127-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 350px;">
+<img src="images/thumb127-3.jpg" width="264" height="319"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full127-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">FIRE SCREEN worked about 1850 by Miss C.&nbsp;A. Granger, of
+Canandaigua, N.&nbsp;Y.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Perhaps the greater simplicity and ease of execution of the mourning
+pieces had something to do with their greater number. They may have been
+the first spelling of the difficult art of pictorial embroidery. The
+best of these picture embroideries were certainly wonderful creations as
+far as the use of the needle was concerned, and I fancy were done in the
+large leisure of some colonial home where early distinction in the art
+of needlework must have gone hand in hand with the skill of the
+traveling portrait painter. These dainty productions, with their
+delicately painted faces and hands, are far more often found than those
+with embroidered flesh. In some of these,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79"> [79]</a></span> faces painted with real
+miniature skill upon bits of parchment have been inserted or
+superimposed upon the satin, the edges, as I have said, carefully
+covered by embroidery, done with single hair threaded into the needle
+instead of silk. In one case which I remember, the yellow hair of a
+child was knotted into a bunch of solid looking curls covering the head
+of a small figure, while the face of the mother was surmounted by bands
+of a reddish brown. This little touch of realism gave a curious note of
+pathos to the picture of a life separated from the present by time and
+outgrown habits, but linked to it by this one tangible proof of actual
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>The drawing or plan of these pictures was evidently done directly upon
+the satin ground, as one often finds the outlines showing at the edge of
+the stitches; but in the few specimens I have found where they were
+worked upon linen it had been covered with a tracing on strong thin
+paper, and the entire design worked through and over both paper and
+canvas. Those which were done upon linen seemed to belong to an earlier
+period than those worked on satin, which was perhaps an American
+adaptation of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80"> [80]</a></span> earlier method. Certainly the soft thick India satin,
+which was the ground of so many of them, made a delightful surface for
+embroidery, and blended with its colors into a silvery mass where work
+and background were equally effective. Two of these have survived the
+century or more of careful seclusion which followed the proud &eacute;clat of
+their production. One of the fortunate heirs to many of these exhibited
+treasures told me of a package or book containing heads in water color,
+evidently to be used as copies for the faces which might be found
+necessary for efforts in embroidery. The painting of these was perhaps a
+part of the education or accomplishment considered necessary to girls of
+prominent and successful families of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Under favorable circumstances, such as a convenient relation between
+artist and needlework, this art would have developed into needlework
+tapestry. The groups would have outgrown their frames, and left their
+picture spaces on the walls, and, stretching into life-size figures,
+have become hangings of silken broidery, such as we find in Spain and
+Italy, from the hands of nuns or noble ladies.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu131-1" name="illu131-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb131-1.jpg" width="403" height="271"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full131-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption">EMBROIDERED PICTURE in silks, with a painted sky.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu131-2" name="illu131-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb131-2.jpg" width="405" height="310"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full131-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass.</p>
+<p class="caption">CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI. Embroidered picture in silks,
+with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very of Salem at the age of
+sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81"> [81]</a></span>The influence of the Bethlehem teaching lasted long enough to build up a
+very fine and critical standard of embroidery in America. It would be
+difficult to overestimate the importance of the influence of this school
+of embroidery upon the needlework practice of a growing country. Its
+qualities of sincerity, earnestness, and respect for the art of
+needlework gave importance to the work of hands other than that of
+necessary labor, and these qualities influenced all the various forms of
+work which followed it. The first divergence from the original work was
+in its application, rather than its method, for instead of having a
+strictly decorative purpose its application became almost exclusively
+personal. Flower embroidery of surpassing excellence was its general
+feature. The materials for the development of this form of art were
+usually satin, or the flexible undressed India silk which lent itself so
+perfectly to ornamentation. Breadths of cream-white satin, of a
+thickness and softness almost unknown in the present day, were stretched
+in Chippendale embroidery frames, and loops and garlands of flowers of
+every shape and hue were embroidered upon them. They were often done for
+skirts and sleeves<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82"> [82]</a></span> of gowns of ceremony, giving a distinction even
+beyond the flowered brocades so much coveted by colonial belles.</p>
+
+<p>This beautiful flower embroidery was, like its predecessor, the rare
+picture embroidery, too exacting in its character to be universal. It
+needed money without stint for its materials, and luxurious surroundings
+for its practice. Some of the beautiful old gowns wrought in that day
+are still to be seen in colonial exhibitions, and are even occasionally
+worn by great-great-granddaughters at important mimic colonial
+functions.</p>
+
+<p>Floss embroidery upon silk and satin was not entirely confined to
+apparel, for we find an occasional piece as the front panel of one of
+the large, carved fire screens, which at that date were universally used
+in drawing-rooms as a shelter from the glare and heat of the great open
+fires which were the only method of heating. As the back of the screen
+was turned to the fire and the embroidered face to the room, its
+decoration was shown to admirable advantage, and one can hardly account
+for the rarity of the specimens of these antique screens, except upon
+the supposition that the roses, carnations, and forget-me-nots<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"> [83]</a></span> were
+still more effective when wrought upon the scant skirt of a colonial
+gown, instead of being shrouded in their careful coverings in the
+deserted drawing-room, and my lady of the embroidery might more
+effectively exhibit them in the lights of a ballroom. In recording the
+changes in the style and purposes of embroidery, from the days of
+homespun and home-dyed crewel to the almost living flowers wrought with
+lustrous flosses upon breadths of satin which were the best of the
+world's manufacture, one unconsciously traverses the ground of domestic
+and political history, from the days of the Pilgrims to the pomp of
+colonial courts.</p>
+
+
+<h3>French Embroidery</h3>
+
+<p>The character and purposes of the art varied with every political and
+national change. In the middle of the eighteenth century, a demand had
+gone out from the new and growing America, and wandering over the seas
+had asked for something fine and airy with which to occupy delicate
+hands, unoccupied with household toil. The carefully acquired skill of
+the earlier periods of our history became in succeeding generations<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84"> [84]</a></span>
+almost an inheritance of facility, and easily merged into the elaborate
+stitchery called French embroidery. I can find no trace of its having
+been <i>taught</i>, but plenty of proofs of its existence are to be seen on
+the needlework pictures under glass still hanging in many an
+old-fashioned parlor, or relegated to the curiosity corner of modern
+drawing-rooms. It is possible that the close intimacy existing between
+France and England at that period may have influenced this art. Many
+French families of high degree were seeking safety or profit in this
+country, and the convent-bred ladies of such families would naturally
+have shared their acquirements with those whose favor and interest were
+important to them as strangers. There was another form of this French
+embroidery, the materials used being cambrics, linens, and muslins of
+all kinds, the most precious of which were the linen-cambrics and India
+mulls. The use of the former still survives in the finest of French
+embroidered pocket handkerchiefs, but the latter is seldom seen except
+in the veils and vests of Oriental women, or in the studio draperies of
+all countries.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu137-1" name="illu137-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb137-1.jpg" width="410" height="197"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full137-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">CAPE of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu137-2" name="illu137-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb137-2.jpg" width="398" height="374"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full137-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">COLLARS of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The threads used were flosses of linen or cotton,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85"> [85]</a></span> preferably the
+latter, which were almost entirely imported. With these restricted
+materials, wonders of ornamentation were performed. The stitch, quite
+different from that of crewelwork or picture embroidery of the preceding
+period, was the simple over and over stitch we find in French embroidery
+of the present day. The leaves of the design or pattern were frequently
+brought into relief by a stuffing of under threads.</p>
+
+<p>Everything was embroidered; gowns, from the belt to lower hem, finished
+with scalloped and sprigged ruffles in the same delicate workmanship,
+were everyday summer wear. Slips and sacques, which were not quite as
+much of an undertaking as an entire gown, were bordered and ruffled with
+the same embroidery. The amount and beauty of specimens which still
+exist after the lapse of nearly a century is quite wonderful. Small
+articles, like collars, capes and pelerines, were almost entirely
+covered with the most exquisite tracery of leaf and flower, a perfect
+frostwork of delicate stitchery, with patches of lacework introduced in
+spaces of the design.</p>
+
+<p>The designs were seldom, almost never, original, being nearly always
+copied directly from what<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86"> [86]</a></span> was called "boughten work," to distinguish it
+from that which was produced at home.</p>
+
+<p>Many beautiful and skillful stitches were used in this form of work.
+Lace stitches, made with bodkins or "piercers," or darning needles of
+sufficient size to make perforations, were skillfully rimmed and joined
+together in patterns by finer stitches, and open borders, and
+hemstitching, and dainty inventions of all kinds, for the embellishment
+of the fabrics upon which they were wrought.</p>
+
+<p>With these materials and these methods most of the women of the
+different sections of the country busied themselves from a period
+beginning probably about 1710 and extending to 1840, and it is safe to
+say, notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of life between those
+dates, that at no period in the history of woman was as much time and
+consummate skill bestowed upon wearing apparel. Many a young girl of the
+day embroidered her own wedding dress, and during the months or years of
+its preparation suffered and enjoyed the same ambition which goes on in
+the present, to the acquirement of some wonder of French composition, or
+costly ornament of point lace and pearls.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu141-1" name="illu141-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu141-2" name="illu141-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 520px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 240px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb141-1.jpg" width="195" height="277"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full141-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source left">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 240px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb141-2.jpg" width="193" height="213"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full141-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Mrs. Isaac Pierson, Canandaigua, N.&nbsp;Y.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="caption clear"><i>Left</i>&mdash;BABY'S CAP White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+Nineteenth century American.</p>
+<p class="caption"><i>Right</i>&mdash;BABY'S CAP Embroidered mull. 1825.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu141-3" name="illu141-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb141-3.jpg" width="402" height="243"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full141-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+<p class="caption"> COLLAR of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century
+American.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"> [87]</a></span>Everything was embroidered. The tender, downy head of the newly born
+baby was covered with a cap of delicatest material incrusted to hardness
+with needlework. The baby's caps of the period are a perfect chapter of
+human emotions; mother-love, emulation, pride, and declaration of family
+or personal position are skillfully expressed in a multiplicity of
+decorative stitches. A six-foot length of baptismal robe carried for
+half its length the same elaborate stitchery. Long delicate ruffles were
+edged with double rows of scallops. Double and triple collars and
+"pelerines" of muslin were to be found in the hands of all women of high
+or low degree. Articles of wearing apparel were done upon a soft fine
+muslin called mull, breadths of which were embroidered for skirts,
+lengths of it were scalloped and embroidered for flounces, and
+hand-lengths of it were done for the short waists and sleeves of the
+pretty Colonial gowns worn by our delicate ancestresses. One of these
+gowns, stretched to its widest, would hardly cover a front breadth of
+the habit of one of our well-nurtured athletic girls of the present, and
+the athletic girl can show no such handiwork as this.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"> [88]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Beautiful embroidery it was that was lavished upon muslin gowns, baby's
+caps and long, long robes, and upon aprons, pelerines and capes. Over
+stitch instead of tent stitch was the order of the day. "Tent stitch and
+the use of the globes" was no longer advertised as a part of school
+routine. Instead of this, there were the most delicate overstitches and
+multitudinous lace-stitches which we nowhere else find, unless in the
+finest of Asian embroidery.</p>
+
+<p>A large part of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+century was a period of remarkable skill in all kinds of stitchery. It
+was not confined to embroidery, but was also applied to all varieties of
+domestic needlework. Hemstitched ruffles were a part of masculine as
+well as feminine wear, and finely stitched and ruffled shirts for the
+head of the household were quite as necessary to the family dignity as
+embroidered gowns and caps for its feminine members.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to enumerate all the uses to which the national
+perfection of needle dexterity was put. It was, indeed, a national
+dexterity, for although its application was widely different in the
+eastern and southern states, the two schools of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"> [89]</a></span> needlework, as we may
+term them, met and mingled to a common practice of both methods in the
+middle states.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu145-1" name="illu145-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 430px;">
+<img src="images/thumb145-1.jpg" width="382" height="414"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full145-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the
+Westervelt collection.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu145-2" name="illu145-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb145-2.jpg" width="313" height="161"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full145-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS. 1850. From the
+collection of Mrs. George Coe.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Perhaps one may account for the prevalence of this kind of work, as it
+existed at a period of very limited education or literary pursuits among
+women. Domestic life was woman's kingdom, and needlework was one of its
+chief conditions. But whatever cause or causes stimulated the vogue of
+this variety of embroidery, we find it was universal among rich and
+poor, in city and country, for nearly three-quarters of a century. The
+narrow roll of muslin, for scalloped flounces and ruffling, and the
+skeins of French cotton went everywhere with girls and women, except to
+church and to ceremonious functions where men were included. Needlework
+was far more than an interest, it was an occupation.</p>
+
+<p>The varieties of tambour work and open stitchery of various ornamental
+kinds were possible for all capacities. It was a general form of fine
+needlework, happily available to women of the farmhouse, as well as of
+the mansion, and its exceeding precision and beauty gave a character to
+the purely utilitarian stitchery of the day<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90"> [90]</a></span> which has made a high
+standard for succeeding generations. The hemstitched ruffles of shirts,
+the stitched plaits of simpler ones, the buttonholed triangles at the
+intersection of seams&mdash;all these practically unknown to modern
+construction&mdash;were probably the result of the skillful and careful
+needlework ornamentation of simple fabrics.</p>
+
+<p>As an occupation, French embroidery practically displaced the making of
+cabinet pictures of graceful ladies in scant satin gowns which had
+occupied the embroidery frame, or decorated drawing-room walls. Flowers
+ceased to blossom upon pincushions, and the engrossing and prevalent
+occupation of needlework was entirely devoted to personal wear.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu149-1" name="illu149-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb149-1.jpg" width="407" height="262"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full149-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Mrs. A.&nbsp;S. Hewitt</p>
+<p class="caption">EMBROIDERY ON NET. Border for the front of a cap made
+about 1820.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu149-2" name="illu149-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb149-2.jpg" width="402" height="310"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full149-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York</p>
+<p class="caption">VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net. American
+nineteenth century.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>At this period, however, ships were coming into Boston and other eastern
+ports almost daily or weekly, instead of at intervals of weary months.
+Ships were going to and returning from China and the Indies and the
+islands of the sea, laden on their return voyages not only with spices
+and liquors and sweets of the southern world, but with satins and
+velvets and silks and prints, and delicately printed muslins and
+cambrics; and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91"> [91]</a></span> fair linen and cotton flosses disappeared from the
+hands of needlewomen. Manufacturers had brought their looms to weave
+designs into the fabrics they produced and to simulate the work of the
+needle in a way which made one feel that the very spindles thought and
+wrought with conscious love of beauty.</p>
+
+<p>The larger demands of luxurious living increased also the necessary work
+of the needle, and while the looms of France and Switzerland were busy
+weaving broidered stuffs, the needles of sewing women were kept at work
+fashioning the necessary garments of the millions of playing and working
+human beings. It was the era which gave birth to the "Song of the
+Shirt," a day of personal and exacting practice.</p>
+
+
+<h3>Lacework</h3>
+
+<p>The disappearance of the practice of French embroidery was as sudden as
+the dropping of a theater curtain, but a coexistent art called Spanish
+lacework lingered long after muslin embroidery had ceased to be. It was
+chiefly used in the elaboration of shawls, and large lace veils, which
+were a very graceful addition to Colonial<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92"> [92]</a></span> and early American costume.
+There is no difficulty in tracing this kind of decorative needlework. It
+came from Mexico into New Orleans, and from there, by various secrets of
+locomotion, spread along the southern states.</p>
+
+<p>The veils were yard squares of delicate white or black lace, heavily
+bordered and lightly spotted with flowers, while the shawls were
+sometimes nearly double that size, and of much heavier lace, as they had
+need to be, to carry the wealth of decorative darning lavished upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>The design was always a foliated one, generally proceeding from a common
+center, representing a basket or a knot of ribbon, which confined the
+branching forms to the point of departure. The edges were heavily
+scalloped, with an extension of the ornamentation which included a rose
+or leaf for the filling of every scallop. The centers of flowers, and
+even of leaves, were often filled with beautiful variations of lace
+stitches worked into the meshes of the ground, and were very curious and
+interesting.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu153-1" name="illu153-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb153-1.jpg" width="404" height="380"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full153-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 &times; 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu153-2" name="illu153-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb153-2.jpg" width="408" height="115"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full153-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N.&nbsp;J.</p>
+<p class="caption">HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the
+Dutch. The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on which the
+design was darned with linen. Made about 1800 and used in the end of
+linen pillow cases.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Darning with flosses upon both white and black bobbinet, or silk net,
+was a very common<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93"> [93]</a></span> form of the art, and veils of white with seed or
+all-over designs darned in white silk floss, may be called the "personal
+needlework" of the period, and some of the shawls were superb stretches
+of design and stitching. This art, although so beautiful in effect,
+demanded very little of the skill necessary to the preceding methods of
+embroidery. The lace was simply stretched or basted over paper or white
+cloth, upon which the design was heavily traced in ink; the spaces which
+were to be solidly filled were sometimes covered with a shading of red
+chalk, and when this was done, it was a matter of simple running over
+and under the meshes of the net, in directions indicated by the shape of
+the leaf or flower. The work could be heavier or lighter, according to
+the design and size or weight of the flosses used. I have seen a wedding
+veil worked upon a beautiful white silk net, carrying a sprinkling of
+orange flowers, darned with white silk flosses, and a heavy wreath
+around the border. Certainly no veil of priceless point lace could be so
+etherially beautiful as was this relic of the past, and certainly no
+commercial product, however costly, could carry in its transparent folds
+the sentiment of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"> [94]</a></span> such a bridal veil, wrought in love by the bride who
+was to wear it.</p>
+
+<p>I have seen one beautiful shawl, where the entire design was done in
+shining silver-white flosses, upon a ground of black net, with the
+effect of a disappearance of the background, the wreaths and groups of
+flowers seeming to float around the figure of the wearer.</p>
+
+<p>In one or two instances, also, I have seen shawls in varicolored flosses
+producing a silvery mass of ornamentation which was most effective, but
+they were experiments which evidently did not commend themselves to
+North American taste.</p>
+
+<p>The same method of darning was used upon what was then called, "bobbinet
+footing," narrow lengths of bobbinet lace which were extensively used as
+ruffles for caps and trimming and garniture of capes and various
+articles of personal wear.</p>
+
+<p>Cap bodies were also worked in this method; in fact, the decorative
+treatment of caps must have been a trying question. The dignity of the
+married woman depended somewhat upon the size of the cap she wore, and
+it was as necessary to convention that the crow-black locks of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95"> [95]</a></span>
+matron of twenty-five should be hidden, as that the scant locks of sixty
+should be decently shrouded.</p>
+
+<p>Insertings of darned footing, alternating with bands of muslin, were
+largely used in the construction of gowns, and, in short, this style of
+needlework, while not as universal or absorbing as French embroidery,
+continued longer in vogue and perhaps amused or solaced some who had
+little skill or time for the more exacting methods of embroidery.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V_BERLIN_WOOLWORK" id="CHAPTER_V_BERLIN_WOOLWORK"></a>CHAPTER V <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> BERLIN WOOLWORK<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96"> [96]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>It surprises us in these latter days of demand for the best conditions
+in the prosecution of decorative work, that it should have lived at all
+through the days of existence in one-roomed log cabins of early settlers
+and the conflicting demands of pioneer life. It survived them all, and
+the little, fast-arriving Puritan children were taught their stitches as
+religiously as their commandments; and so American embroidery grew to be
+an art which has enriched the past and future of its executants.</p>
+
+<p>After the two periods of French and Spanish needlework passed by, there
+appeared what was known as Berlin woolwork. Those who in earlier times
+were devoted to fine embroidery solaced their idleness with this new
+work&mdash;certainly a poor substitute for the beautiful embroidery of the
+preceding generation, but answering the purpose of traditional
+employment for the leisure class. This came into vogue and was rather
+extensively used for coverings of screens, chairs, sofas, footstools and
+the various specimens of household<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97"> [97]</a></span> furniture made by workmen who had
+served with Adam, Chippendale and Sheraton, and who had brought books of
+patterns with them to the prosperous, growing market of the New World.
+Berlin woolwork was a method of cross-stitch upon canvas in colored
+wools or silks&mdash;in fact, an extension of sampler methods into pictures
+and screens, or the more utilitarian chair and sofa covers. It was
+sometimes varied by using broadcloth or velvet as a foundation, the
+canvas threads being drawn out after the picture was complete. We
+occasionally find entire sets of beautiful old mahogany chairs, with
+cushions of cross-stitch embroidery, the subjects ranging over
+everything in the animal or vegetable world, so that one might sit in
+turn upon horses, bead-eyed and curled lap dogs, or wreaths of lilies
+and roses.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally, also, a glassed and framed picture of elaborate design and
+beautiful workmanship is seen, but as a rule it must be confessed that
+in America this method of embroidery, as an art, failed to achieve
+dignity. This was not in the least owing to the actual technique of the
+process, since beautiful tapestries have been accomplished,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98"> [98]</a></span> taking
+canvas as a medium and foundation for a dexterous use of design and
+color.</p>
+
+<p>The square blocks of the canvas stitch are no more objectionable in an
+art process than the block of enamel of which priceless mosaics are
+made, but one can easily see that if every design for mosaic work could
+be indefinitely reproduced and sold by the thousands, with numbered and
+colored blocks of glass, something&mdash;we hardly know what&mdash;would be lost
+in even the most exact reproductions.</p>
+
+<p>Original design, however simple, is the expression of a thought, and
+passes directly from the mind of the originator to the material upon
+which it is expressed; but when the design becomes an article of
+commercial supply it loses in interest, and if the process of production
+is simple, requiring little thought and skill, the work also fails to
+call out in us the reverence we willingly accord to skillful and
+painstaking embroidery.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu161-1" name="illu161-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/thumb161-1.jpg" width="334" height="225"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full161-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum</p>
+<p class="caption">BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliqu&eacute;d on blue
+woolen ground.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu161-2" name="illu161-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb161-2.jpg" width="414" height="350"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full161-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms</p>
+<p class="caption">NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point. Single
+cross-stitch.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yet we must acknowledge there are many examples of Berlin woolwork which
+possess the merits of beautiful color and exact and even workmanship.
+Some of them are done upon the finest of canvas with silks of exquisite
+shadings, and where figures are represented the faces are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"> [99]</a></span> worked with
+silk in "single stitch," which means one crossing of the canvas instead
+of two, as in ordinary cross-stitch. The latter was of course better
+suited for furniture coverings, both in strength and quality of surface,
+while the method of single stitch succeeded in presenting a smooth and
+well-shaded surface, sufficiently like a painted one to stand for a
+picture. Indeed, veritable pictures were produced in this method and
+were effective and interesting. In these specimens the faces and hands,
+while worked in the same cross-stitch, were varied by being done on a
+single crossing of the canvas with one stitch, while the costumes and
+accessories of the picture were done over the larger square of two
+threads of the canvas, with the double crossing of the stitch.</p>
+
+<p>The faces were, in some cases, still further differentiated by being
+wrought in silk instead of wool threads.</p>
+
+<p>The embroidered chair and sofa covers had quite the effect of
+tapestries, and were far better than a not uncommon variation of the
+same needlework, where the broadcloth or velvet background held the
+embroidery.</p>
+
+<p>The designs were copied from patterns printed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100"> [100]</a></span> in color upon cross-ruled
+paper, and consisted of bunches of flowers of various sorts, or pictures
+of dogs, and horses, and birds. A white lap dog worked upon a dark
+background was the favorite design for a footstool, and this small
+object tapered out the existence of decorative cross-stitch, until it
+grew to be in use only as a decoration for toilet slippers. The final
+end of this style of work was long deferred on account of the fact that
+a pair of cloth slippers, embroidered by the hands of some affectionate
+girl or doting woman, was a token which was not too unusual to carry
+inconvenient significance. It might mean much or little, much tenderness
+or affection, or a work of idleness tinctured with sentiment.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu165-1" name="illu165-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/thumb165-1.jpg" width="302" height="267"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full165-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms</p>
+<p class="caption">HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse
+needlepoint.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu165-2" name="illu165-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;">
+<img src="images/thumb165-2.jpg" width="307" height="345"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full165-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms</p>
+<p class="caption">TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand weave originated
+at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The mechanical and commercial effect of this stitchery discouraged its
+use; its printed patterns and the regularity of its counted stitches
+giving neither provocation nor scope to originality of thought or
+design. This was not the fault of the stitch itself, since
+"cross-stitch" was the first form of needle decoration. It is, in fact,
+the A B C of all decorative stitchery, the method evolved by all
+primitive races except the American Indian. It followed, more or less
+closely, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101"> [101]</a></span> development of the art of weaving. When this had passed
+from the weaving together of osiers into mats or baskets, and had
+reached the stage of the weaving of hair and vegetable fiber into cloth,
+the decoration of such cloth with independent colored fiber was the next
+step in the creation of values, and, naturally, the form of decorative
+stitches followed the lines of weaving. Simple as was its evolution, and
+its preliminary use, cross-stitch has a past which entitles it to
+reverence. With many races it has remained a habitual form of
+expression, and, as in Moorish and Algerian work, is carried to a
+refinement of beauty which would seem beyond so simple a method. It has
+given form to a lasting style of design, to geometrical borders, which
+have survived races and periods of history, and still remain an
+underlying part of the world of decorative linens.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to note that it had no place in aboriginal embroidery,
+and marks its creation as following the art of weaving. It is a long
+step from this traditional past of its origin to the short past of the
+stitchery of America, where the little fingers of small Puritan maids
+followed the lines evolved by the generations of the earlier world.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI_REVIVAL_OF_EMBROIDERY_AND_THE_FOUNDING_OF_THE_SOCIETY_OF" id="CHAPTER_VI_REVIVAL_OF_EMBROIDERY_AND_THE_FOUNDING_OF_THE_SOCIETY_OF"></a>CHAPTER VI <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> REVIVAL OF EMBROIDERY, AND THE FOUNDING OF THE SOCIETY OF
+DECORATIVE ART<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102"> [102]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>When French needlework had had its day, and the evanescent life of
+Berlin woolwork had passed, for a period of half a century needlework
+ceased to flourish in America. Indeed, the art seemed to have died out
+root and branch, and only necessary and utilitarian needlework was
+practiced. It seems strange, after all the wonderful triumphs of the
+needle in earlier years, that for the succeeding half or three-quarters
+of a century needlework as an art should actually have ceased to be. It
+had died, branch and stem and root, vanished as if it had never been.
+During at least half a century we were a people without decorative
+needlework art in any form. The eyes and thoughts of women were turned
+in other directions.</p>
+
+<p>Of course there is always a reason for a change in public taste,
+something in the development of the time leads and governs every trend
+of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103"> [103]</a></span> popular thought. It may be the attraction of new inventions, or the
+perfection of new processes, or even, and this is not uncommon, the
+charm and fascination of some rare personality, whose ruling is absolute
+in its own immediate vicinity, and whose example spreads like circles in
+water far and far beyond the immediate personal influence. We cannot
+trace this apparent dearth of the art to one particular cause, we only
+know that in America the practice and study of music succeeded to its
+place in almost every household. The needle, that honored implement of
+woman, bade fair to be a thing almost of tradition, something which
+would be in time relegated to museums and collections, to be studied
+historically, as we study the implements of the Stone Age, and other
+prehistoric periods.</p>
+
+<p>I remember an amusing story told by a Baltimore friend, not given to the
+manufacture of instances, that during those years of dearth soon after
+the Civil War she was visiting a lovely southern family who had lived
+through the days of privation. One day there arose a great cry and
+disturbance in the house, which turned out to be a quest for <i>the</i>
+needle, where was <i>the</i> needle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104"> [104]</a></span> Nobody could find it, although it could
+be proved that at a certain date it had been quilted into its accustomed
+place on the edge of the drawing-room curtain of the east window.
+Finally it was found on the wrong curtain, minus the point, and this
+disability gave rise to a discussion. Should it be taken to town, and
+have the point renewed by the watchmaker? This decision was discouraged
+by the daughter of the house, who related that the last time she had
+taken it for the same purpose, the watchmaker had said to her, "Miss
+Cassy, I have put a point on that needle three times, and I would
+seriously advise you to buy a new one."</p>
+
+<p>It was only in America that the needle had ceased to be an active
+implement. In England it had never been so constantly or feverishly
+employed. For the second time in its long history, its work became
+purely personal. The same necessity which impressed itself upon the poor
+little mother of mankind, when she sought among the fig leaves for
+wherewithal to clothe herself, was upon the domestic woman, who sewed
+cloth into skirts instead of vegetable fiber into aprons.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu171-1" name="illu171-1"></a>
+   <a id="illu171-2" name="illu171-2"></a>
+</p>
+<div class="pad">
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 520px;">
+<div class="figleft" style="width: 240px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb171-1.jpg" width="195" height="252"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full171-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+</div>
+<div class="figright" style="width: 240px;">
+    <img src="images/thumb171-2.jpg" width="198" height="260"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full171-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+</div>
+<p class="caption clear"><i>Left</i>&mdash;EMBROIDERED MITS</p>
+<p class="caption"><i>Right</i>&mdash;WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu171-3" name="illu171-3"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb171-3.jpg" width="402" height="136"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full171-3.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right">Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art</p>
+<p class="caption"> WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu171-4" name="illu171-4"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb171-4.jpg" width="410" height="152"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full171-4.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption"> EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post
+bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton, by Mrs. Gideon
+Granger, Canandaigua, New York.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is curious to contrast the effect of this loss of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"> [105]</a></span> embroidery in
+the two countries, England and America. Doubtless there were other
+reasons than the lost popularity of needlework as an art, that in
+England it should have resulted in the life or death practice of
+necessary needlework, and in America, that the facile fingers of woman
+simply turned to the ivory keys of the piano for occupation. But the
+fact remains that starvation threatened the woman of one country, while
+in the other they were practicing scales. In England it was a period of
+stress and strain, of veritable "work for a living," the period of "The
+Song of the Shirt." Happily, in this blessed land, where hunger was
+unknown, we were not conscious of its terrors, and perhaps hardly knew
+why the "cambric needle" and the darning needle were the only ones in
+the market. Embroidery needles had "gone out." Then came the relief of
+the sewing machine, born in America, where it was scarcely needed, but
+speedily flying across the ocean to its life-saving work in England,
+where the tragedy of the poor seamstress was on the stage of life. Like
+many another form of relief, it was not entirely adequate to the
+situation. Its first effect was to create a need of remunerative<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106"> [106]</a></span> work.
+The sewing machine took upon itself the toil of the seamstress, but it
+left the seamstress idle and hungry. This was a new and even darker
+situation than the last, but Englishwomen came to the rescue with a
+resuscitated form of needlework and embroidery tiptoed upon the empty
+stage, new garments covering her ancient form, and was welcomed with
+universal acclaim.</p>
+
+<p>Most cultivated and fortunate Englishwomen had a certain knowledge of
+art and were eager to put all of their uncoined effort at the service of
+that body of unhappy women, who, without money, had the culture which
+goes with the use and possession of money. These unfortunate sisters,
+who were rather malodorously called decayed gentlewomen, became eager
+and petted pupils of a new and popular organization called the South
+Kensington School. Its peculiar claims upon English society gave it from
+the first the help of the most advanced and intelligent artistic
+assistance. The result of this was not only a resuscitation of old
+methods of embroidery, but the great gain to the school, or society, of
+design and criticism of such men as Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, and
+William Morris.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107"> [107]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was with this vogue that it appeared in America, and attracted the
+attention of those who were afterward to be interested in the formation
+of a society which was founded for almost identical purposes. Not indeed
+to prevent starvation of body, but to comfort the souls of women who
+pined for independence, who did not care to indulge in luxuries which
+fathers and brothers and husbands found it hard to supply. So, from what
+was perhaps a social and mental, rather than a physical, want, grew the
+great remedy of a resuscitation of one of the valuable arts of the
+world, a woman's art, hers by right of inheritance as well as peculiar
+fitness.</p>
+
+<p>With true business enterprise, the new English Society prepared an
+important exhibit for our memorial fair, the Centennial, held in
+Philadelphia to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of national
+independence. This exhibit of Kensington Embroidery all unwittingly
+sowed the seed not only of great results, but in decorative art worked
+in many other directions. The exhibits of art needlework from the New
+Kensington School of Art in London, their beauty, novelty and easy
+adaptiveness, exactly fitted it to experiment by all<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108"> [108]</a></span> the dreaming
+forces of the American woman. They were good needlewomen by inheritance
+and sensitive to art influences by nature, and the initiative capacity
+which belongs to power and feeling enabled them at once to seize upon
+this mode of expression and make it their own. It was the means of
+inaugurating another era of true decorative needlework, perfectly
+adapted to the capacity of all women, and destined to be developed on
+lines peculiarly national in character. The effect of this exhibit was
+not exactly what was expected in the sale of its works, and long
+afterward, when discussing this apparent failure, in the face of an
+immediate adoption in America of the Society's methods and productions,
+I explained it to myself and an English friend, by the national
+difference in the race feeling for art, and especially for color.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu177-1" name="illu177-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb177-1.jpg" width="402" height="158"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full177-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum</p>
+<p class="caption">DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu177-2" name="illu177-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb177-2.jpg" width="424" height="412"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full177-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum</p>
+<p class="caption">LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch with
+colored wool.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It seems to me, after the observation and intimacy of years with the
+growing art of decoration in this country, that the color gift is a race
+gift with us. English art-work is nearly always characterized by subdued
+and modified harmony, while that of America has vivid and striking notes
+which play upon a higher key,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109"> [109]</a></span> and still melt as softly into each
+other as the perfect modulations of the best English art. I was very
+conscious of this during the year of my directorship of the Woman's
+Building and exhibits in the World's Columbian Fair at Chicago, that
+place of wonderful comparisons of the art-work of the world. I could
+nearly always recognize work of American origin by its singing
+color-quality, as different from the sharp semibarbaric notes of
+Oriental art as from the minor cadences of English decorative work. But
+to return to the effect of the English exhibit at the Philadelphia
+Centennial: it was followed by the immediate formation of the Society of
+Decorative Art in New York City, which became the parent of like
+societies in every considerable city or town in the United States. By
+its good fortune in having a president who belonged by right of birth,
+and certainly of ability and achievement, to the best of New York
+society, the movement enlisted the sympathy and interest of the
+influential class of New York women, while there was waiting in the
+shadow a troop of able women who were shut out from the costly gayeties
+of society by comparative poverty, but connected<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110"> [110]</a></span> with it by friendships
+and associations, often, indeed, by ties of blood.</p>
+
+<p>Embroidery became once more the most facile and successful of pursuits.
+Graduates from the Kensington School were employed as teachers in nearly
+all of the different societies, and in this way every city became the
+center of this new-old form of embroidery, for what is called
+"Kensington Embroidery" is in fact a far-away repetition of old triumphs
+of the British needle. I use the word "British" advisedly, for it was
+when England was known as Britain among the nations that her embroidery
+was a thing of almost priceless value. In modern English embroidery, the
+days of Queen Anne have been the limit of backward imitation; and, in
+fact, ancient English embroidery was a process of long and assiduous
+labor, as well as of knowledge and inspiration. Our hurried modern
+conditions would not encourage the repetition of the hand-breadth
+pictures in embroidery of the earliest specimens, where countless
+numbers of stitches were lavished upon a single production. The
+embroidered picture of The Garden of Eden described in chapter four is a
+specimen of the minute representation. These specimens are, to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"> [111]</a></span> the art
+of needlework, what the Dutch school of painting is to the great mural
+canvases of the present day.</p>
+
+<p>The development of the nineteenth century in America was only at first
+an exact reflection of English methods. The first thing which marked the
+influence of national character and taste was, that English models and
+designs almost immediately disappeared, only a few such, consisting of
+those which had been given to the art by masters of design like Morris
+and Marcus Ward, were retained, and American needlewomen boldly took to
+the representation of vivid and graceful groups of natural flowers,
+following the lead of Moravian practice and of flower painting, rather
+than that of decorative design.</p>
+
+<p>As a natural result, crewels were soon discarded in favor of silks, and
+natural extravagance, or national influence, led to the use of costly
+materials instead of the linens of English choice and preference. So the
+old flower embroidery of Bethlehem had a second birth. American girl
+art-students soon found their opportunity in the creation of applied
+design, and before embroidery had ceased to be a matter of
+representation of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112"> [112]</a></span> flowers in colored silks, the flowers grew into
+restrained and appropriate borders, or proper and correct space
+decoration, and the day of women designers for manufacturers had come.</p>
+
+<p>The circulars of the first Society of Decorative Art were not only
+comprehensive, but were ambitious. Its objects were set forth as
+follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>1. To encourage profitable industries among women who possess
+artistic talent, and to furnish a standard of excellence and a
+market for their work.</p>
+
+<p>2. To accumulate and distribute information concerning the various
+art industries which have been found remunerative in other
+countries, and to form classes in Art Needlework.</p>
+
+<p>3. To establish rooms for the exhibition and sale of Sculptures,
+Paintings, Wood Carvings, Paintings upon Slate, Porcelain and
+Pottery, Lacework, Art and Ecclesiastical Needlework, Tapestries
+and Hangings, and, in short, decorative work of any description,
+done by women, and of sufficient excellence to meet the recently
+stimulated demand for such work.</p>
+
+<p>4. To form Auxiliary Committees in other cities and towns of the
+United States, which committees shall receive and pronounce upon
+work produced in, or in the vicinity of, such places, and which, if
+approved by them, may be consigned to the salesrooms in New York.</p>
+
+<p>5. To make connections with potteries, by which desirable forms for
+decoration, or original designs for special<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113"> [113]</a></span> orders, may be
+procured, and with manufacturers and importers of the various
+materials used in art work, by which artists may profit.</p>
+
+<p>6. To endeavor to obtain orders from dealers in China, Cabinet
+Work, or articles belonging to Household Art throughout the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>7. To induce each worker thoroughly to master the details of one
+variety of decoration, and endeavor to make for her work a
+reputation of commercial value.</p>
+
+<p>The Society meets an actual want in the community by furnishing a
+place where orders can be given directly to the artist for any kind
+of art or decorative work on exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>It is believed that, by the encouragement of this Society, the
+large amount of work done by those who do not make it a profession
+will be brought to the notice of buyers outside a limited circle of
+friends. The aggregate of this work is large, and when directed
+into remunerative channels will prove a very important department
+of industry.</p>
+
+<p>The necessary expenses of the Society for the first, and possibly
+the second, year will be defrayed by a membership fee of Five
+Dollars, as well as by donations; but after that time it is
+expected that all expenses will be met by commissions upon the sale
+of articles consigned to it.</p>
+
+<p>The contributions of all women artists of acknowledged ability are
+earnestly requested. By their co-operation it is intended that a
+high standard of excellence shall be established in what is offered
+to the public, and, by seeing truly artistic decorative work, it is
+hoped many women<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114"> [114]</a></span> who have found the painting of pictures
+unremunerative may turn their efforts in more practical directions.</p>
+
+<p>All work approved by the Committee of Examination will be
+attractively exhibited without expense to the artist, but in case
+of sale a commission of 10 per cent will be charged upon the price
+received.</p></div>
+
+<p>There was good teaching from the first, but very independent judgment,
+and it was not long before the more liberal and less chastened American
+mind followed national impulses. Why, said the practical American, shall
+we spend time and effort in doing things which are not adequate in final
+effect to the labor and cost we bestow upon them, and which do not
+really accord with costly surroundings, and, in addition to these
+detriments, can and probably will be eaten by moths when all is done?
+The result of this interrogative reasoning was an immediate resort to
+satins and silks and flosses, wherewith larger and more important things
+than tidies were created&mdash;lambrequins, hangings, bedspreads, screens,
+and many other furnishings, all wrought in exquisite flosses, and more
+or less beautiful in color.</p>
+
+<p>The institution of this Society of Decorative Art was in every respect a
+timely and popular<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"> [115]</a></span> movement. It followed the example of the English
+Society in making needlework the chief object of instruction. Our
+artists became interested in the matter of design, as the English
+artists had been, and under their influence the scope of embroidery was
+much enlarged. I remember the first contribution which indicated
+original talent was a piece of needlework by Mrs. W.&nbsp;S. Hoyt of Pelham,
+which was peculiarly ingenious, making a curious link between the
+cross-stitch tapestries of the German school and the woven tapestries of
+France. This needlework was done upon a fabric which imitated the corded
+texture of tapestries, and was stamped in a design which carried the
+color and idea of a tapestry background. Upon this surface Mrs. Hoyt had
+drawn a group of figures in medi&aelig;val costumes, afterward working them in
+single cross-stitch over the ribs produced by the filling threads of the
+fabric. The figures and costumes were done in faded tints which
+harmonized with the background, the stitches keeping the general effect
+of surface in the fabric. It will be seen that the result was extremely
+like that of a tapestry of the fifteenth century. This was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116"> [116]</a></span> followed by
+an exhibit of various landscape pictures of Mrs. Holmes of Boston, a
+daughter-in-law of the poet and writer. Mrs. Holmes had chosen silks and
+bits of weavings for her medium, using them as a painter uses colors
+upon his palette. A stretch of pale blue silk, with outlined hills lying
+against it, made for her a sky and background, while a middle distance
+of flossy white stitches, advancing into well-defined daisies, brought
+the foreground to one's very feet. Flower-laden apple branches against
+the sky were lightly sketched in embroidery stitches, like the daisies.
+It was a delicious bit of color and so well managed as to be as
+efficient a wall decoration as a water color picture.</p>
+
+<p>In what may be called pictorial art in textiles Mrs. Holmes was not
+alone, although her work probably incited to the same sort of
+experiment. Miss Weld of Boston sent a picture made up in the same way,
+of a background of material which lent itself to the representation of a
+field of swampy ground where the spotted leaves of the adder's tongue,
+the yellow water-lily, with its compact balls, and the flaming cardinal
+flower are growing, while swamp grasses are nodding<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117"> [117]</a></span> above. This was as
+good in its way as any sketch of them could be, and affected one with
+the <i>sentiment</i> of the scene, as it is the mission of art to do. Miss
+Weld, Miss Carolina Townshend of Albany, Mrs. William Hoyt of Pelham and
+Mrs. Dewey of New York, each contributed very largely to the formation
+of characteristic and progressive needlework art in America. There were
+other individuals whose work was inciting many, who have also, perhaps
+unknown to themselves, helped in this progress. Indeed, I remember many
+pieces of embroidery, loaned for the Bartholdi Exhibition of 1883, which
+would have done credit to any period of the art, and each piece
+undoubtedly had its influence.</p>
+
+<p>The work of schools or societies had been much less marked by original
+development. During the ten years of their existence the four largest
+societies, those of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, have
+been under the direction of English teachers, and have followed more or
+less closely the excellencies of the English School. Even in Boston,
+where, owing to the decided cultivation of art and the early
+introduction of drawing in the public schools, one would have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118"> [118]</a></span> looked
+for a rather characteristic development, English designs and English
+methods have been somewhat closely followed.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting to account for this fact one must remember that it is
+against the nature of associated authority to follow individual or
+original suggestions. There must be a broad and well-trodden path for
+committees to walk together in, and the track of the Kensington School
+is broad and authoritative enough for such following. The example and
+incitement of the various societies were the seed of much good and
+progressive art in America. In saying this I do not by any means confine
+the credit of the growth or development of needlework to this society
+alone, for there have been other influences at work. What I mean to say
+is this, that the other kindred societies, like the Woman's Exchange,
+the Needlework Societies, the Household Art Societies, and the
+Blue-and-White Industries started from this one root, and are as much
+indebted to the original society as things must always be to the central
+thought which inspired them. Compared with English work of the same
+period, they were distinguished by a certain spontaneity of motive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"> [119]</a></span>
+and a luxuriance of effect, which has made these specimens more valuable
+to present possessors, and will make them far more precious as
+heirlooms. This sudden efflorescence of the art was, however, almost in
+the hands of amateurs, except for the occasional effort by some of the
+advanced contributors of the New York and Boston societies.</p>
+
+<div class="pad">
+<p><a id="illu189-1" name="illu189-1"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb189-1.jpg" width="303" height="299"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full189-1.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum</p>
+<p class="caption">QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand.</p>
+</div>
+<p class="clear"><a id="illu189-2" name="illu189-2"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb189-2.jpg" width="359" height="323"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full189-2.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum</p>
+<p class="caption">DETAIL of above coverlet.</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The commercial development of embroidery in this country has been in the
+direction of embroidery upon linen, and in this line each and every
+society of decorative art has been a center of valuable teaching. At the
+Columbian Exposition, to which all prominent societies contributed, the
+perfection of design, color and method, the general level of excellence,
+was on the highest possible plane. In its line nothing could be better,
+and it was encouraging to see that it was <i>not</i> amateur work, <i>not</i> a
+thing to be taken up and laid down according to moods and circumstances,
+but an educated profession or occupation for women, the acquirement of a
+knowledge which might develop indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the trend of the decorative needlework was almost entirely in
+the direction of stitchery pure and simple, devoted to table<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120"> [120]</a></span> linen and
+luxurious household uses, and this grew to a point of absolute
+perfection. Table-centers and doilies embroidered in colors on pure
+white linen reached a point of beauty which was amazing. When I saw, at
+the World's Columbian Exposition, the napery of the world, wrought by
+all races of women, I was delighted to see that the line of linen
+embroidery which was the direction of the common effort did not in the
+least surpass the work sent by the Decorative Art societies of most of
+our American cities.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY" id="CHAPTER_VII_AMERICAN_TAPESTRY"></a>CHAPTER VII <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> AMERICAN TAPESTRY<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121"> [121]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>The Society of Decorative Art, has proved itself a means for the
+accomplishment of the two ends for which it was founded&mdash;namely, the
+fostering and incitement of good taste in needlework and artistic
+production, and the encouragement of talent in women, as well as
+providing a means of remunerative employment for their gifts in this
+direction.</p>
+
+<p>While the success of this Society was a source of great satisfaction to
+me, I had in my mind larger ambitions, which, by its very philanthropic
+purposes, could not be satisfied, ambitions toward a truly great
+American effort in a lasting direction.</p>
+
+<p>I therefore allied myself with a newly formed group of men, all
+well-known in their own lines of art, Louis Tiffany, famed for his
+Stained Glass, Mr. Coleman for color decoration and the use of textiles,
+and Mr. De Forest for carved and ornamental woodwork. My interests lay
+in the direction and execution of embroideries. I can speak
+authoritatively as to the effect upon it of the other arts, and I can
+hardly imagine better<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122"> [122]</a></span> conditions for its development. The kindred arts
+of weaving and embroidery were carried on with those of stained glass,
+mural painting, illustration, and the other expressions of art peculiar
+to the different members. The association of different forms of art
+stimulated and developed and was the means of producing very important
+examples both in embroidery, needle-woven tapestries and loom weaving.</p>
+
+<p>As I was the woman member of this association of artists, it rested with
+me to adapt the feminine art, which was a part of its activities, to the
+requirements of the association. This was no small task. It meant the
+fitting of any and every textile used in the furnishing of a house to
+its use and place, whether it might be curtains, portieres, or wall
+coverings. I drew designs which would give my draperies a framing which
+carried out the woodwork, and served as backgrounds for the desired
+wreaths and garlands of embroidered flowers. I learned many valuable
+lessons of adaptation for the beautiful embroideries we produced. The
+net holding roses was a triumph of picturesque stitchery, and most
+acceptable as placed in the house of the man whose fortunes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123"> [123]</a></span> depended
+upon fish, and many another of like character.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu195" name="illu195"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb195.jpg" width="370" height="575"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full195.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">THE WINGED MOON</p>
+<p class="caption">Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then one day appeared Mrs. Langtry in her then radiance of beauty,
+insisting upon a conference with me upon the production of a set of
+bed-hangings which were intended for the astonishment of the London
+world and to overshadow all the modest and schooled productions of the
+Kensington, when she herself should be the proud exhibitor. She looked
+at all the beautiful things we had done and were doing, and admired and
+approved, but still she wanted "something different, something unusual."
+I suggested a canopy of our strong, gauze-like, creamy silk
+bolting-cloth, the tissue used in flour mills for sifting the superfine
+flour. I explained that the canopy could be crosses on the under side
+with loops of full-blown, sunset-colored roses, and the hanging border
+heaped with them. That there might be a coverlet of bolting-cloth lined
+with the delicatest shade of rose-pink satin, sprinkled plentifully with
+rose petals fallen from the wreaths above. This idea satisfied the
+pretty lady, who seemed to find great pleasure in the range of our
+exhibits, our designs and our workrooms, and when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"> [124]</a></span> her order was
+completed, she was triumphantly satisfied with its beauty and
+unusualness. The scattered petals were true portraits done from nature,
+and looked as though they could be shaken off at any minute. I came to
+see much of this beautiful specimen of womanhood, who played her part in
+the eyes of the world; and of things of more lasting importance than her
+somewhat ephemeral career, I should be tempted to tell amusing
+conclusions. She was an Oriental butterfly, which flitted along our
+sober, serious by-path of business and labor, looking for honey of any
+sort to be gathered on its sober track.</p>
+
+<p>When Mr. Tiffany came to me with an order for the drop-curtain of a
+theater, I did not trouble myself about a scheme for it, knowing that it
+had probably taken exact and interesting form in his own mind. It was a
+beautiful lesson to me, this largeness of purpose in needlework. The
+design for this curtain turned out to be a very realistic view of a
+vista in the woods, which gave opportunity for wonderful studies of
+color, from clear sun-lit foregrounds to tangles of misty green, melting
+into blue perspectives of distance. It was really a daring experiment in
+methods of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125"> [125]</a></span> appliqu&eacute;, for no stitchery pure and simple was in place in
+the wide reaches of the picture. So we went on painting a woods interior
+in materials of all sorts, from tenuous cr&ecirc;pes to solid velvets and
+plushes. It was one of Mrs. Holmes' silk pictures on a large scale, and
+was perhaps more than reasonably successful. I remember the great
+delight in marking the difference between oak and birch trees and
+fitting each with its appropriate effect of color and texture of leaf;
+and the building of a tall gray-green yucca, with its thick satin leaves
+and tall white pyramidal groups of velvet blossoms, standing in the very
+foreground, was as exciting as if it were standing posed for its
+portrait, and being painted in oils.</p>
+
+<p>The variety of our work was a good influence for progress. We were
+constantly reaching out to fill the various demands, and, beyond them,
+to materialize our ideals. As far as art was concerned in our work, what
+we tried to do was not to repeat the triumphs of past needlework, but to
+see how far the best which had been done was applicable to the present.</p>
+
+<p>If tapestries had been the highest mark of the past, to see whether and
+how their use could be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126"> [126]</a></span> fitted to the circumstances of today, and, if we
+found a fit place for them in modern decoration, to see that their
+production took account of the methods and materials which belonged to
+present periods, and adapted the production to modern demands.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu201" name="illu201"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb201.jpg" width="369" height="602"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full201.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="source right clear">Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms</p>
+<p class="caption">SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We soon came to the ideal of tapestries which loomed above and beyond us
+and had been reached by every nation in turn which had applied art to
+textiles, but in all except very early work the accomplishment had been
+more of the loom than of hand work. My dream was of American Tapestries,
+made by embroidery alone, carrying personal thought into method. We
+decided that there was no reason for the limitation of the beautiful art
+of needlework to personal use, or even to its numerous domestic
+purposes. This most intimate of the arts of decoration has been in the
+form of wall hangings for the bare wall spaces of architecture from the
+time when dwellings passed their first limited use of protection and
+defense. After this first use of houses came the instinct and longing
+for beauty, and the feeling which prompts us in these wider days of
+achievement to cover our wall spaces with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127"> [127]</a></span> pictures, moved our far-off
+forefathers and mothers to offer their skill in spinning, and weaving,
+and picturing with the needle hangings to cover the bareness of the
+home. This impulse grew with the centuries, until tapestries were a
+natural art expression of different races of men, so that we have
+Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch and English tapestries, each with
+national tastes and characteristics of production. As time went on,
+inevitable machinery undertook the task of making wall hangings, with
+the whole-hearted help of all who had given their lives to art, and
+tapestries had become a part of the riches of the world. When the
+greater part of the world's wealth was in the possession of Popes and
+Princes, it was usual to expend a goodly portion of it in works of art.
+Pictures and tapestries and exquisitely wrought metal work, weavings and
+embroideries, made priceless by costly materials and the thoughts and
+labor of artists, were reckoned not as a sign of wealth but as actual
+wealth. They were really riches, as much as stocks and bonds are riches
+today. Such things were accumulated as anxiously and persistently as one
+accumulates land or houses, or railroad bonds or stocks, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128"> [128]</a></span> the buyer
+was not poorer; but in fact he was richer for money expended in this
+fashion. This everyday financial fact lay underneath and supported the
+beautiful pageant of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gilding them
+with a radiance which has attracted the admiration and excited the
+wonder of all succeeding years.</p>
+
+<p>That flower and culmination of labor which we call art was the capital
+of those early centuries, and took the place of the Bank, the Bourse,
+and the Exchange which later financial ideas have created.</p>
+
+<p>It is in a great measure to this fact, as well as to the intense love
+for, and appreciation of, art which distinguished this period, that we
+owe the wonderful treasures which have enriched the later world. They
+belong no longer to princes and prelates, but to governments and
+museums, and are object lessons to the student and the artisan, and an
+inheritance for both rich and poor of all mankind.</p>
+
+<p>Except in the light of these treasures of art, it would be difficult to
+understand how far-reaching and comprehensive was the greed of beauty
+which possessed and distinguished the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"> [129]</a></span> centers of tapestry production.
+The museums of the world are made up of what remains of them. The
+pictures and tapestries, the weavings and embroideries, the carvings and
+metal work which the world is studying, belonged to the daily life of
+those past centuries. The stamp of thought and the seal of art were set
+upon the simplest conveniences of life. The very keys of the locks and
+hinges of the doors were designed, not by mere workers in metal, but by
+sculptors and artists who were pre-eminent for genius. It was in the
+spirit of this period that Benvenuto Cellini modeled saltcellars as well
+as statues, and his compeers designed carvings and gildings for state
+carriages, and painted pictures upon the panels. Painters of divine
+pictures designed cartoons and borders for tapestries, and wreaths and
+garlands for ceiling pilasters.</p>
+
+<p>Among the names of painters who designed cartoons for tapestries, we
+find those of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Guido and Giulio
+Romano, Albert D&uuml;rer, Rubens and Van Dyck. Indeed, there is hardly a
+great name among the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+which has not contributed to the value of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130"> [130]</a></span> tapestries dating from
+those times. Among them all none have a greater share of glory than the
+series known as "The Acts of the Apostles," designed by Raphael for Pope
+Leo X, in the year 1515. The history of these cartoons is full of
+interest. After the weaving of the first set of these tapestries, which
+was hung in the Sistine Chapel and regarded as among the greatest
+treasures of the world, the cartoons remained for more than a hundred
+years in the manufactory at Brussels. During this period one or more
+sets must have been woven from them, but in 1630 seven were transferred
+to the Mortlake Tapestry works near London, having been purchased by
+Charles I, who was advised of their existence by Rubens. The Mortlake
+tapestry had been established by James I, who was greatly aided by the
+interest of the then Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Buckingham. It is
+charming to think of "Baby Charles" and "Steenie" busying themselves
+with the encouragement of art in the way of the production of tapestry
+pictures, and after the accession of the Prince, to follow the progress
+of this taste in the purchase of the famous cartoons, and the employment
+of no less a genius than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131"> [131]</a></span> Van Dyck in the composition of new and more
+elaborate borders for them. It was probably during the reign of Charles
+that these glorious compositions went into use as illustrations of
+Biblical text, for we find "Paul preaching at Athens," "Peter and Paul
+at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple," and "The Miraculous Draught of
+Fishes" figuring as full-page frontispieces to many old copies of King
+James' Bible. After the tragic close of the reign of King Charles, the
+treasures of tapestries he had accumulated were dispersed and sold by
+order of Cromwell; but the cartoons remained the property of the nation
+and, though lost to sight for another hundred years or so, finally
+reappeared from their obscurity, at Hampton Court, and in these later
+years, at the Kensington Museum, have again taken their place as one of
+the most valuable lessons of earlier centuries. It was probably the
+story of these cartoons which inspired the determination which had taken
+possession of us, to do a real tapestry, something greatly worthy of
+accomplishment.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu207" name="illu207"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 550px;">
+<img src="images/thumb207.jpg" width="507" height="387"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full207.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES</p>
+<p class="caption">Arranged (from photographs made in London of the original cartoon by
+Raphael, in the Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+needle-woven tapestry by the Associated Artists.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When we came to the decision to create tapestries, the actual substance
+of them, as well as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132"> [132]</a></span> the art, was a thing to be considered. The wool
+fiber upon which they were usually based was a prey to many enemies.
+Dust may corrupt and moths utterly destroy fiber of wool, but dust does
+not accumulate on threads of silk, neither are they quite acceptable to
+the appetite of moths. Therefore, we reasoned, if we did work which was
+worthy of comparative immortality, it must be done with comparatively
+imperishable material. Fiber of flax and fiber of silk shared this
+advantage, and the silk was tenacious of color, which was not the case
+with flax; therefore we chose silk and went bravely to our task of
+creating American tapestries.</p>
+
+<p>Having decided upon our material, we consulted with our friendly and
+interested manufacturers, and finally ordered a broad, heavily marked,
+loosely woven fabric which would hold our precious stitches safely and
+show them to advantage. The woof of the canvas upon which we were to
+experiment was also of silk, not fine and twisted like the warp, but
+soft and full enough to hold silk stitchery. In this way the face of the
+canvas, or ground, could be quite covered by a full thread of embroidery
+silk passed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133"> [133]</a></span> under the slender warp and actually sewn into the woof.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu211" name="illu211"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb211.jpg" width="386" height="585"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full211.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL</p>
+<p class="caption">Drawn by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1884.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Being thus fully equipped for the production of real tapestries, well
+adapted to the processes of what I called "needle weaving," since the
+needle was really used as a shuttle to carry threads over and under the
+already fixed warp, the next decision rested upon the subject of this
+new application of the art and the knowledge we had gained by study and
+practice and love of textile art. With a courage which we now wonder at,
+we selected perhaps the most difficult, as it certainly is the most
+beautiful, of surviving tapestries, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,"
+the cartoon of which, designed by Raphael, is at present to be seen and
+studied at the Kensington Museum in London. The decision to copy this
+was perhaps influenced by the fact that it was the only original cartoon
+of which I had knowledge, and my summer holiday in London was spent in
+its study, and schemes for its exact reproduction. As it was spread upon
+a wall in museum fashion, a drawing could not be actually verified by
+measurements, but an expedient came to me which proved to be
+satisfactory. I had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134"> [134]</a></span> two photographs, as large as possible, made from
+the cartoon, and one of them, being very faintly printed, copied exactly
+in color; the other was ruled and cut into squares, and was again
+photographed and enlarged to a size which would bring them, when joined,
+to the same measurements as the original cartoon. These, very carefully
+put together, made a working drawing for my tapestry copy, and the
+lighter photograph, which had been most carefully water-colored, gave
+the color guide for the copy.</p>
+
+<p>It was interesting to find the perforations along the lines of the
+composition still showing in the photographed cartoon, and we made use
+of them by going over them with pin pricks, fastening the cartoon over
+the sheet of silk canvas woven for the background, so that there was no
+possibility of shifting. Prepared powder was sifted through the lines of
+perforation and fixed by the application of heat, and we then had the
+entire composition exactly outlined upon the ground. After that the work
+of superimposing color and shading by needle weaving was a labor of love
+and diligent fingers during many months. Every inch of stitchery was
+carefully criticized<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135"> [135]</a></span> and constantly compared with the colored copy,
+and at last it was a finished tapestry and was hung in a north light on
+one of the great spaces of the studio, where it was an object of expert
+examination and general admiration.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu215" name="illu215"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb215.jpg" width="343" height="612"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full215.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">APHRODITE</p>
+<p class="caption">Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry worked by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is by far the most important work accomplished by needle weaving
+which has ever been made in America, and is as veritable a copy of the
+original as if it were painted with brush and pigment, instead of being
+woven with threads of silk. The low lights of the evening sky, the
+reflections of the boats, and the stooping figures of the fishermen, the
+perspective of the distant shore, and the wonderful grouping in the
+foreground, keep their charm in the tapestry as they do in the picture.
+Even the mystery of the twilight is rendered, with the subtle effect we
+feel, but can scarcely define, in the original drawing.</p>
+
+<p>It has been a curiously direct process from the hand of the great
+master, to this new reproduction, although it stands so far from his
+time and life. His very thought was painted by his very hand upon the
+paper of the cartoon, and this painted thought has been photographed
+upon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"> [136]</a></span> another paper which has served as a guide to the copy.</p>
+
+<p>It makes us sharers in the art riches of Raphael's own time, to see a
+new embodiment of his thought appearing as a part of the nineteenth
+century's accomplishments and possessions.</p>
+
+<p>After this achievement we naturally began to look for appropriate use
+for the small tapestries, but here came our stumbling block. The breed
+of princes, who had been the former patrons of such works of art, were
+all asleep in their graves, and knew not America, or its ambitions, and
+our native breed was not an hereditary one, building galleries in
+palaces, and collecting there the largest of precious accomplishments in
+artistic skill in order to perpetuate their own memories, as well as to
+enrich their descendants. Our princes were perhaps as rich as they, and
+possibly as powerful, but their ambitions did not usually extend to a
+line of posterity. Their palaces were contracted to a "three score and
+ten" size; for each of them, no matter how wide his capability of
+enjoyment, knew that it was personal and ended when his little spark of
+life should be extinguished. I gladly record, however, that in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137"> [137]</a></span> these
+later days some of them have made the American world their heirs, and
+are building and enriching museums and colleges, making them palaces of
+growth and enlightenment, and so giving to the many what an older race
+of princes built and enriched and guarded for the few.</p>
+
+<p>But in the meantime what were we to do about our tapestries? They were
+costly, very costly to produce, and although we took account of the
+delight of their creation and put it on the credit side of our books,
+along with the fact that the weekly pay roll of the tapestry room went
+for the comfort and maintenance of the students whom we loved and
+cherished, I soon realized the fact that a commercial firm could not be
+burdened with the fads of any one member. Before I had carried this
+conclusion to its logical end, we had opportunities of using our skill
+worthily in several of the new great houses of the time. When the
+Cornelius Vanderbilt house was erected on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh
+Street we received an order for a set of tapestries for the drawing-room
+walls. These were executed from ideal subjects and of single figures. I
+remember the "Winged Moon" among them, which was an ideal figure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138"> [138]</a></span> of the
+new moon lying in a cradle of her own wings. This was but one of the
+set, one or two of which we afterward made in replica for an exhibit in
+London. There was no lack of subjects in our background of American
+history. The legends and beliefs of our North American Indians were full
+of them, and one of the first we selected was the lovely story of
+"Minnehaha, Laughing Water," from Longfellow's "Hiawatha." The sketch
+had been sent to us by Miss Dora Wheeler, as the prize composition of
+the Saturday Composition Class at Julien's Studio in Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The literary past of the country furnished subjects enough and to spare,
+and if we wished to walk into the shadowy realms of legend and fiction,
+there were the picturesque legends of the American Indian from which to
+choose. Our subjects were often one-figure designs, as such pieces were
+suitable in size to wall spaces and door openings. Of course commercial
+considerations could not be lost sight of in our enthusiasm for progress
+in textile art. Potter Palmer, the multimillionaire of Chicago, was
+building at the time a palace home on the Lake Shore, and one auspicious
+day Mrs. Palmer bestowed her beautiful<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139"> [139]</a></span> presence upon us, and was
+mightily taken with our tapestries. Her clever mind was attracted by the
+"bookishness" of some of the panels of incidents from American
+literature, and several of them went to beautify the great house on the
+Lake Shore, in the form of several panels of portraits. Mrs. Palmer was
+a delightful patron, her own enjoyment of art, in any of its forms,
+amounted to enthusiasm, and her great physical beauty, to a beauty
+lover, made every visit from her an epoch. I have never seen the face of
+an adult woman who has had the experience of wifehood and motherhood
+which retained so perfectly the flawless beauty of childhood. I have
+often gazed at the angelic face of some child, and wondered why each
+year of life should wipe out some exquisite line of drawing, or absorb
+the entrancing shadows which rest upon the face of childhood. It was a
+great satisfaction to personally assist in the furnishing of the home of
+this beautiful aristocrat, whose own law allowed of no infringement by
+our mighty three, having been shaped in a mind enriched by much
+classical study and constant acquaintance with the beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>When our embroideries and needlework had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140"> [140]</a></span> taken their place in this
+country, we were asked to make part of an Exhibition of American Art in
+London. This we were very glad to do, for the artistic gratification of
+being able to measure what we were doing with the best art of the kind
+abroad. It was also pleasant to be considered worthy company with the
+best in our own land, to rub shoulders with our best painters, our great
+makers of stained glass, leaders who take genuine pleasure in ideal
+work. Of course this applies to amateur work only, as professional
+decoration must accord with the general plan which has been selected.</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu223" name="illu223"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 410px;">
+<img src="images/thumb223.jpg" width="352" height="371"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full223.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">FIGHTING DRAGONS</p>
+<p class="caption">Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered by The Associated Artists,
+1885.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>I had reason to think that the Exhibition made by the Associated Artists
+at Chicago was of lasting use to all lovers of needlework, the world
+over, since so many other races came there to get their world lessons. I
+learned much that was of value to me from familiar study of the exhibits
+from different countries, from their excellencies and differences and
+the reasons why such wide divergences existed, and from observation of
+the people themselves who produced them&mdash;for many of the exhibits were
+in charge of practical needleworkers who knew the history of their art
+from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"> [141]</a></span> its very beginning. I found more of interest in Oriental art
+from seeing that it was not merely a perfunctory repetition of stitches
+and patterns, but that there was a stanch, almost a religious, integrity
+in doing the thing exactly as it had been done by generations of
+forefathers, and that the silks and tissues and flosses and threads of
+gold were the best the world produced. In the presence of such fidelity,
+what mattered it that the borders and blocks were formed of angles, or
+zigzags, or squares, or any other fixed and mechanical shapes? The
+spirit of it was true to its race and traditions. In the face of it, all
+our beautiful copies of flowers, and growths, and gracious forms of
+nature seemed almost experimental&mdash;the art of growing and changing
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>But as we do not make the early art of long existent races models upon
+which to shape our search for the most beautiful, the persistence of
+Eastern form in embroidery need not prevent our progress in design. I
+made an interesting note of this persistence of Eastern design, when,
+many years ago, I had an opportunity of examining some mummy wrappings
+from a burial ground at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142"> [142]</a></span> Lima, Peru. They were wonderful weavings of
+aboriginal cloth, bordered with embroidery done in dyed or colored
+threads of flax, in designs as purely Eastern as can be found in any
+ancient or modern Eastern embroidery. How could it happen that the
+ornamental designs of the Far East and the Far West should touch each
+other? Was it similarity of thought knowledge, the kinship of the human
+mind, or some long-forgotten means of transmission of the material and
+actual, of which we all-knowing moderns do not even dream? This
+wonderful South American embroidery of past ages antedated many antique
+remains of the art of stitchery which we treasure with as wide a margin
+of time as lies between their day and ours.</p>
+
+<p>Embroidery has become a dependence and a business for thousands of
+women, and it is this which secures its permanence. We may trust
+skillful executants who live by its practice to keep ahead of the
+changing fancies of society and invent for it new wants and new
+fashions. And this, because their chance of living depends upon it, and
+it promises to be a permanent and growing art. It may, and will,
+undoubtedly, take<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143"> [143]</a></span> on new directions, but it is no longer a lost art. On
+the contrary, it is one where practice has attained such perfection that
+it is fully equal to any new demands and quite competent to answer any
+of the higher calls of art.</p>
+
+
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII_THE_BAYEUX_TAPESTRIES" id="CHAPTER_VIII_THE_BAYEUX_TAPESTRIES"></a>CHAPTER VIII <img class="inline" src="images/ornament.png" width="38" height="30" alt="" /> THE BAYEUX TAPESTRIES<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144"> [144]</a></span></h2>
+
+
+<p>While a description of this most important work of women's hands may
+seem somewhat irrelevant in a book devoted to the development of the art
+of embroidery in America, it is so important a link in the subject of
+stitchery, executed as it was in the eleventh century, that a short
+chapter on this most interesting and vital subject may not come amiss.</p>
+
+<p>Among all our present possessions of early skill, perhaps nothing is
+more widely known than what is called the Bayeux Tapestry. This much
+venerated work is not tapestry at all, but a pictorial record in
+outline, done with a needle, as simply as though written in ink, at
+least according to our present understanding of what is known as
+tapestry.</p>
+
+<p>We read of the subject, and the name of William the Conqueror looms
+large in the imagination. We think of the tapestry as a great
+illustrated page of history, large in proportion not alone to the deeds
+it chronicles, but to their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145"> [145]</a></span> importance in the story of one of the
+greatest, perhaps, of the modern races; and across this illustrated page
+we fancy the prancing of war horses and the prowess of the knight, the
+passing of seas and the march of armies, with all the attendant tragedy
+of circumstance.</p>
+
+<p>But this is only in one's mind. The reality is a more or less tattered
+strip of grayish-white linen, two feet in width and two hundred and
+thirty feet long, and along this frail bridge between the past and
+present march the actors in the great conquest. It seems but an
+inadequate pathway, but it has borne its phalanxes of men, its two
+hundred horses, its five hundred and fifty-five dogs and other animals,
+its forty-one ships, its numberless castles and trees, its roads and
+farms safely through all the intervening years from 1066 to 1919, and it
+still holds them.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, we wonder much over this production of the past, and not alone
+over the heroes who career so mildly in their armor of colored crewels
+on the linen background. We wonder, in the first place, how a continuous
+web of over two hundred feet in length could have been woven. Then, we
+know that lengths of woven stuffs are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146"> [146]</a></span> limited only by the requirements
+of commerce, and that Matilda was of Flanders, and her father had
+learned the princely trick of loving and encouraging manufactures, and
+had, indeed, taught it to his daughter, and that Flanders was a noted
+center of manufacture. Then we decide that if Matilda had called for a
+strip of linen two thousand feet long, whereon to write the warlike
+history of a spouse who began his gentle part toward her (for so history
+avers) by pulling her from her horse and rolling her in the mud because
+she refused to marry him, it would have been forthcoming as easily as
+two hundred. Should the Queen of England require a stretch of linen as
+long as from England to America, whereon to record the successes of her
+reign, who doubts that it would be supplied her?</p>
+
+<p><a id="illu231" name="illu231"></a></p>
+<div class="figcenter pad" style="width: 450px;">
+<img src="images/thumb231.jpg" width="403" height="684"
+      alt="" />
+<p class="linktext"><a href="images/full231.jpg">larger image</a></p>
+<p class="caption">THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So, when the question of this web is disposed of, we wonder who drew all
+these figures of men and horses, for Queen Matilda and her ladies to
+overlay with stitchery, and why his name has not come down to us. We
+decide within our minds, for it never occurs to us to impute such
+ability in drawing to the Queen or her ladies, that it was the work of
+some monkish brother who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147"> [147]</a></span> varied his illuminating labor upon missals
+and copies of the Scripture by doing these worldly and interesting
+things.</p>
+
+<p>We think of the never to be forgotten Gerard in <i>The Cloister and the
+Hearth</i>, and wonder if it was some monastery-trained youth like him who
+rested from the creation of saints and angels upon vellum, to draw
+fighting knights upon linen, and whether, perchance, his hushed heart
+burned within him at the stir and valor of the deeds he portrayed. And
+then some one, better informed than we, points out the figure of a
+dwarf, nicely labeled as Turold&mdash;for many of the actors in this
+embroidered story are labeled in delicate stitches&mdash;and tells us that
+his was the hand that set the copy for all the happy and beloved maids
+of the Queen, and the hapless and perhaps equally beloved Saxon maids.
+We wonder, again, how these skillful and noble Saxons like to find
+themselves thus writing their own infelicities and humiliations for all
+the world to see, and then&mdash;for so does the human mind go groping into
+motives and springs of action&mdash;we wonder if their famous skill in
+needlework, of which the wide-awake Matilda must surely have known, put
+it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"> [148]</a></span> into her head to make this curious life-record of her great lord,
+and we reflect that if it were so, it would only be another facet of her
+many-sided ability.</p>
+
+<p>But that was underneath the surface. Outside was the queenly
+magnificence and wifely glorification of her lot, a smooth current of
+irresistible prosperity. Underneath was the whirling and buzzing of the
+wheels of thought, the springs of motion which governed the great
+current.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, two such clever thought centers as William of Normandy and
+Matilda of Flanders seldom in the world have made a conjunction, or we
+would have had more great conquests to record. We may fancy what we will
+in the far background which this slender length of linen reaches, all
+the byplay which accompanied the guarded life of the castle, the
+religious life of the cathedral and monastery, the colored and bannered
+pomp of duke and noble.</p>
+
+<p>It was all mightily picturesque, with its contrasts of gorgeousness and
+privation, but probably Matilda the dexterous thought that times were
+good enough when she could sit in safety, surrounded by her maids and
+priests, and write her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149"> [149]</a></span> royal journal as she pleased, with a threaded
+stylus; and well for us that she elected to do this, although her
+records are written in so quaint a fashion that amusement and interest
+are twin spectators of the result.</p>
+
+<p>Two borders, upper and lower, remind one irresistibly of a child's
+processional picture on a slate. The figures are done in outline only,
+colors corresponding to those used in the body of the work. Each border
+is some six inches wide, and has the air of a little running commentary
+or enlargement of the main story. There are variations and incidents
+which could not perhaps be put down in the main body, where all the
+figures are worked solidly in the stitch which has been rechristened
+"Kensington stitch." The horses are worked in red-brown and gray
+crewels, some of them duly spotted and dappled, the banners and
+gonfalons carefully wrought in the colors and devices belonging to them.
+The whole work follows scrupulously the scenes of the Conquest, giving
+the lives of the actors both in Normandy and England, as well as the
+transit from one country to the other.</p>
+
+<p>The first scene evidently represents Edward the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150"> [150]</a></span> Confessor giving
+audience to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. The next gives the
+embarkation of Harold, and the third his capture in France.</p>
+
+<p>Then comes the death of Edward, and the tapestry story struggles
+ineffectually with the incidents of his death and funeral; and the
+election of Harold as King of England, showing him seated crowned and in
+royal robes under a very primitive canopy. After this, the scene shifts
+again to France, and portrays the preparations for invasion made by the
+Duke of Normandy, who was called by the people of the country he invaded
+"William the Conqueror," and who have continued to know him only by that
+name through all succeeding centuries, the shame and sorrow of
+vanquishment quite buried under the glory of the performance, Saxon and
+Norman uniting in esteem of the successful result.</p>
+
+<p>All this history is duly set forth in archaic simplicity by the stitches
+of Queen Matilda, who, in preserving the record of the deeds of her
+doughty lord, has set down also a record of herself as the ideal wife,
+who glorifies her husband, and merges all she is of woman into that
+condition&mdash;and still it is only a strip of linen worked in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151"> [151]</a></span> crewels. All
+the triumphs of the great Conqueror are written upon it, but none of the
+disappointments. The needlework story does not relate (how could it when
+Matilda's active, trained and industrious fingers had been stilled by
+death?) the sorrows which overcame even her fortunate hero&mdash;that his
+body was robbed of its clothing, and lay naked and dishonored beside a
+disputed grave, where even the solemn claim of death to burial was
+resisted until an old wrong "done in the body" was righted. And though
+his son reigned after him, and he founded a royal line, perhaps one of
+the greatest enjoyments of his successful life consisted in watching the
+fingers of his well-beloved Matilda as they worked this linen record.</p>
+
+<p>Of course it is the great events it portrays and the human interest it
+holds which make this tapestry exceedingly valuable, for, artistically,
+it is of no more value than a child's sampler. But, simple as it is,
+volumes have been written about it. Scholars and historians have pored
+over its pictured history, money without stint has been spent in paper
+reproductions of it, and, finally, the whole important embroidery
+society<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152"> [152]</a></span> of Leeds, England, spent two industrious years in copying it,
+and earned fame and envy thereby.</p>
+
+<p>The wonderful remains of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify
+the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of
+the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of
+time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to
+work that is widely different from that of the ages when embroidery was
+a natural recourse and almost universal practice, but it is an art which
+has done too much for the progress of the world, in all its different
+phases, to die, or to cease to progress. There will always be quiet
+souls, whose lives have been made so by circumstances, who will find
+solace in the practice of needlework, so we may safely leave with them
+an art which has done so much for mankind.</p>
+
+<p class="center pad">THE END</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in
+America, by Candace Wheeler
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+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in America, by
+Candace Wheeler
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Development of Embroidery in America
+
+Author: Candace Wheeler
+
+Release Date: January 4, 2008 [EBook #24165]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Constanze Hofmann and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  THE DEVELOPMENT
+  OF EMBROIDERY IN
+  AMERICA
+
+  By Candace Wheeler
+
+  [Illustration: CANDACE WHEELER
+
+  From the painting by her daughter Dora Wheeler Keith.
+
+  _Painted by Dora Wheeler Keith_]
+
+
+
+
+  THE DEVELOPMENT OF
+  EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+  _By_
+
+  CANDACE WHEELER
+
+  _Illustrated_
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
+  NEW YORK AND LONDON
+  MCMXXI
+
+
+
+
+  DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+  Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
+  Printed in the United States of America
+  X-V
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAP.                                                             PAGE
+
+  Introductory. The Story of the Needle                                3
+
+  I.    Beginnings in the New World                                   10
+
+  II.   The Crewelwork of Our Puritan Mothers                         17
+
+  III.  Samplers and a Word About Quilts                              48
+
+  IV.   Moravian Work, Portraiture, French Embroidery and Lacework    62
+
+  V.    Berlin Woolwork                                               96
+
+  VI.   Revival of Embroidery, and the Founding of the Society
+        of Decorative Art                                            102
+
+  VII.  American Tapestry                                            121
+
+  VIII. The Bayeux Tapestries                                        144
+
+
+
+
+  ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  CANDACE WHEELER. From the painting by her daughter
+      Dora Wheeler Keith                                    Frontispiece
+
+  MOCCASINS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK.
+      Made by Sioux Indians                                  _Facing_ 12
+
+  PIPE BAGS OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Sioux Indians             12
+
+  MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Sioux Indians          14
+
+  MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK. Made by Plains Indians         14
+
+  CREWEL DESIGN, drawn and colored, which dates back
+      to Colonial times                                               18
+
+  TESTER embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+      homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass.,
+      in 1640, by Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth            22
+
+  RAISED EMBROIDERY ON BLACK VELVET. Nineteenth century American      22
+
+  QUILTED COVERLET made by Ann Gurnee                                 26
+
+  HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET with King George's Crown embroidered
+      with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+      home at Fort Lee, N. J., where Washington was entertained       26
+
+  CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET, made about 1830, of homespun wool with
+      "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter
+      worked in the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red,
+      yellow, and dark green. From the Westervelt collection          26
+
+  BED SET, Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and worked
+      by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework,
+      Deerfield, Mass.                                                32
+
+  BED COVERS worked in candle wicking                                 32
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the possession
+      of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N. J.                        50
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in colors on ecru linen, by Mary Ann Marley,
+      aged twelve, August 30, 1820                                    52
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in brown on ecru linen, by Martha Carter
+      Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished
+      at her death                                                    52
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late eighteenth
+      century American                                                54
+
+  MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to
+      the memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805      54
+
+  SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806,
+      by Sarah Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L. I.                         54
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in 1810              56
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793          56
+
+  PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John Quincy Adams,
+      and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection                      56
+
+  SAMPLER in drawnwork, ecru linen thread, made by Anne Gower,
+      wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628                         60
+
+  SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on ecru canvas by Mary
+      Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant,
+      married July, 1675, accused of witchcraft in 1692,
+      but escaped to New York                                         60
+
+  SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born
+      February 19, 1780, in Bristol                                   60
+
+  NEEDLEBOOK of Moravian embroidery made about 1850, now in
+      the possession of Mrs. J. N. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa.              64
+
+  MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY worked by Emily E. Reynolds, Plymouth, Pa.,
+      in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian Seminary
+      in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter                64
+
+  MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY from Louisville, Ky.                            66
+
+  LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania Dutch
+      early nineteenth century                                        70
+
+  "THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"--Moravian embroidered picture,
+      an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa. Worked by
+      Sarah Kummer about 1790                                         74
+
+  "SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"--Cross-stitch picture
+      made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family,
+      Bethlehem, Pa.                                                  74
+
+  ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred Hoskins,
+      of Edenton, N. C., while attending an English finishing school
+      in Baltimore in 1814                                            76
+
+  FIRE SCREEN embroidered in cross-stitch worsted                     78
+
+  FIRE SCREEN, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+      cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen                    78
+
+  FIRE SCREEN worked about 1850 by Miss C. A. Granger,
+      of Canandaigua, N. Y.                                           78
+
+  EMBROIDERED PICTURE in silks, with a painted sky                    80
+
+  CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI. Embroidered picture in silks,
+      with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very, of Salem,
+      at the age of sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school            80
+
+  CAPE of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century American         84
+
+  COLLARS of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century American    84
+
+  BABY'S CAP. White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+      Nineteenth century American                                     86
+
+  BABY'S CAP. Embroidered mull. 1825                                  86
+
+  COLLAR of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century American     86
+
+  EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the
+      Westervelt collection                                           88
+
+  EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS, 1850. From the collection
+      of Mrs. George Coe                                              88
+
+  EMBROIDERY ON NET. Border for the front of a cap made about 1820    90
+
+  VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net.
+      American nineteenth century                                     90
+
+  LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 x 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+      collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier                            92
+
+  HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the Dutch.
+      The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on
+      which the design was darned with linen. Made about 1800
+      and used in the end of linen pillow cases                       92
+
+  BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliqued
+      on blue woolen ground                                           98
+
+  NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point.
+      Single cross-stitch                                             98
+
+  HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse needlepoint                 100
+
+  TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+      and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand
+      weave originated at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms               100
+
+  EMBROIDERED MITS                                                   104
+
+  WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+      century American                                               104
+
+  WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+      century American                                               104
+
+  EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post
+      bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton,
+      by Mrs. Gideon Granger, Canandaigua, New York                  104
+
+  DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool                    108
+
+  LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch
+      with colored wool                                              108
+
+  QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand                           118
+
+  DETAIL of quilted coverlet                                         118
+
+  THE WINGED MOON. Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed
+      in needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists, 1883       122
+
+  SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL                          126
+
+  THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES. Arranged (from photographs
+      made in London of the original cartoon by Raphael, in the
+      Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+      needle-woven tapestry by The Associated Artists                130
+
+  MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL. Drawn by Dora Wheeler
+      and executed in needle-woven tapestry by
+      The Associated Artists, 1884                                   132
+
+  APHRODITE. Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry
+      worked by The Associated Artists, 1883                         134
+
+  FIGHTING DRAGONS. Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered
+      by The Associated Artists, 1885                                140
+
+  THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY                              146
+
+
+
+
+THE DEVELOPMENT OF EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY -- THE STORY OF THE NEEDLE
+
+
+The story of embroidery includes in its history all the work of the
+needle since Eve sewed fig leaves together in the Garden of Eden. We are
+the inheritors of the knowledge and skill of all the daughters of Eve in
+all that concerns its use since the beginning of time.
+
+When this small implement came open-eyed into the world it brought with
+it possibilities of well-being and comfort for races and ages to come.
+It has been an instrument of beneficence as long ago as "Dorcas sewed
+garments and gave them to the poor," and has been a creator of beauty
+since Sisera gave to his mother "a prey of needlework, 'alike on both
+sides.'" This little descriptive phrase--alike on both sides--will at
+once suggest to all needlewomen a perfection of method almost without
+parallel. Of course it can be done, but the skill of it must have been
+rare, even in those far-off days of leisure when duties and pleasures
+did not crowd out painstaking tasks, and every art was carried as far as
+human assiduity and invention could carry it.
+
+A history of the needlework of the world would be a history of the
+domestic accomplishment of the world, that inner story of the existence
+of man which bears the relation to him of sunlight to the plant. We can
+deduce from these needle records much of the physical circumstances of
+woman's long pilgrimage down the ages, of her mental processes, of her
+growth in thought. We can judge from the character of her art whether
+she was at peace with herself and the world, and from its status we
+become aware of its relative importance to the conditions of her life.
+
+There are few written records of its practice and growth, for an art
+which does not affect the commercial gain of a land or country is not
+apt to have a written or statistical history, but, fortunately in this
+case, the curious and valuable specimens which are left to us tell their
+own story. They reveal the cultivation and amelioration of domestic
+life. Their contribution to the refinements are their very existence.
+
+A history of any domestic practice which has grown into a habit marks
+the degree of general civilization, but the practice of needlework does
+more. To a careful student each small difference in the art tells its
+own story in its own language. The hammered gold of Eastern embroidery
+tells not only of the riches of available material, but of the habit of
+personal preparation, instead of the mechanical. The little Bible
+description of captured "needlework alike on both sides" speaks
+unmistakably of the method of their stitchery, a cross-stitch of colored
+threads, which is even now the only method of stitch "alike on both
+sides."
+
+It is an endless and fascinating story of the leisure of women in all
+ages and circumstances, written in her own handwriting of painstaking
+needlework and an estimate of an art to which gold, silver, and precious
+stones--the treasures of the world--were devoted. More than this, its
+intimate association with the growth and well-being of family life makes
+visible the point where savagery is left behind and the decrees of
+civilization begin.
+
+I knew a dear Bible-nourished lonely little maid who had constructed for
+herself a drama of Eve in Eden, playing it for the solitary audience of
+self in a corner of the garden. She had brought all manner of fruits and
+had tied them to the fence palings under the apple boughs. This little
+Eve gathered grape leaves and sewed them carefully into an apron, the
+needle holes pierced with a thorn and held together by fiber stripped
+from long-stemmed plantain leaves. Here she and her audience of self hid
+under the apple boughs and waited for the call of the Lord.
+
+The long ministry of the needle to the wants of mankind proves it to
+have been among the first of man's inventions. When Eve sewed fig leaves
+she probably improvised some implement for the process, and every
+daughter of Eve, from Eden to the present time, has been indebted to
+that little implement for expression of herself in love and duty and
+art. For this we must thank the man who, the Bible relates, was "the
+father of all such as worked in metals, and made needles and gave them
+to his household." He is the first "handy man" mentioned in
+history--blest be his memory!
+
+If the day should ever come, not, let us hope, in our time or that of
+our children, when the manufacturer shall find that it no longer pays to
+make needles, what value will attach to individual specimens! If they
+were only to be found in occasional bric-a-brac shops or in the
+collections of some far-seeing hoarder of rarities, it would be
+difficult to overrate the interest which might attach to them. How, from
+the prodigal disregard of ages and the mysteries of the past, would
+emerge, one after another, recovered specimens, to be examined and
+judged and classified and arranged!
+
+Perhaps collections of them will be found in future museums under
+different headings, such as:
+
+"Needles of Consolation," under which might come those which Mary Stuart
+and her maids wrought their dismal hours into pathetic bits of
+embroidery during the long days of captivity, or the daughter of the
+sorrowful Marie Antoinette mended the dilapidations of the pitiful and
+ragged Dauphin; or:
+
+"Needles of Devotion," wielded by canonized and uncanonized saints in
+and out of nunneries; or:
+
+"Needles of History," like those with which Matilda stitched the prowess
+of William the Conqueror into breadths of woven flax.
+
+Possibly there may arise needle experts who, upon microscopic
+examination and scientific test, will refer all specimens to positive
+date and peculiar function, and by so doing let in floods of light upon
+ancient customs and habits. It is idle to speculate upon a condition
+which does not yet exist, for, happily, needles for actual hand sewing
+are yet in sufficient demand to allow us to indulge in their purchase
+quite ungrudgingly.
+
+I was once shown a needle--it was in Constantinople--which the
+dark-skinned owner declared had been treasured for three hundred years
+in his family, and he affirmed it so positively and circumstantially
+that I accepted the statement as truth. In fact, what did it matter? It
+was an interesting lie or an interesting truth, whichever one might
+consider it, and the needle looked quite capable of sustaining another
+century or so of family use. Its eye was a polished triangular hole made
+to carry strips of beaten metal, exactly such as we read of in the Bible
+as beaten and cut into strips for embroidery upon linen, such
+embroidery, in fact, as has often been burned in order to sift the pure
+gold from its ashes.
+
+Not only the history, but the poetry and song of all periods are starred
+with real and ideal embroideries--noble and beautiful ladies, whose
+chief occupations seem to have been the medicining of wounds received in
+their honor or defense, or the broidering of scarfs and sleeves with
+which to bind the helmets of their knights as they went forth to
+tourney or to battle. In these old chronicles the knights fought or made
+music with harp or voice, and the women ministered or made embroidery,
+and so pictured lives which were lived in the days of knights and ladies
+drifted on. The sword and the needle expressed the duties, the spirit,
+and the essence of their several lives. The men were militant, the women
+domestic, and wherever in castle or house or nunnery the lives of women
+were made safe by the use of the sword the needle was devoting itself to
+comforts of clothing for the poor and dependent, or luxuries of
+adornment for the rich and powerful. So the needle lived on through all
+the civilizations of the old world, in the various forms which they
+developed, until it was finally inherited by pilgrims to a new world,
+and was brought with them to the wilderness of America.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I -- BEGINNINGS IN THE NEW WORLD
+
+
+The history of embroidery in America would naturally begin with the
+advent of the Pilgrim Mothers, if one ignored the work of native
+Indians. This, however, would be unfair to a primitive art, which
+accomplished, with perfect appropriateness to use and remarkable
+adaptation of circumstance and material, the ornamentation of personal
+apparel.
+
+The porcupine quill embroidery of American Indian women is unique among
+the productions of primitive peoples, and some of the dresses, deerskin
+shirts, and moccasins with borders and flying designs in black, red,
+blue, and shining white quills, and edged with fringes hung with the
+teeth and claws of game, or with beautiful small shells, are as truly
+objects of art as are many things of the same decorative intent produced
+under the best conditions of civilization.
+
+To create beauty with the very limited resources of skins, hair, teeth,
+and quills of animals, colored with the expressed juice of plants, was a
+problem very successfully solved by these dwellers in the wilderness,
+and the results were practically and aesthetically valuable.
+
+In the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., there has happily
+been preserved a most interesting collection of these early efforts. The
+small deerskin shirts worn as outer garments by the little Sioux were
+perhaps among the most interesting and elaborate. They are generally
+embroidered with dyed moose hair and split quills of birds in their
+natural colors, large split quills or flattened smaller quills used
+whole. The work has an embossed effect which is very striking. A coat
+for an adult of Sioux workmanship, made of calfskin thicker and less
+pliant than the deerskin ordinarily used for garments, carries a broad
+band of quill embroidery, broken by whorls of the same, the center of
+each holding a highly decorated tassel made of narrow strips of
+deerskin, bound at intervals with split porcupine quills. These
+ornamental tassels carry the idea of decoration below the bands, and
+have a changeable and living effect which is admirable. In a smaller
+shirt, the whole body is covered at irregular intervals with whorls of
+the finest porcupine quill work, edged by a border of interlaced black
+and white quills, finished with perforated shells. Many of the designs
+are edged with narrow zigzag borders of the split quills in natural
+colors carefully matched and lapped in very exact fashion. There is one
+small shirt, made with a decorative border of tanned ermine skins in
+alternate squares of fur and beautifully colored quill embroidery, not
+one tint of which is out of harmony with the soft yellow of the deerskin
+body. The edge of the shirt is finished in very civilized fashion, with
+ermine tails, each pendant, banded with blue quills, at alternating
+heights, making a shining zigzag of blue along the fringe. The
+simplicity of treatment and purity of color in this little garment were
+fascinating, and must have invested the small savage who wore it with
+the dignity of a prince.
+
+The mother who evolved the scheme and manner of decoration carried her
+bit of genius in an uncivilized squaw body, but had none the less a true
+feeling for beauty, and in this mother task lifted the plane of the art
+of her people to a higher level.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--MOCCASINS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux
+Indians.
+
+_Right_--PIPE BAGS of porcupine quillwork, made by Sioux Indians.
+
+_Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+The purely decorative ability which lived and flourished before the
+advent of civilization lost its distinctive simplicity of character when
+woven cloth of brilliant red flannel and the tempting glamour of
+colored glass beads came into their horizon, although they accepted
+these new materials with avidity. Porcupine quill work seems to have
+been no longer practiced, although a few headbands of ceremony are to be
+found among the tribes, and now and then one comes across a veritable
+treasure, an evidence of long and unremitting toil, which has been
+preserved with veneration.
+
+Of course many valuable results of the best early embroideries still
+exist among the Indians themselves.
+
+A very striking feature of both early and late work is the fringing,
+which plays an important part in the decoration of garments. The fringe
+materials were generally of the longest procurable dried moose hair, the
+finely cut strips of deerskin, or, in some instances, the tough stems of
+river and swamp grasses twisted, braided and interwoven in every
+conceivable manner, and varied along the depth of the fringes by small
+perforated shells, teeth of animals, seeds of pine, or other shapely and
+hard substances which gave variety and added weight. Beads of bone and
+shell are not uncommon, or small bits of hammered metal. In one or two
+instances I have seen long deerskin fringes with stained or painted
+designs, emphasized with seeds or shells at centers of circles, or
+corners of zigzags. This ingenious use of a decorative fringe gave an
+effect of elaborate ornament with comparatively small labor.
+
+Perhaps the best lesson we have to learn from this bygone phase of
+decorative effort is in the possibilities of genuine art, where scant
+materials of effect are available.
+
+A thoughtful and exact study of early Indian art gives abundant
+indication of the effect of intimacy with the moods and phenomena of
+Nature, incident to the lives of an outdoor people.
+
+Many of the designs which decorate the larger pieces, like shirts and
+blankets, were evidently so inspired. The designs of lengthened and
+unequal zigzags are lightning flashes translated into embroidery; the
+lateral lines of broken direction are water waves moving in masses.
+There are clouds and stars and moons to be found among them, and if we
+could interpret them we might even find records of the sensations with
+which they were regarded.
+
+[Illustration: MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK Made by Sioux
+Indians.
+
+_Courtesy American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+[Illustration: MAN'S JACKET OF PORCUPINE QUILLWORK Made by Plains
+Indians.
+
+_Courtesy of American Museum of Natural History, New York_]
+
+It would seem to argue a want of inventive faculty, that the
+aboriginal women never conceived the idea of weaving fibers together in
+textiles, but were contented with the skins of animals for warmth of
+body covering. The two alternatives of so close and warm a substance as
+tanned skins, or nakedness, seem to a civilized mind to demand some
+intermediate substance. This, however, was not felt as a want, at least
+not to the extent of inspiring a textile. Perhaps we should never have
+had the unique porcupine quill embroidery except for the close-grained
+skin foundation, which made it possible and permanent. Certainly the
+cleverness with which the idea of weaving has been used in the evolution
+of the Indian blanket shows that only the initial thought was lacking.
+The subsequent use of the arts of spinning and weaving, with the
+retention of the original idea of decoration in design and coloring, has
+made the Indian blanket an article of great commercial value.
+
+Fortunately, these productions are valuable to their producers, and even
+to other members of the tribes, and were carefully preserved from
+casualties, so that there are still many examples of Indian manufacture,
+such as belts of wampum, and headbands of ceremony, to be found among
+existing tribes.
+
+These early specimens are not only intrinsically valuable, but give many
+a clue to what may be called the spiritual side of the aborigines. They
+had not learned the limits of representation, and as this history deals
+with results of life and not with the impulse toward expression which
+lies at the root of design, we need not attempt more than a suggestion
+of some of the results. The unguided impulses of Indian art, as seen or
+imagined in their work, lies behind the work itself and can be read only
+by its materialization.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II -- THE CREWELWORK OF OUR PURITAN MOTHERS
+
+
+The crewelwork of New England was the first ornamental stitchery
+practiced in this country by women of European race, and in their hands
+made its first appearance even during the days of privation and nights
+of fear which were their portion in this strange new world to which they
+had come.
+
+The seed of it was brought by that winged creature of destiny, the
+_Mayflower_, hidden in the folds or decorating the borders of the
+precious household linen which was a part of the gear of the first
+Pilgrims. In its hollow interior there was room for bed dressings and
+table napery, even when the high-posted bedsteads and tables which they
+had adorned were abandoned, or exchanged for peace of mind and liberty
+of action.
+
+It may have declared itself in the very first years of settlement,
+before they had encountered the savage antagonism of the aborigines, and
+while they still had only the privations incident to pioneer life; or
+it may have been after the long struggle for ascendancy and possession
+was over, and they could settle down in hard-won homes. Upon neighboring
+or contiguous farms there they gradually drew together the threads of
+memory concerning former peaceful occupations, and wove them once more
+into the warp of daily life. They could visit one another, exchanging
+domestic experiences, or reminiscences of spiritual struggles of their
+own or of fellow Pilgrims, and old-time hand occupations would be a
+mutual lullaby and an exorcism of anxiety.
+
+The real beginning of embroidery as a national art was probably at a
+later period, for its previous practice would be but a continuation of
+old-world occupations or diversions of life.
+
+The devoted mothers of the American race, who sailed the seas in those
+far-off days, might have brought some favorite "piece" of embroidery
+among their most intimate belongings, wherewithal to while away the
+hours of weary days upon the limitless breadths of ocean. There would be
+intervals of calm between storms, and periods when even the merest shred
+of a home-practiced art would be doubly and trebly valued, like a
+piece of heavenly raiment to a naked and banished angel.
+
+[Illustration: CREWEL DESIGN, drawn and colored, which dates back to
+Colonial times.
+
+_In the possession of the Dunham family of Cooperstown._]
+
+The most natural effort of the woman standing in the midst of such new
+and strenuous conditions as surrounded the Pilgrim mothers in America,
+would be to reproduce something which had meant peace and tranquillity
+in former days. We can imagine her, searching the closely packed
+iron-bound chests which held most of the worldly goods of the traversing
+pilgrims--those famous chests, the boards of which had been carefully
+doweled and faithfully put together to resist outward and inward
+pressure--packed and repacked with constant misgivings and hopeful
+foresight. In those crowded treasure chests it was possible there might
+be found skeins of crewel, and even working patterns which some hopeful
+instinct had prompted her to preserve.
+
+While the Puritan mother was scheming to add embroidery to her
+occupations, she did not forget to train each small maid of the family
+to the use of the needle. Ruth and Peace and Harmony and Mercy made
+their samplers as faithfully as though they were growing up under the
+shade of the apple trees of old England instead of among the blackened
+stumps of newly cut forests.
+
+So the old art survived its transplantation and rooted itself in spite
+of storms of terror, and during and after the test of fire and blood,
+and spread, after the manner of art and knowledge, until it became the
+joy and comfort of a new race, a vehicle of feminine dexterity and an
+expression of the creative instinct with which in a greater or lesser
+degree we are all endowed.
+
+We can easily believe that stores of linen and precious china, as well
+as the small wheels for the spinning of the flax, could not be denied to
+the devoted women who chose to share the hard fortunes of their Pilgrim
+husbands and fathers. It is probable that in one form or another
+possessions of crewel embroidery were transported with them.
+
+I know of no well-authenticated specimen which came in actual substance
+in that elastic vessel, but undoubtedly there were such, while many and
+many existed in the minds and memories of the women of the new colony,
+to come to life and take on actual form, color and substance when the
+days of their privations were numbered. If such actual treasured things
+existed and were preserved through the early days of colonial life,
+every stitch of them would hold within itself traditions of tranquillity
+in a world where homes stood, and fields were tilled in safety, because
+of the vast plains of ocean which lay between them and savage tribes.
+
+In the earliest days of the colonies we could hardly expect more than
+the necessary practice of the needle, but when we come to the second
+period, when neighborhoods became towns, and cabins grew into more or
+less well-equipped farmhouses, Puritan women gladly reverted to the
+accomplishments of pre-American conditions. The familiar crewelwork of
+England was the form of needlework which became popular.
+
+In looking for materials with which to recreate this art, they had not
+at that time far to seek. Wool and flax were farm products, necessities
+of pioneer life, and their manufacture into cloth was a well-understood
+domestic art.
+
+Domestic animals had shared the tremendous experiment of transplantation
+of a fragment of the English race, and had suffered, no doubt, with
+their masters and owners, the struggles with savages and unaccustomed
+circumstances, but they had survived and increased "after their kind."
+Even through the strenuous wars against their very existence by
+uncivilized man, they lived and increased. Cows "calved," and sheep
+"lambed," and wool in abundance was to be had.
+
+The enterprising Puritan woman pulled the long-fibered straggling lock
+of wool, sorted out and rejected from the uniform fleeces, carded it
+with her little hand cards into yard-long finger-sized rolls, and
+twisted it upon her large wheel spindle, producing much such thread as
+an Italian peasant woman spins upon her distaff to-day as she walks upon
+the shore at Baiae.
+
+If the pioneer was a natural copyist, she doubled and twisted it, to
+make it in the exact fashion of the English crewel; if adventurous and
+independent, she worked it single threaded. This yarn had all the pliant
+qualities necessary for embroidery, and was in fact uncolored crewel.
+
+[Illustration: TESTER embroidered in crewels in shades of blue on white
+homespun linen. Said to have been brought to Essex, Mass., in 1640, by
+Madam Susanna, wife of Sylvester Eveleth.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+To the right, raised embroidery on black velvet. Nineteenth century
+American.]
+
+So, also, the production of flax thread, when the crop of flax was
+grown, and the long stems had struggled upward to their greatest
+heights, and finished themselves in a cloud of multitudinous blue
+flax flowers, beautiful enough to be grown for beauty alone, they pulled
+and made into slender bundles, and laid under the current of the brook
+which neighbored most pioneer houses, until the thready fibers could be
+washed and scraped from the vegetable outer coat, the perishable parts
+of their composition, and combed into separateness. Then it was ready
+for the small flax wheel of the housewife. Every woman had both wool
+wheel and flax wheel, the latter of all grades of beauty, from those
+made for the use of queens and ladies of high degree--royal for
+elaboration--to the modest ashen wheel, derived from a long line of
+industrious and careful foremothers, or copied by the clever Pilgrim
+fathers, from some adventurous wheel which had made the long voyage from
+civilized Holland to uncivilized America.
+
+For color, the simplest and most at hand expedient was a dip in the
+universal indigo tub, which waited in every "back shed" of the Puritan
+homestead. One single dip in its black-looking depths and the skein of
+spun lamb's wool acquired a tint like the blue of the sky. Immersion of
+a day and night gave an indelible stain of a darker blue, and a week's
+repose at the bottom of the pot made the wool as dark in tint as the
+indigo itself. For variety in her blues, the enterprising housewife used
+the sunburned "taglocks" which were too hopelessly yellow for webs of
+white wool weaving, and gave them a short immersion in the tub, with the
+result of a beautiful blue-green, tinged through and through with a
+sunny luster, and this color was sun-fast and water-fast, capable of
+holding its tint for a century.
+
+We know how knots of living wool grow golden by dragging through dew and
+lying in the sun, and how the ladies of Venice sat upon the roofs of
+their palaces with locks outspread upon the encircling brims of
+crownless hats, in order to capture the true Venetian tint of hair. We
+do not know by what alchemy the sun _silvers_ a web spread out to
+whiten, and yet _gilds_ the human tresses of ladies and yellows the
+"taglocks" of sheep. Chemists may be able to explain, but simple woman,
+unversed in the mysteries of chemistry, cannot. Whatever may have been
+the science of it, this golden hue added to medium and dark blue a triad
+of shades, which proved to be most effective when placed upon pure
+white of bleached linen, or the gray-cream of the unbleached web.
+
+The color seekers soon learned that every indelible stain was a dye, and
+if little God-fearing Thomas came home with a stain of ineffaceable
+green or brown on the knees of his diminutive tow breeches, the mother
+carefully investigated the character of it, and if it was unmoved by the
+persuasive influence of "soft soap and sun," she added it to a list
+which meant knowledge. It is to be hoped that this was often considered
+an equivalent for the "trouncing" which was the common penalty of
+accident or inadvertence suffered by the Puritan child. In truth,
+Solomon's unwholesome caution, "Spare the rod and spoil the child," was
+all too strictly observed in those conscience-ridden Puritan days. I had
+a child's lively disapproval of Solomon, since the curse of his
+sarcastic comment came down with the Puritan strain in my own blood, and
+I have a smarting recollection of it.
+
+God-fearing Thomas and his brothers added to their mother's artistic
+equipment not only a list of variously shaded brown from the bark of the
+black walnut tree, and of yellows from the leaves and twigs of the
+sumac and wild cherry, but numberless others. She was an untiring color
+hunter, an experimenter with the juices of plants and flowers and
+berries, and with every unwash-outable stain. She set herself to the
+exciting task of repetition and variation. She tried the velvet shell of
+young butternuts upon threads of her white wool, and found a spring
+green, and if she spread over it a thinnest wash of hemlock bark, they
+were olive, and if she dipped them in mitigated indigo, lo! they were of
+the green of sea hollows. The butternut in all stages of its growth,
+from the smallest and greenest to the rusty black of the ripe ones, and
+the blackest black of the dried shell, was a mine of varied color; and
+the brass kettle of from ten to twenty quarts capacity, which served so
+many purposes in domestic life, could be tranquilly carrying out some of
+her propositions in the corner of the wide chimney while dinner was
+cooking, or in the ashes of the burned-out embers while the household
+slept.
+
+[Illustration: QUILTED COVERLET made by Ann Gurnee.]
+
+[Illustration: HOMESPUN WOOLEN BLANKET with King George's Crown
+embroidered with home-dyed blue yarn in the corner. From the Burdette
+home at Fort Lee, N. J., where Washington was entertained.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: CHEROKEE ROSE BLANKET, made about 1830 of homespun wool
+with "Indian Rose" design about nineteen inches in diameter worked in
+the corners in home-dyed yarns of black, red, yellow, and dark green.
+From the Westervelt collection.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+It was interesting and skillful work to extract these colors, and the
+emulation of it and the glory of producing a new one was not without
+its excitement. There was a certain "fast pink" which was the secret
+of one ingenious ungenerous Puritan woman, who kept the secret of the
+dye, when rose pink was the unattainable want of feminine New England.
+She died without revealing it, and as in those days there were no
+chemists to boil up her rags and test them for the secret, the "Windham
+pink," so said my grandmother, "made people sorry for her death,
+although she did not deserve it." This little neighborly fling passed
+down two generations before it came to me from the later days of the
+colony.
+
+Yellows of different complexions were discovered in mayweed, goldenrod
+and sumac, and the little-girl Faiths and Hopes and Harmonys came in
+with fingers pink from the handling of pokeberries and purple from
+blackberry stain, tempting the sight with evanescent dyes which would
+not keep their color even when stayed with alum and fortified with salt.
+All this made Mistress Windham's memory the more sad. A good reliable
+rose red was always wanting. Madder could be purchased, for it was
+raised in the Southern colonies, but the madder was a brown red. Finally
+some enterprising merchantman introduced cochineal, and the vacuum was
+filled. With a judicious addition of logwood, rose red, wine red and
+deep claret were achieved.
+
+The dye of dyes was indigo, for the blue of heaven, or the paler blue of
+snow shadows, to a blue which was black or a black which was blue, was
+within its capacity. And the convenience of it! The indigo tub was
+everywhere an adjunct to all home manufactures. It dyed the yarn for the
+universal knitting, and the wool which was a part of the blue-gray
+homespun for the wear of the men of the household. "One-third of white
+wool, one-third of indigo-dyed wool, and one-third of black sheep's
+wool," was the formula for this universal texture. Perhaps it was not
+too much to say that the gray days of the Pilgrim mother's life were
+enriched by this royal color.
+
+The soft yarns, carefully spun from selected wool, took kindly to the
+natural dyes, and our friend, the Puritan housewife, soon found herself
+in possession of a stock of home-manufactured material, soft and
+flexible in quality, and quite as good in color as that of the lamented
+English crewels. The homespun and woven linens with which her chests
+were stocked were exactly the ground for decorative needlework of the
+kind which she had known in her English childhood, long before questions
+of conscience had come to trouble her, or the boy who had grown up to be
+her husband had been wakened from a comfortable existence by the
+cat-o'-nine-tails of conscience, and sent across the sea to stifle his
+doubts in fighting savagery.
+
+Probably the Puritan mother could stop thinking for a while about the
+training of Thomas and Peace and Harmony, and the rest of the dozen and
+a half of children which were the allotted portion of every Puritan
+wife, while she selected out intervals of her long busy days, as one
+selects out bits of color from bundles of uninteresting patches, and
+devoted them to absolutely superfluous needlework.
+
+What a joy it must have been to ponder whether she should use deep pink
+or celestial blue for the flowers of her pattern, instead of remembering
+how red poor baby Thomas's little cushions of flesh had grown under the
+smart slaps of her corset board when he overcame his sister Faith in a
+fair fight about nothing, and what a relief the making of crewel roses
+must have been from the doubts and cares of a constantly increasing
+family!
+
+She sorted out her colors, three shades of green, three of cochineal
+red, two of madder--one of them a real salmon color--numberless shades
+of indigo, yellows and oranges and browns in goodly bunches, ready for
+the long stretches of fair solid white linen split into valances or
+sewed into a counterpane. Truly she was a happy woman, and she would
+show Mistress Schuyler, with her endless "blue-and-white," what she
+could do with _her_ colors! Then she had a misgiving, and reflected for
+a moment on the unregeneracy of the human soul, and that poor Mistress
+Schuyler's quiet airs of superiority really came from her Dutch blood,
+for her mother was an English Puritan who had married a Hollander, and
+her own husband revealed to her in the dead of night, when all hearts
+are opened, his belief that "Brother Schuyler had been moved to emigrate
+much more by greed of profitable trade with the savages than by longings
+for liberty of conscience."
+
+She went back to her "pattern," which she just now remembered had been
+lent her by poor Mistress Schuyler, and was soon absorbed in making
+long lines of pin pricks along the outlines of the pattern, so that she
+could sift powdered charcoal through and catch the shapes of leaves and
+curves on her fair white linen.
+
+Her foot was on the rocker of the cradle all the time, and the last baby
+was asleep in it. The hooded cherry cradle which had rocked the three
+girls and four boys, counting the wee velvet-scalped Jonathan, against
+whose coming the cradle had been polished with rottenstone and whale oil
+until it shone like mahogany.
+
+Should the roses of the pattern be red or pink? and the columbines blue
+or purple? She could make a beautiful purple by steeping the sugar paper
+which wrapped her precious cone of West Indian "loaf sugar," and
+sugar-paper purple was reasonably fast. So ran the thoughts of the dear,
+straight-featured Puritan wife as she sorted her colors and worked her
+pattern.
+
+At this period of her experience of the new life of the colonies, the
+chief end of her embroidery was to help in creating a civilized home, to
+add to what had been built simply for shelter and protection, some of
+the features which lived and grew only in the atmosphere of safety and
+content. Hospitality was one of the features of New England life, and
+the first addition to the family shelter was a bedroom, which bore the
+title of the "best bedroom," and a tall four-post bed, which was the
+"best bed." The adornment of this holy altar of friendship was an urgent
+duty.
+
+When I began this allusion to the "best bedroom," I left the housewife
+sorting her tinted crewels for its adornment, and she still sat, happily
+cutting the beautiful homespun linen into lengths for the two bed
+valances, the one to hang from the upper frame which surrounded the top
+of her four-post bedstead, and the other, which hung from the bed frame
+itself, and reached the floor, hiding the dark space beneath the bed.
+The "high-post bedstead" had long groups of smooth flutes in the upward
+course of its posts, and no footboard, a plain-sawed headboard and
+smooth headposts. There must be a long curtain at the head of the bed,
+which would hide both headboard and plain headposts, and this curtain
+she meant should have a wide border of crewelwork at the top and bunches
+of flowers scattered at intervals on its surface.
+
+[Illustration: BED SET. Keturah Baldwin pattern, designed, dyed, and
+worked by The Deerfield Society of Blue and White Needlework. Deerfield,
+Mass.]
+
+[Illustration: BED COVERS worked in candle wicking.
+
+_Courtesy of Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]
+
+None of Mistress Schuyler's "blue-and-white" for her! It should carry
+every color she could muster, and the upper valance should have the same
+border as the head curtain. The lower valance would not need it, for the
+counterpane would hang well over, and she meant somehow to bend the
+border design into a wreath and work it in the center of the
+counterpane, and double-knot a fringe to go entirely around it, the same
+as that which should edge the upper valance.
+
+It was a luxurious bed dressing when it was finished, and nothing in it
+of material to differentiate it from the embroideries which were being
+done in England at the very time. There were no original features of
+design or arrangement. The close-lapping stitches were set in exactly
+the same fashion, and, considering the absolute necessity of growing and
+manufacturing all the materials, it was a wonderful performance.
+
+It was not alone bed hangings which were subjects of New England
+crewelwork; there were mantel valances, which covered the plain wooden
+mantels and hung at a safe distance above the generous household fires.
+These were wrought with borders of crewelwork, and finished with
+elaborate thread and crewel fringes. They were knotted into
+diamond-shaped openings, above the fringes, three or four rows of them,
+the more the better, for in the general simplicity of furnishing, these
+things were of value. Then there were table covers and stand covers and
+wall pockets of various shapes and designs, and, in short, wherever the
+housewife could legitimately introduce color and ornamentation,
+crewelwork made its appearance.
+
+In the very infancy of the art of embroidery in America, the primitive
+needlewoman was possessed of means and materials which fill the
+embroiderers of our rich later days with envy. Homespun linen is no
+longer to be had, and dyes are no longer the pure, simple, hold-fast
+juices which certain plants draw from the ground; and try as we may to
+emulate or imitate the old embroidered valances which hung from the
+testers of the high-post bedsteads and concealed the dark cavities
+beneath, and the coverlet besprinkled with bunches of impossible flowers
+done in home-concocted shades of color upon heavy snow-white linen, we
+fall far short of the intrinsic merits of those early hangings.
+
+There are many survivals of these embroideries in New England families,
+who reverence all that pertains to the lives of their founders. Bed
+hangings had less daily wear and friction than pertained to other
+articles of decorative use, and generally maintained a healthy existence
+until they ceased to be things of custom or fashion. When this time came
+they were folded away with other treasures of household stuffs, in the
+reserved linen chest, whence they occasionally emerge to tell tales of
+earlier days and compare themselves with the mixed specimens of
+needlework art which have succeeded them, but cannot be properly called
+their descendants.
+
+The possession of a good piece of old crewelwork, done in this country,
+is as strong a proof of respectable ancestry as a patent of nobility,
+since no one in the busy early colonial days had time for such work save
+those whose abundant leisure was secured by ample means and liberal
+surroundings. The incessant social and intellectual activity demanded by
+modern conditions of life was uncalled for. No woman, be she gentle or
+simple, had stepped from the peaceful obscurity of home into the field
+of the world to war for its prizes or rewards. If the man to whom she
+belonged failed to win bread or renown, the women who were bound in his
+family starved for the one or lived without the luster of the other.
+
+I have shown that even in the early days of flax growing and indigo
+dyeing the New England farmer's wife had come into her heritage, not
+only of materials, but of the implements of manufacture. She had the
+small flax wheel which dwelt in the keeping room, where she could sit
+and spin like a lady of place and condition, and the large woolen wheel
+standing in the mote-laden air of the garret, through which she walked
+up and down as she twisted the yarn.
+
+Later, the colonial dame, if she belonged to the prosperous class--for
+there were classes, even in the beginning of colonial life--had her
+beautifully shaped mahogany linen wheel, made by the skillful artificers
+of England or Holland, more beautiful perhaps, but not more capable than
+that of the farm wife, whittled and sandpapered into smoothness by her
+husband or sons, and both were used with the same result.
+
+The pioneer woodworker had a lively appreciation of the new woods of the
+new country, and made free use of the abundant wild cherry for the
+furniture called for by the growing prosperity of the settlements, its
+close grain and warm color giving it the preference over other native
+woods, excepting always the curly and bird's-eye maple, which were
+novelties to the imported artisan.
+
+I remember that "curly maple" was a much prized wood in my own
+childhood, and that after carefully searching for the outward marks of
+it among the trees of the farm, I asked about the shape of its leaves
+and the color of its bark, so that I might know it--for children were
+supposed to know species of trees by sight in my childhood. "Why," said
+my mother, "it looks like any other maple tree on the outside; it is
+only that the wood is curly, just as some children have curly hair."
+Even now, after all these years, a plane of curly maple suggests the
+curly hair of some child beloved of nature.
+
+The beautiful curly, spotted and satiny maple wood was, however, "out of
+fashion" when the roving shipmasters began to bring in logs of Santo
+Domingo mahogany in the holds of their far-wandering barks, and the
+cabinetmakers to cut beautiful shapes of sideboards, and curving legs
+and backs of chairs, as well as the tall carved headposts and the head
+and footboards of luxurious beds from them. It was not only that they
+were a repetition of English luxury, but that they made more of
+themselves in plain white interiors, by reason of insistent color, than
+the blond sisterhood of maples could do. Cherry, which shared in a
+degree its depth of color, held its world for a longer period, but no
+wood could withstand the magnificence of pure mahogany red, with the
+story of its vegetable life written along its planes in lines and waves,
+deepening into darks, and lightening into ocher and gold along its
+surfaces.
+
+If the cabinetry of New England is a digression, it is perhaps excusable
+on the ground of its close connection with the crewel work of New
+England, of which we are treating, and to which we shall have something
+of a sense of novelty in returning, since at least the complexion of our
+colonial embroidery has experienced a change.
+
+So, in spite of the success of the early Puritan woman in producing
+tints necessary to the various needs of colored crewelwork, the
+supremacy of indigo as a dye led to a lasting fashion of embroidery
+known as "blue-and-white." It was the assertion of absolute and tried
+merit in materials which led to its success. We sometimes see this
+emergence of persistent goodness in instances of some human career,
+where indefatigable integrity outruns the glamour of personal gift. This
+was the fortune of the "blue-and-white," which not only created a style,
+but has achieved persistence and has broken out in revivals all along
+the history of American embroidery. It has been somewhat identified with
+domestic weaving, for the loom has always been a member of the New
+England family, the great home-built loom, standing in the far end of
+the kitchen, capable of divers miracles of creation between dawn and
+sunset.
+
+On this much-to-be-prized background of homespun linen the different
+shades of indigo blue could be, and were, very effectively used, and it
+is worthy of note that it repeated the simple contrasts of the Canton
+china or the "blue Canton" which were the prized gifts brought to their
+families by the returning New England seamen in the profitable "India
+trade," which soon became a commercial fact.
+
+"Blue-and-white" had at first been evolved by tight-bound
+circumstances. Excellent practice in shades of blue had given it a
+certified place in the embroidery art of America, but we do not find it
+in collections of old English embroidery. It is one of the small
+monuments which mark the path of the woman colonist, narrowed by
+circumstances, which created a recognized style. It is not to be
+wondered at that blue-and-white crewelwork made a place for itself in
+the history of embroidery which was a permanent one. The circumstances
+of Puritan life being so simple and direct would induce a corresponding
+simplicity of taste, and simplicity is apt to seize upon first
+principles.
+
+Every colorist knows that strong but peaceful contrast is one of the
+first laws of color arrangement, and the unconscious yoking of white and
+blue placed one of the strongest color notes against unprotesting and
+receptive white. This made a new manner or style of embroidery. Its
+permanence may have been influenced by the art of one of the oldest
+peoples of the world, and as we have said, the prevalence of Canton
+china upon the dressers and filling the mantel closets and serving the
+tables of the rich, was beginning to appear in all houses of growing
+prosperity, even where pewter ware and dishes carved from wood still
+held the place of actual service.
+
+The Puritan housewife could arrange her grades of blue according to the
+Chinese colors of this oldest domestic art of the world, and be
+correspondingly happy in the result. Chinese design, however, had no
+influence in the growing practice of embroidery, and here also an
+instinctive law prevailed. She recognized that even the highly
+artificial landscape art of her idolized plates would not suit the
+flexible and broken surfaces of her equally cherished linen, or the
+surroundings of her life.
+
+It was small wonder that this became a favorite style of embroidery and
+has in it the seeds of permanence. A table setting of snow-white or
+cream-white homespun, scalloped and embroidered in lines of blue
+crewels, shining with the precious Canton blue, was, and would be even
+at this day, a thing to admire.
+
+The first deviation from the habitual crewelwork is to be found in the
+"blue-and-white," for although the same stitch was employed, it was
+more often in outline than solid. The designs were sketches instead of
+"patterns" as had formerly been the case. Although this variety of work
+comes under the head of colonial crewelwork, there was in it the
+beginning of the changes and variety effected by differing circumstances
+and influences--those vital circumstances which leave their traces
+constantly along the history of needlework. It was owing to various
+reasons that outline embroidery largely took the place of solid
+crewelwork.
+
+The question of design must have been a rather difficult one, as there
+were no designs, and almost no sources of design for needlework, and at
+this stage of the art in New England original design seems not to have
+suggested itself. It would certainly have been quite natural to have
+copied pine trees and broken outlines of hills, but as this class of
+embroidery was almost entirely used for hangings and decorative
+furnishings, the Pilgrim mothers seem to have had an instinctive sense
+that such design was incongruous. Consequently they copied English
+models. We find designs of crewelwork of the period in English museums
+identically the same as in the New England work, thorned roses and
+voluminously doubled pinks, held together in borders of long curved
+lines or scattered at regular intervals in groups and bunches.
+
+My grandmother explained to me in that long-ago period, where her great
+age and my inquisitive youth met and exchanged our several and
+individual surplus of thought and talk, that to a certain extent ladies
+of colonial days copied many of their designs from what were called
+India chintzes. These chintzes seem to have been the intermediate wear
+between homespun of either flax or wool and the creamy satins or the
+thick "paduasoy," the more flexible "lutestring" silks, worn by great
+ladies of the period, and the wrought India muslins for less
+conventional occasions. India chintzes were printed upon white or tinted
+grounds of hand-spun cotton, in colors so generously full of substance
+as to have almost the effect of brocaded stuffs, and adaptations from
+their designs were suitable for embroidery. I remember the
+three-cornered and square bits of India chintz which my grandmother
+showed me in long-preserved "housewives," or "huz-ifs," as she called
+them. They were lengths of domestic linen on which small squares or
+triangles of chintz were sewn, making a series of small pockets, each
+one stuffed with convenient threads or bits of colored sewing silks, or
+needle and thimble. These were pinned at the belt of the active
+housewife, and hung swaying against her skirts if she rose from her
+sewing, or were conveniently at hand if she sat patching or
+embroidering. I remember that some of my grandmother's "huz-ifs" still
+held threads of different colored crewels wound on bits of cardboard,
+and any embroiderer might envy the convenience of such holders.
+
+I do not see, in fact, why there should not be a revival of "huz-ifs," a
+pleasant new fashion, founded upon the old, holding in harmonious
+variety all the wonders of modern manufacture, as well as making
+mementos of former gowns of one's own and of one's friends. They might
+be studied gradations of color and design, and be enriched by harmonious
+bindings. If my dwindling time holds out, perhaps I shall institute or
+assist at such a renewal of old conveniences, in spite of sharp contrast
+of purposes, adding to home costume a grace of pendent color.
+
+I was talking of design, when "huz-ifs" intruded, and was saying that at
+the period when "blue-and-white" took on the "outline practice" design
+was a difficult question; indeed, it is always a difficult question for
+embroiderers. It is so important a part or quality of the art of
+embroidery. In fact, it is the business of the successful embroiderer to
+know as much about design as she must about stitchery and color.
+
+After the advent of "blue-and-white," embroidery took on many different
+features. Curiously enough, when it was confined to decorative uses, its
+character immediately changed. Crewelwork of the period was not given to
+hangings and furniture, but to clothing. An embroidered apron became of
+much more importance than a bed valance or counterpane. The young girl
+began by embroidering her school aprons with borders of forget-me-nots
+and mullein pinks, in colored crewels.
+
+I remember seeing among my grandmother's savings an apron of gray
+unbleached linen, quite dark in color, with a border of single pinks
+entirely around it. The design had evidently been drawn from the flower
+itself, and the whole performance was essentially different from that
+of a slightly earlier period. The materials of homespun linen and
+home-dyed crewels were the same. The thing which was different and
+showed either a cropping-out of original thought or a bias toward the
+style of embroidery lately introduced by the famous school of Bethlehem,
+Pennsylvania, was an over-and-over stitch instead of the old crewel
+method. This over-and-over stitch was apparent in all crewel embroidery
+devoted to personal wear, but was never found in articles used for house
+or decorative purposes. It was certainly a proper distinction, as the
+_flat_ of crewel was not capable of shadow and was more inherently a
+part of the textile, as much so, indeed, as a stamped or woven
+decoration would have been.
+
+It was not long before the over-and-over stitch demanded silks and
+flosses instead of crewels for its exercise, and silk or satin for the
+background of its exploits. There were satin bags covered with the most
+delicate stitchery, and black silk aprons with wreaths of myrtle done
+with silks or flosses, and, finally, satin pelerines exquisitely
+embroidered in designs of carefully shaded roses. Although nothing
+remarkable or epoch-making happened in the art of embroidery, it
+retained an even more than respectable existence. The skill, taste, and
+love for the creation of beauty, which were the heritage of the race,
+were kept alive.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III -- SAMPLERS AND A WORD ABOUT QUILTS
+
+
+A chapter upon Samplers, by right, should precede the discussion of
+colonial embroidery, although the practice of mothers in crewelwork was
+simultaneous with it. They were carried on at the same time, but the
+embroidery was work for grown-up people, while samplers were baby
+work--a beginning as necessary as being taught to walk or talk, to the
+future of the child. Fortunately, the very infant interest in samplers
+has tended to their preservation, and when the child grew to womanhood
+the sampler became invested with a mingling of family interests and
+affections, and she, the executant, came to look upon it with
+motherliness. The loving pride of the mother in the child's
+accomplishment also tended to the care and preservation of the first
+work of the small hands.
+
+As late as the twenties of the eighteenth century, infant schools still
+existed and samplers were wrought by infant fingers. Eighty-five years
+ago, I myself was in one of a row of little chairs in the infant school,
+with a small spread of canvas lying over my lap and being sewn to my
+skirt by misdirected efforts. My box held a tiny thimble and spools of
+green and red sewing silk, and I tucked it under alternate knees for
+safety.
+
+_Sarah Woodruff!_--I wonder where she is now?--sat next to me in my
+sampler days, and her canvas was white, while mine was yellow. Her
+border was worked with blue, and mine with green. With a child's
+inscrutable and wonderful awareness of underlying facts, I knew that
+Sarah Woodruff's father was richer than mine, and that the white canvas
+and blue border, which the teacher said "went with it," was an
+indication of it. I have it now, the little faded yellow parallelogram
+of canvas, on which the germ of the very fingers with which I am now
+writing wrought with painstaking care--"Executed by Candace Thurber, her
+age six years." They have since had various fortunes and experiences,
+these fingers, and have wrought to the satisfaction, I hope, of their
+foregone line of Puritan ancestors.
+
+The sampler has special claims upon the world, because it is probable
+that all forms of textile design originated with it. In fact, design for
+needlework began with small squares formed by crossing stitches at the
+junction of textile fiber.
+
+In sequences these squares formed lines, blocks, and corner, and in
+double-line juxtaposition made the form of border probably the oldest
+ornamental decoration in the world, generally known as a Roman border.
+This decoration escaped from textiles into stone and building materials,
+and in fact appeared in the elaboration of all materials, from the
+fronts of temples to the ornamentation of a crown. The most ancient
+examples of design are founded upon a square, and this points inevitably
+to the stitch covering the crossing of threads, the cross-stitch, which
+preceded all others and remained the only decorative stitch until
+weaving sprang into so fine an art that interstices between threads are
+unnoticeable. Then, and not until then, the long over-stitch, the _opus
+plumarium_, which we call "Kensington," was invented, and served to make
+English embroidery famous in early English history. This was the stitch
+used by the Pilgrim mothers in their crewel embroidery, as we use it
+to-day in most of our decorative presentations.
+
+[Illustration: SAMPLER worked by Adeline Bryant in 1826, now in the
+possession of Anna D. Trowbridge, Hackensack, N. J.]
+
+In spite of the achievements of the _opus plumarium_, we are indebted
+to simple cross-stitch, to the obligations of the mathematical square of
+hand weavings, for all the wonderful borderings which have been evolved
+by ages of the use of the needle, since decoration began. We do not stop
+to think of the artistic intelligence or gift which made mathematical
+spaces express beautiful form, any more than we stop in our reading to
+think of the sensitive intelligence which drew a letter and made it the
+expression of sound, and yet most of us use the result of some
+exceptional intelligence and feel the exaltation of what we call
+culture.
+
+The stitch itself is entitled to the greatest respect, as the very first
+form of decoration with the needle--an art growing out of and controlled
+by the earlier art of weaving. Decorative bands of cross-stitch come to
+us on shreds of linen found in the sepulchers of Egypt and the burial
+grounds of the prehistoric races of South America. I have seen, in a
+collection of textiles found in their ancient burial places, the most
+elaborate and beautiful of cross-stitch borders, wrought into the
+fabrics which enriched Pizarro's shiploads of loot sent from Vicuna,
+Peru, to the court of Spain at the time of the wonderful and barbarous
+"Conquest." All of the old "Roman" borders are found in this collection,
+the best designs the world has produced, those which architects of the
+period used upon the fronts and in the interiors of their first
+creations. And here arises the ever recurring question of
+thought-sharing between the most widely removed of the earlier human
+races. How did early Peruvians and far-off Latins think in the same
+forms, and how did they come to select certain ones as the best, and
+cleave to them as a common inheritance? But leaving the puzzle of design
+and returning to the cross-stitch, which was its first interpretation or
+medium, and to the little Puritans who shared its acquaintance and
+practice with the women of all ages, we may see how the New England
+sampler opened the door of inheritance.
+
+As Eve sewed her garments of leaves in the Garden of Eden, so each one
+of these little Puritan Eves, so far removed in the long history of the
+race from the first one, was heir to her ingenuities as well as her
+failings, from her patching together of small and inadequate things, to
+her creative function in the kingdom of the world, as well as to her
+attempts to sweeten life, and to her failures and successes.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER embroidered in colors on ecru linen, by
+Mary Ann Marley, aged twelve, August 30, 1820. _From Providence, R. I._
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER embroidered in brown on ecru linen, by Martha Carter
+Fitzhugh, of Virginia, in 1793, and left unfinished at her death.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+The learning to do an A or a B in cross-stitch was the beginning of
+household doing, which is the business of woman's life. The decorative
+and the useful were evenly balanced in sampler making. All this skill in
+lettering could be applied to the stores of household linen in the way
+of marking, for cross-stitch letters, done in colored threads, were a
+part of the finish of sheets and pillowcases and fine toweling which
+made so important a part of the riches of the household, and it led by
+easy grades of familiarity to more comprehensive methods of decoration.
+In truth, the letters first practiced in cross-stitch opened the door to
+all future elaborations, and were the vehicle of moral instruction as
+well; for little Puritans took their first doses of Bible history in
+carefully embroidered text, and their notions of pictorial art from
+cross-stitch illustrations. One finds upon some of the early examples
+pictures of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, with the ever present
+author of sin, climbing the stem of the tree of life, or Jacob's dream
+of angels ascending and descending a ladder, intersecting clouds of
+blue and smoke-colored stitches.
+
+These pictorial samplers are certainly interesting, but those which
+confine themselves to simple cross-stitch with borders, and the name of
+the little child who wrought them, touch a note of domestic life which
+is more than interesting.
+
+The sampler was purely English in its derivation and followed the
+English with great fidelity, although redolent of Puritan life and
+thought. Sometimes, indeed, it carried cross-stitch to the very limit of
+its capability in an attempt to render Bible scenes pictorially, but for
+the most part it was confined to the practice of various styles of
+lettering consolidated into text or verse.
+
+The material upon which they were worked was generally of canvas, either
+white or yellow, and this was of English manufacture. As all
+manufactures were things of price, later samplers were often worked upon
+coarse homespun linens, which, barring the variations in the size of the
+threads inevitable in hand-spinning, made a fairly good material for
+cross-stitch.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Christiana Baird. Late
+eighteenth century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_
+
+_Right_--MEMORIAL PIECE worked in silks, on white satin. Sacred to the
+memory of Major Anthony Morse, who died March 22, 1805.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: SAMPLER of Moravian embroidery, worked in 1806, by Sarah
+Ann Smith, of Smithtown, L. I.]
+
+Sampler making was a home rather than a school taught industry, going
+down from mother to daughter along with darning and other processes
+of the needle, and having no relation, except that of its dexterity, to
+the distinct style of decorative embroidery called crewelwork, which
+accompanied it, or even preceded it.
+
+The collecting of samplers has become rather a fad in these days, and as
+they are almost exclusively of New England origin, it gives an
+opportunity of acquaintance with the little Puritan girl which is not
+without its charm. As most of their samplers were signed with their
+names, the acquaintance becomes quite intimate, and one feels that these
+little Puritans were good as well as diligent. Here is Harmony
+Twitchell's name upon a blue and white sampler. What child whose name
+was Harmony could quarrel with other children, or how could this other,
+whose long-suffering name was Patience, be resentful of the roughnesses
+of small male Puritans? Hate-evil and Wait-still and Hope-still and
+Thanks and Unity must have sat together like little doves and made
+crooked A's and B's and C's and picked out the frayed sewing-silk
+threads under the reproofs of the teacher of the Infant School, Miss
+Mather or Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker, whose father was a
+clergyman, or even Miss Bradford, whose uncle was the Governor?
+
+All this is in the story of the sampler, and so the teaching and
+practice of the canvas went constantly forward. The method was so
+simple, quite within the capacity of an alphabet-studying child. To make
+an A in cross-stitch was to create a link between the baby mind and the
+letter represented. There was no choice, no judgment or experience
+needed. The limit of every stitch was fixed by a cross thread, one
+little open space to send the needle down and another through which to
+bring it back, and the next one and the next, then to cross the threads
+and the thing was done. Yes, the little slips could make a sampler,
+every one of them, and when it was made, sometimes it was put in a frame
+with a glass over it, and Patience's mother would show it to visitors,
+and Patience would taste the sweets of superiority, than which there is
+nothing to the childish heart, nor even to mature humanity, so sweet.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy Dennis, Argyle, N. Y., in
+1810.
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Nancy McMurray, of Salem, N. Y., in 1793.
+
+_Courtesy Mrs. E. M. Sanford, Madison, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: PETIT POINT PICTURE which belonged to President John
+Quincy Adams, and now in the Dwight M. Prouty collection.
+
+_Courtesy Colonial Rooms, John Wanamaker, New York_]
+
+There were Infant Schools in my own days, little congregations of
+children not far removed from babyhood, who were taught the alphabet
+from huge cards, and repeated it simultaneously from the great
+blackboard which was mounted in the center of the room. In the schools,
+as well as at home, every little girl-baby was taught to sew, to
+overhand minutely upon small blocks of calico, the edges turned over and
+basted together. When a perfect capacity for overhand sewing was
+established, the next short step was to the sampler, and the tiny
+fingers were guided along the intricacies of canvas crossings. The dear
+little rose-tipped fingers! the small hands! velvet soft and satin
+smooth, diverse even in their littlenesses! They were taught even then
+to be dexterous with woman's special tool, the very same in purpose and
+intent with which queens and dames and ladies had played long before.
+
+The sampler world was a real world in those days, full of youth and as
+living as the youth of the world must always be, but now it is dead as
+the mummies, and the carefully preserved remains are only the shell
+which once held human rivalries and passions.
+
+
+Quilts
+
+The domestic needlework of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
+centuries, should not be overlooked in a history of embroidery, it
+being often so ambitiously decorative and the stitchery so remarkable.
+The patchwork quilt was an instance of much of this effort. It was
+unfortunate that an economic law governed this species of work, which
+prevented its possible development. The New England conscience, sworn to
+utility in every form, had ruled that no material should be _bought_ for
+this purpose. It could only take advantage of what happened, and it
+seldom happened that cottons of two or three harmonious colors came
+together in sufficient quantity to complete the five-by-five or
+six-by-six which went to the making of a patchwork quilt. Nevertheless
+one sometimes comes across a "rising sun" or a "setting sun" bedquilt
+which is remarkable for skillful shading, and was an inspiration in the
+house where it was born, and where the needlework comes quite within the
+pale of ornamental stitchery.
+
+This variety of domestic needlework, and one or two others which are
+akin to it, survived in the northern and middle states in the form of
+quilting until at least the middle of the nineteenth century, while in
+the southern states, especially in the mountains of Kentucky and North
+Carolina, it still survives in its original painstaking excellence.
+
+Among the earlier examples of these quilts one occasionally finds one
+which is really worthy of the careful preservation which it receives. I
+remember one which impressed itself upon my memory because of the
+humanity interwoven with it, as well as the skill of its making. It was
+a construction of blocks, according to patchwork law, every alternate
+block of the border having an applied rose cut from printed calico in
+alternate colors of yellow, red, and blue. These roses were carefully
+applied with buttonhole stitch, and the cotton ground underneath cut
+away to give uniform thickness for quilting. The main body of the quilt
+was unnoticeably good, being a collection of faintly colored patches of
+correct construction. The quilting was a marvel--a large carefully drawn
+design, evidently inspired by branching rose vines without flowers, only
+the leafage and stems being used, and all these bending forms filled in
+with a diamonded background of exquisite quilting. The palely colored
+center was distinguished only by its needlework, leaving the rose border
+to emphasize and frame it.
+
+There was a bit of personal history attached to this quilt in the shape
+of a small tag, which said:
+
+"This quilt made by Delia Piper, for occupation after the death of an
+only son. Bolivar, Southern Missouri, 1845."
+
+The same kind friend who had introduced me to this quilt, finding me
+appreciative of woman's efforts in fine stitchery, took me to call upon
+other pieces which were equally worthy of admiration. One was a white
+quilt of what was called "stuffed work," made by working two surfaces of
+cloth together, the upper one of fine cambric, the lower one of coarse
+homespun. Upon the upper one a large ornamental basket was drawn, filled
+with flowers of many kinds, the drawing outlines being followed by a
+back stitchery as regular and fine as if done by machine, looking, in
+fact, like a string of beaded stitches, and yet it was accomplished by a
+needle in the hand of a skillful but unprofessional sewer. The picture,
+for it was no less, was completed by the stuffing of each leaf and
+flower and stem with flakes of cotton pushed through the homespun
+lining. The weaving of the basket was a marvel of bands of buttonholed
+material, which stood out in appropriate thickness. The centers of
+the flowers had simulated stamens done in knotted work.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--SAMPLER in drawnwork, ecru linen thread, made by
+Anne Gower, wife of Gov. John Endicott, before 1628.
+
+_Center_--SAMPLER embroidered in dull colors on ecru canvas by Mary
+Holingworth, wife of Philip English, Salem merchant, married July 1675,
+accused of witchcraft in 1692, but escaped to New York. _From the Curwen
+estate._
+
+_Courtesy the Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+_Right_--SAMPLER worked by Hattie Goodeshall, who was born February 19,
+1780, in Bristol.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+I think this stuffed work was rather rare, for I have only seen two
+specimens, and as it required unusual and exhaustive skill in
+needlework, the production was naturally limited. The practice was one
+of the exotic efforts of some one of large leisure and lively ambitions
+who belonged to the class of prosperous citizens.
+
+"Patchwork," as it was appropriately called, was more often a farmhouse
+industry, which accounts for its narrow limits, since, with choice of
+material, even a small familiarity with geometrical design might bring
+good results. It might have easily become good domestic art. Geometrical
+borders in two colors would have taken their place in decorative work,
+and the applied work, so often ventured upon, was the beginning of one
+very capable method. The skillful needlework, the elaborate quilting,
+the stitchery and stuffing are worthy of respect, for the foundation of
+it all was great dexterity in the use of the needle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV -- MORAVIAN WORK, PORTRAITURE, FRENCH EMBROIDERY, AND
+LACEWORK
+
+
+While the ladies and house mistresses of New England were busy with
+their crewelwork, the children with their little samplers, and farm
+housemothers sewed patchwork in the intervals of spinning and weaving,
+an entirely different development of needlework art had taken place,
+beginning in Pennsylvania. Embroidery in America did not grow
+exclusively from seed brought over in the Mayflower. It sprang from many
+sources, but its finest qualities came from the influence of what was
+called "Bethlehem Embroidery."
+
+The advent of this style of needlework was interesting. It originated in
+a religious community founded in 1722 at Herrnhut, Germany, by Count
+Zinzendorf. It was a strictly religious, semimonastic group of single
+men and single women, whose hearts were filled with zeal for mission
+work. At that period, I suppose America seemed a possible and promising
+field for such efforts, and accordingly forty-five of the brothers and
+as many of the sisters turned their faces toward this new world. One
+can fancy that when the thought first entered their minds, of coming to
+a land peopled by savage Indians, with but a bare sprinkling of "the
+Lord's people," they trembled even in their dreams at the thought of the
+cruel incidents they might encounter in that wilderness toward which
+they were impelled by apostolic zeal, and the unquiet sea upon which
+they were about to embark foreshadowed an unknown future. But there was
+small danger for them upon the sea; surely they could not sink in
+troubled waters, these etherial souls! The heavenly quality of them
+would upbear the vessel and cargo. They would come safe to land, no
+matter how tempestuous the elements!
+
+I suppose, at all periods of the world, prophet and martyr stuff might
+be sifted out from the man-stuff of the times if the race had need of
+them. In normal states of growth, we call them "cranks" and look for no
+results from their existence. But the elusive spirit of love never dies.
+It appears and reappears in the history of all races and times, and
+leaves its mark upon them in various shapes of beneficence.
+
+These missionary brothers and sisters had chosen as the theater of their
+labor that part of our broad land which was pleasantly christened
+Pennsylvania, and selecting a portion of the southern area, they founded
+their colony and called it "Ephrata."
+
+It existed for forty years, constantly increasing its membership, and
+living a life reaching out toward a perfection of goodness which seemed
+quite possible to their apostolic souls.
+
+Time, however, brought changes of circumstance and of mind, and after
+many philanthropic phases, in 1749 the mingled elements and aspirations
+of the enlarged congregation were merged into two boarding schools, one
+for boys, which was the germ of Lehigh University, and another for girls
+at Bethlehem, which, under the careful fostering of the sisters, became
+the birthplace of the famous Moravian needlework. So were melted into
+the modern form of scholastic instruction the various efforts of
+religious activity, the eternal reaching out for conditions in human
+life in which it is easy and natural to be good and happy. It had not
+been accomplished in this semimonastic life, but the efforts toward it
+had their influence, and, you may judge by the quality of its
+founders, had never died.
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLEBOOK of Moravian embroidery, made about 1850. _Now
+in the possession of Mrs. J. U. Myers, Bethlehem, Pa._]
+
+[Illustration: MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY worked by Emily E. Reynolds,
+Plymouth, Pa., in 1834, at the age of twelve, while at the Moravian
+Seminary in Bethlehem, and now owned by her granddaughter.
+
+_Courtesy of Claire Reynolds Tubbs, Gladstone, N. J._]
+
+The two schools very early in their history seem to have established a
+reputation for learning and culture which made them a desirable
+influence in the formative lives of the children of the most thoughtful,
+as well as the most prominent and prosperous, American families. Indeed,
+the school for girls became so popular as to lead to an extension and
+founding of several branches in other of the southern states. The art
+and practice of fine needlework became a popular and necessary feature
+of them, distinguishing them from all other schools. "Tambour and fine
+needlework" were among the extras of the school, and charged for, as we
+learn from school records, at the rate of "seventeen shillings and
+sixpence, Pennsylvania currency."
+
+It was not alone tambour and fine needlework, as we shall see later,
+that was taught by the Moravian Sisters, but the ribbon work, crepe
+work, and flower embroidery, and picture production upon satin. These
+pictures, however important as performances, were not the most common
+form of needlework taught by the Sisters. Flower embroidery was the
+usual form of practice, and it was of a quality which made each one a
+wonder of execution and skill. The materials were satin of a superb
+quality for the background, or Eastern silk of softness and strength,
+and the silks used in the stitchery were generally "slack twisted" silk
+threads of very pure quality, and in certain cases, where they would not
+be likely to fray, lustrous flosses of Eastern make. The stitch used in
+these flower pieces was an over-and-over stitch, or what was called
+satin-stitch, which was without the lap of Kensington stitch. There was
+in every piece of embroidery done under the instruction of the
+accomplished and devoted Sisters certain virtues, certain effects of
+conscientious and patient work, mingled with the love of good and
+beautiful art, which were plainly visible. It had in all its flower
+pieces, and they were many, the quality of beautiful charm. The ministry
+of nature may have had something to do with this, since the lives of the
+executants were open to its influences.
+
+[Illustration: MORAVIAN EMBROIDERY from Louisville, Ky.]
+
+One can make a mental picture of those early days beside the peaceful
+"Lehi," where the Sisters taught and nurtured the young girls of very
+young America, and trained them in such beautiful and womanly
+accomplishments. The scattered bits of needlework which remain to us are
+so fine, so clear, so thoroughly exhaustive of all excellence in
+technique, that they are to the art of embroidery what the ivory
+miniature is to painting. We cannot but hail the memory of the Sisters
+of Bethlehem with respect and admiration.
+
+I became familiar with the work of this community when I was arranging
+an historic exhibition of American Embroidery for the Bartholdi Fair in
+1883. Few people may remember that, among the means for the installation
+of the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty which welcomes the world at the
+entrance to the harbor of New York, was an effort called the Bartholdi
+Fair, held in the then almost new and very popular Academy of Design at
+the northwestern corner of Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street.
+Knowing the value of Bethlehem work, I made an effort to secure a
+representative collection, with the result of gathering a most
+interesting group of specimens, mainly by the interest and help of Mr.
+Henry Baldwin of Lehigh University, to whom I was referred for
+assistance in my purpose. I have before me now the correspondence which
+ensued, a most painstaking, kind and patient one on his part, giving me
+much interesting history of the Bethlehem mission, as well as its life
+and progress. Among the legends is one--that during our Revolutionary
+war, Pulaski recruited some of his Legion at Bethlehem, and ordered a
+banner, which was carried by his troops until he fell in the attack upon
+Savannah. This banner is now in the rooms of the Maryland Historical
+Society, and I find the question of its having been an order from Count
+Pulaski, or a gift to the Legion, is one of very lively interest in the
+community.
+
+This exhibit of 1883 was as complete an historical collection of
+American needlework as was possible, and I have a list of ten articles
+loaned from collections in Bethlehem, which reads as follows:
+
+1. Embroidered pocketbook of black silk with flowers in bright colors.
+Former property of Bishop Bigler.
+
+2. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers, date 1800.
+
+3. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers and vines,
+dated 1786.
+
+4. Sampler, dated 1740.
+
+5. Yellow velvet bag embroidered with ribbon work.
+
+6. Black velvet bag embroidered in crepe work with flowers.
+
+7. White satin workbag embroidered in fine tracery of vines.
+
+8. A box with embroidered pincushion on top.
+
+9. A blue silk pocketbook with very fine ribbon work.
+
+10. A paper box done with needle in filigree.
+
+It will be seen by this list how varied were the forms of needlework
+taught at Bethlehem. The crepe work mentioned in No. 6 is, probably
+owing to the perishable character of its material, very rare, but was
+extremely beautiful in effect. Bits of colored crepe were gathered into
+flower petals and sewed upon satin, roses laid leaf upon leaf and built
+up to a charming perfection, while the stems and foliage were partially
+or wholly embroidered in silk.
+
+The ribbon embroidery of No. 5, has been revived by the New York Society
+of Decorative Art and practiced with great success. The flower
+embroideries, in the specimens exhibited, were of two sorts--the small
+groups being done with fine twisted silks in a simple "over and over"
+stitch, called at that time "satin stitch," alike on both sides, except
+that on the right side the flowers and leaves were raised from the
+surface by an under thread of cotton floss called "stuffing." This did
+not prevent, as it might easily have done, an unvarying regularity and
+smoothness, which was like satin itself, thread laid beside thread as if
+it were woven instead of sewed.
+
+In the larger flowers, the sewing silk had been split into flosses, or
+perhaps the prepared flosses were used in the "tent stitch," which is
+now known as "Kensington." The colors of all these specimens were as
+fresh as natural flowers, speaking eloquently in praise of early
+processes of dyeing.
+
+[Illustration: LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania
+Dutch early nineteenth century.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+These things seem to fairly exhale gentility, that quality-compact of
+everything superior in the life of early American womanhood. I have
+especially in mind one cushion where flowers, apparently as fresh in
+color as when the cushion was young, are laid upon a ground of silk of
+the pinky-ash color, once known as "ashes of roses." The real charm
+of the thing, that which lends it a tender romance, is the legend worked
+upon the back of the cushion in brown silk stitches which are easily
+mistaken for the round-hand copperplate writing of the period--"Wrought
+where the peaceful Lehi flows." One seems to breathe the very air of the
+secluded valley, peopled by brethren and sisters set apart from the
+strenuous duties of the builders of a new nation, and distinguished for
+learned and devoted effort toward the perfection of moral, and
+spiritual, rather than the conquests of material, life.
+
+The Sisters had many orders from the outside world, as well as from
+visitors, and the profit upon these helped to maintain the school. Many
+of these orders were in the shape of pocketbooks, pincushions, bags,
+etc., having a bunch, or wreath, or cluster of flowers on one side,
+wonderfully wrought in silken flosses or sewing silks, and on the other,
+some pretty sentiment or legend done in dark brown floss in the most
+perfect of "round-hand"; so perfect, in fact, that it would require the
+closest scrutiny to decide that it was not handwritten script.
+
+These plentiful orders for things were induced by the several
+attractions of the situation, the remoteness from warlike and political
+disturbances, and the relationship of so many young girl lives, as well
+as the interest which attached to the school and community, making a
+constant demand in the shape of small articles of use or luxury,
+decorated by the skillful fingers of the Sisters.
+
+Parallel with this fine practice of flower embroidery, was a period of
+far more important needlework, which we may call Picture Embroidery.
+This also owed its introduction to the Moravian School of Bethlehem,
+although it was probably of early English origin, going back to that
+period when English embroidery was the wonder of the world; and the
+_opus plumarium_, or feather-pen stitch, or tent stitch, or Kensington
+stitch, as it has been known in succeeding ages, first attracted
+attention as a medium of art.
+
+Passing from England to Germany it became purely ecclesiastical, and
+even now one occasionally finds in Germany, and less often in England,
+bits of ecclesiastical embroidery of unimaginable fineness,
+commemorating Christ's miracles and other incidents of Bible history. I
+know of one small specimen of ancient English art, covering a space of
+five by seven inches, where the whole Garden of Eden with its weighty
+tragedy is represented by inch-long figures of Adam and Eve, and a
+man-headed snake, discussing amicably the advantages of eating or not
+eating the forbidden fruit.
+
+Such elaboration in miniature embroidery made good the claim of English
+needlework to its first place in the world, since nothing more wonderful
+had or has been produced in the whole long history of needlework art. It
+was undoubtedly from this school, filtered through generations of
+secular practice, that the Moravian picture embroidery came to be a
+general American inheritance.
+
+To adapt this wonderful method to the uses of social life was an
+admirable achievement, and whether by the sisters of the Moravian
+school, or the growth of pre-American influence and time, we do not
+certainly know, the fact remains, however, that it was here so cunningly
+adapted to the circumstances and spirit of colonial and early American
+days as to seem to belong entirely to them, and it would seem quite
+clear that Bethlehem was the source of the most skillful needlework art
+in America. It was there that the fine ladies of the late eighteenth and
+early nineteenth centuries, who sat at the embroidery frame in the
+intervals when they were not "sitting at the harp," acquired their
+skill.
+
+It was the romantic period of embroidery that makes a very telling
+contrast to the earlier crewel and later muslin embroidery of the New
+England states. The pieces were seldom larger than eighteen or twenty
+inches square, the size probably governed by the width of the superb
+satin which was so often used as a background. Not invariably, however,
+for I have seen one or two pieces worked upon gray linen where the
+surface was entirely covered by stitchery, landscape, trees, and sky
+showing an unbroken surface of satiny texture. Pictures from Bible
+subjects are frequent, and these have the air of having been copied from
+prints; in fact, I have seen some where the print appears underneath the
+stitches, showing that it was used as a design. These Scripture pieces
+seem to have employed a lower degree of talent than those having
+original design, and were probably the somewhat perfunctory work of
+young girls whose interests were elsewhere. One picture which I have
+seen was treasured as a record of a very romantic elopement--the lover
+in the case, riding gayly away with his beloved sitting on a pillion
+behind him, and no witnesses to the deed but a small sister, standing at
+the gate of the homestead with outstretched hands and staring eyes.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--"THE MEETING OF ISAAC AND REBECCA"--Moravian
+embroidered picture, an heirloom in the Reichel family of Bethlehem, Pa.
+Worked by Sarah Kummer about 1790.
+
+_Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers_
+
+_Right_--"SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME"--Cross-stitch picture
+made about 1825, now in the possession of the Beckel family, Bethlehem,
+Pa.
+
+_Courtesy of Elizabeth Lehman Myers_]
+
+The most important picture which I have seen in portrait needlework came
+to light at the Baltimore Exhibition, and was a piazza group of five
+figures, a burly sea-captain seated in a rocking chair in a nautical
+dress and his own grayish hair embroidered above his ruddy face, his
+wife in a white satin gown seated beside him, and his three daughters of
+appropriately different ages grouped around, while the ship _Constance_
+was tied closely to the edge of the blue water which bordered the
+foreground of the picture. The composition of this picture was evidently
+the work of some experienced artist, for its incongruous elements kept
+their places and did not greatly clash. Taken as a whole it was an
+astonishing performance, quite too ambitious in its grasp for the novel
+art of needlework, and yet a thing to delight the hearts of the
+descendants, or even casual possessors.
+
+The Moravian teaching and practice spread the principles of needlework
+art so widely that it developed in many different directions. The
+wonderful silk embroidery applied to flowers was, like the arts of
+drawing and painting, capable of being used in copying all forms of
+beauty. It was sometimes, not always, successfully applied to landscape
+representation, and grew at last into a scheme of needlework
+portraiture, in this form perpetuating family history. It was sometimes
+used in conjunction with painting, the faces of a family group being
+done in water color upon cardboard by professional painters who were
+members of the art guild, who wandered from one social circle to
+another, supplying the wants of embroideresses ambitious of distinction
+in their accomplishments. The small painted faces were cut from the
+cardboard upon which they had been painted and worked around, often with
+the actual hair of the original of the portrait. I have seen one picture
+of a Southern beauty, where the golden hair had been wound into tiny
+curls, and sewn into place, and the lace of the neckwear was so
+cleverly simulated as to look almost detachable. Of course such pictures
+were the result of individual experiment on the part of some very able
+and ambitious needlewoman.
+
+[Illustration: ABRAHAM AND ISAAC. Kensington embroidery by Mary Winifred
+Hoskins of Edenton, N. C., while attending an English finishing school
+in Baltimore in 1814.
+
+_Courtesy of Mrs. R. B. Mitchell, Madison, N. J._]
+
+One can imagine that the effect of them in social life was to add
+greatly to the vogue of the art of needlework. The most numerous of
+these relics were called "mourning pieces"--bits of memorial
+embroidery--the subject of the picture being generally a monument
+surmounted by an urn, overhung with the sweeping branches of a willow,
+while standing beside the monument is a weeping female figure, the face
+discreetly hidden in a pocket handkerchief. The inscriptions, "Sacred to
+the memory," etc., were written or printed upon the satin in India ink,
+and often the letters of the name were worked with the hair of the
+subject of the memorial.
+
+In these pieces it is rather noticeable that the mourning figure is
+always draped in white, which leads to the conclusion that it is a
+purely emblematic figure of an emotion, rather than a real mourner. The
+shading of the monument was generally done in India ink, so that the
+actual embroidery was confined to the trunk and long branches of
+weeping willow, and the dress of the figure, and the ground upon which
+willow and monument and figure stand. The faces being always hidden by
+the handkerchief, and a tinted satin serving for the sky, the execution
+of these memorial pictures was comparatively simple. They certainly bear
+an undue proportion to those happy family portraits where mother and
+children, or husband and wife, sit in love and simplicity before the
+pillared magnificence of the family mansion.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--FIRE SCREEN embroidered in cross-stitch worsted.
+_From the McMullan family of Salem._
+
+_Courtesy Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._
+
+_Right_--FIRE SCREEN, design, "The Scottish Chieftain," embroidered in
+cross-stitch by Mrs. Mary H. Cleveland Allen.
+
+_Courtesy Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: FIRE SCREEN worked about 1850 by Miss C. A. Granger, of
+Canandaigua, N. Y.]
+
+Perhaps the greater simplicity and ease of execution of the mourning
+pieces had something to do with their greater number. They may have been
+the first spelling of the difficult art of pictorial embroidery. The
+best of these picture embroideries were certainly wonderful creations as
+far as the use of the needle was concerned, and I fancy were done in the
+large leisure of some colonial home where early distinction in the art
+of needlework must have gone hand in hand with the skill of the
+traveling portrait painter. These dainty productions, with their
+delicately painted faces and hands, are far more often found than those
+with embroidered flesh. In some of these, faces painted with real
+miniature skill upon bits of parchment have been inserted or
+superimposed upon the satin, the edges, as I have said, carefully
+covered by embroidery, done with single hair threaded into the needle
+instead of silk. In one case which I remember, the yellow hair of a
+child was knotted into a bunch of solid looking curls covering the head
+of a small figure, while the face of the mother was surmounted by bands
+of a reddish brown. This little touch of realism gave a curious note of
+pathos to the picture of a life separated from the present by time and
+outgrown habits, but linked to it by this one tangible proof of actual
+existence.
+
+The drawing or plan of these pictures was evidently done directly upon
+the satin ground, as one often finds the outlines showing at the edge of
+the stitches; but in the few specimens I have found where they were
+worked upon linen it had been covered with a tracing on strong thin
+paper, and the entire design worked through and over both paper and
+canvas. Those which were done upon linen seemed to belong to an earlier
+period than those worked on satin, which was perhaps an American
+adaptation of the earlier method. Certainly the soft thick India satin,
+which was the ground of so many of them, made a delightful surface for
+embroidery, and blended with its colors into a silvery mass where work
+and background were equally effective. Two of these have survived the
+century or more of careful seclusion which followed the proud eclat of
+their production. One of the fortunate heirs to many of these exhibited
+treasures told me of a package or book containing heads in water color,
+evidently to be used as copies for the faces which might be found
+necessary for efforts in embroidery. The painting of these was perhaps a
+part of the education or accomplishment considered necessary to girls of
+prominent and successful families of the day.
+
+Under favorable circumstances, such as a convenient relation between
+artist and needlework, this art would have developed into needlework
+tapestry. The groups would have outgrown their frames, and left their
+picture spaces on the walls, and, stretching into life-size figures,
+have become hangings of silken broidery, such as we find in Spain and
+Italy, from the hands of nuns or noble ladies.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED PICTURE in silks, with a painted sky.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+[Illustration: CORNELIA AND THE GRACCHI. Embroidered picture in silks,
+with velvet inlaid, worked by Mrs. Lydia Very of Salem at the age of
+sixteen while at Mrs. Peabody's school.
+
+_Courtesy of Essex Institute, Salem, Mass._]
+
+The influence of the Bethlehem teaching lasted long enough to build up a
+very fine and critical standard of embroidery in America. It would be
+difficult to overestimate the importance of the influence of this school
+of embroidery upon the needlework practice of a growing country. Its
+qualities of sincerity, earnestness, and respect for the art of
+needlework gave importance to the work of hands other than that of
+necessary labor, and these qualities influenced all the various forms of
+work which followed it. The first divergence from the original work was
+in its application, rather than its method, for instead of having a
+strictly decorative purpose its application became almost exclusively
+personal. Flower embroidery of surpassing excellence was its general
+feature. The materials for the development of this form of art were
+usually satin, or the flexible undressed India silk which lent itself so
+perfectly to ornamentation. Breadths of cream-white satin, of a
+thickness and softness almost unknown in the present day, were stretched
+in Chippendale embroidery frames, and loops and garlands of flowers of
+every shape and hue were embroidered upon them. They were often done for
+skirts and sleeves of gowns of ceremony, giving a distinction even
+beyond the flowered brocades so much coveted by colonial belles.
+
+This beautiful flower embroidery was, like its predecessor, the rare
+picture embroidery, too exacting in its character to be universal. It
+needed money without stint for its materials, and luxurious surroundings
+for its practice. Some of the beautiful old gowns wrought in that day
+are still to be seen in colonial exhibitions, and are even occasionally
+worn by great-great-granddaughters at important mimic colonial
+functions.
+
+Floss embroidery upon silk and satin was not entirely confined to
+apparel, for we find an occasional piece as the front panel of one of
+the large, carved fire screens, which at that date were universally used
+in drawing-rooms as a shelter from the glare and heat of the great open
+fires which were the only method of heating. As the back of the screen
+was turned to the fire and the embroidered face to the room, its
+decoration was shown to admirable advantage, and one can hardly account
+for the rarity of the specimens of these antique screens, except upon
+the supposition that the roses, carnations, and forget-me-nots were
+still more effective when wrought upon the scant skirt of a colonial
+gown, instead of being shrouded in their careful coverings in the
+deserted drawing-room, and my lady of the embroidery might more
+effectively exhibit them in the lights of a ballroom. In recording the
+changes in the style and purposes of embroidery, from the days of
+homespun and home-dyed crewel to the almost living flowers wrought with
+lustrous flosses upon breadths of satin which were the best of the
+world's manufacture, one unconsciously traverses the ground of domestic
+and political history, from the days of the Pilgrims to the pomp of
+colonial courts.
+
+
+French Embroidery
+
+The character and purposes of the art varied with every political and
+national change. In the middle of the eighteenth century, a demand had
+gone out from the new and growing America, and wandering over the seas
+had asked for something fine and airy with which to occupy delicate
+hands, unoccupied with household toil. The carefully acquired skill of
+the earlier periods of our history became in succeeding generations
+almost an inheritance of facility, and easily merged into the elaborate
+stitchery called French embroidery. I can find no trace of its having
+been _taught_, but plenty of proofs of its existence are to be seen on
+the needlework pictures under glass still hanging in many an
+old-fashioned parlor, or relegated to the curiosity corner of modern
+drawing-rooms. It is possible that the close intimacy existing between
+France and England at that period may have influenced this art. Many
+French families of high degree were seeking safety or profit in this
+country, and the convent-bred ladies of such families would naturally
+have shared their acquirements with those whose favor and interest were
+important to them as strangers. There was another form of this French
+embroidery, the materials used being cambrics, linens, and muslins of
+all kinds, the most precious of which were the linen-cambrics and India
+mulls. The use of the former still survives in the finest of French
+embroidered pocket handkerchiefs, but the latter is seldom seen except
+in the veils and vests of Oriental women, or in the studio draperies of
+all countries.
+
+[Illustration: CAPE of white lawn embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+[Illustration: COLLARS of white muslin embroidered. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+The threads used were flosses of linen or cotton, preferably the
+latter, which were almost entirely imported. With these restricted
+materials, wonders of ornamentation were performed. The stitch, quite
+different from that of crewelwork or picture embroidery of the preceding
+period, was the simple over and over stitch we find in French embroidery
+of the present day. The leaves of the design or pattern were frequently
+brought into relief by a stuffing of under threads.
+
+Everything was embroidered; gowns, from the belt to lower hem, finished
+with scalloped and sprigged ruffles in the same delicate workmanship,
+were everyday summer wear. Slips and sacques, which were not quite as
+much of an undertaking as an entire gown, were bordered and ruffled with
+the same embroidery. The amount and beauty of specimens which still
+exist after the lapse of nearly a century is quite wonderful. Small
+articles, like collars, capes and pelerines, were almost entirely
+covered with the most exquisite tracery of leaf and flower, a perfect
+frostwork of delicate stitchery, with patches of lacework introduced in
+spaces of the design.
+
+The designs were seldom, almost never, original, being nearly always
+copied directly from what was called "boughten work," to distinguish it
+from that which was produced at home.
+
+Many beautiful and skillful stitches were used in this form of work.
+Lace stitches, made with bodkins or "piercers," or darning needles of
+sufficient size to make perforations, were skillfully rimmed and joined
+together in patterns by finer stitches, and open borders, and
+hemstitching, and dainty inventions of all kinds, for the embellishment
+of the fabrics upon which they were wrought.
+
+With these materials and these methods most of the women of the
+different sections of the country busied themselves from a period
+beginning probably about 1710 and extending to 1840, and it is safe to
+say, notwithstanding the apparent simplicity of life between those
+dates, that at no period in the history of woman was as much time and
+consummate skill bestowed upon wearing apparel. Many a young girl of the
+day embroidered her own wedding dress, and during the months or years of
+its preparation suffered and enjoyed the same ambition which goes on in
+the present, to the acquirement of some wonder of French composition, or
+costly ornament of point lace and pearls.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--BABY'S CAP White mull, with eyelet embroidery.
+Nineteenth century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_
+
+_Right_--BABY'S CAP Embroidered mull. 1825.
+
+_Courtesy Mrs. Isaac Pierson, Canandaigua, N. Y._]
+
+[Illustration: COLLAR of white embroidered muslin. Nineteenth century
+American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+Everything was embroidered. The tender, downy head of the newly born
+baby was covered with a cap of delicatest material incrusted to hardness
+with needlework. The baby's caps of the period are a perfect chapter of
+human emotions; mother-love, emulation, pride, and declaration of family
+or personal position are skillfully expressed in a multiplicity of
+decorative stitches. A six-foot length of baptismal robe carried for
+half its length the same elaborate stitchery. Long delicate ruffles were
+edged with double rows of scallops. Double and triple collars and
+"pelerines" of muslin were to be found in the hands of all women of high
+or low degree. Articles of wearing apparel were done upon a soft fine
+muslin called mull, breadths of which were embroidered for skirts,
+lengths of it were scalloped and embroidered for flounces, and
+hand-lengths of it were done for the short waists and sleeves of the
+pretty Colonial gowns worn by our delicate ancestresses. One of these
+gowns, stretched to its widest, would hardly cover a front breadth of
+the habit of one of our well-nurtured athletic girls of the present, and
+the athletic girl can show no such handiwork as this.
+
+Beautiful embroidery it was that was lavished upon muslin gowns, baby's
+caps and long, long robes, and upon aprons, pelerines and capes. Over
+stitch instead of tent stitch was the order of the day. "Tent stitch and
+the use of the globes" was no longer advertised as a part of school
+routine. Instead of this, there were the most delicate overstitches and
+multitudinous lace-stitches which we nowhere else find, unless in the
+finest of Asian embroidery.
+
+A large part of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth
+century was a period of remarkable skill in all kinds of stitchery. It
+was not confined to embroidery, but was also applied to all varieties of
+domestic needlework. Hemstitched ruffles were a part of masculine as
+well as feminine wear, and finely stitched and ruffled shirts for the
+head of the household were quite as necessary to the family dignity as
+embroidered gowns and caps for its feminine members.
+
+It would be difficult to enumerate all the uses to which the national
+perfection of needle dexterity was put. It was, indeed, a national
+dexterity, for although its application was widely different in the
+eastern and southern states, the two schools of needlework, as we may
+term them, met and mingled to a common practice of both methods in the
+middle states.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the
+Westervelt collection.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED WAIST OF A BABY DRESS. 1850. From the
+collection of Mrs. George Coe.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+Perhaps one may account for the prevalence of this kind of work, as it
+existed at a period of very limited education or literary pursuits among
+women. Domestic life was woman's kingdom, and needlework was one of its
+chief conditions. But whatever cause or causes stimulated the vogue of
+this variety of embroidery, we find it was universal among rich and
+poor, in city and country, for nearly three-quarters of a century. The
+narrow roll of muslin, for scalloped flounces and ruffling, and the
+skeins of French cotton went everywhere with girls and women, except to
+church and to ceremonious functions where men were included. Needlework
+was far more than an interest, it was an occupation.
+
+The varieties of tambour work and open stitchery of various ornamental
+kinds were possible for all capacities. It was a general form of fine
+needlework, happily available to women of the farmhouse, as well as of
+the mansion, and its exceeding precision and beauty gave a character to
+the purely utilitarian stitchery of the day which has made a high
+standard for succeeding generations. The hemstitched ruffles of shirts,
+the stitched plaits of simpler ones, the buttonholed triangles at the
+intersection of seams--all these practically unknown to modern
+construction--were probably the result of the skillful and careful
+needlework ornamentation of simple fabrics.
+
+As an occupation, French embroidery practically displaced the making of
+cabinet pictures of graceful ladies in scant satin gowns which had
+occupied the embroidery frame, or decorated drawing-room walls. Flowers
+ceased to blossom upon pincushions, and the engrossing and prevalent
+occupation of needlework was entirely devoted to personal wear.
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERY ON NET. Border for the front of a cap made
+about 1820.
+
+_Courtesy of Mrs. A. S. Hewitt_]
+
+[Illustration: VEIL (unfinished) hand run on machine-made net. American
+nineteenth century.
+
+_Courtesy of Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York_]
+
+At this period, however, ships were coming into Boston and other eastern
+ports almost daily or weekly, instead of at intervals of weary months.
+Ships were going to and returning from China and the Indies and the
+islands of the sea, laden on their return voyages not only with spices
+and liquors and sweets of the southern world, but with satins and
+velvets and silks and prints, and delicately printed muslins and
+cambrics; and the fair linen and cotton flosses disappeared from the
+hands of needlewomen. Manufacturers had brought their looms to weave
+designs into the fabrics they produced and to simulate the work of the
+needle in a way which made one feel that the very spindles thought and
+wrought with conscious love of beauty.
+
+The larger demands of luxurious living increased also the necessary work
+of the needle, and while the looms of France and Switzerland were busy
+weaving broidered stuffs, the needles of sewing women were kept at work
+fashioning the necessary garments of the millions of playing and working
+human beings. It was the era which gave birth to the "Song of the
+Shirt," a day of personal and exacting practice.
+
+
+Lacework
+
+The disappearance of the practice of French embroidery was as sudden as
+the dropping of a theater curtain, but a coexistent art called Spanish
+lacework lingered long after muslin embroidery had ceased to be. It was
+chiefly used in the elaboration of shawls, and large lace veils, which
+were a very graceful addition to Colonial and early American costume.
+There is no difficulty in tracing this kind of decorative needlework. It
+came from Mexico into New Orleans, and from there, by various secrets of
+locomotion, spread along the southern states.
+
+The veils were yard squares of delicate white or black lace, heavily
+bordered and lightly spotted with flowers, while the shawls were
+sometimes nearly double that size, and of much heavier lace, as they had
+need to be, to carry the wealth of decorative darning lavished upon
+them.
+
+The design was always a foliated one, generally proceeding from a common
+center, representing a basket or a knot of ribbon, which confined the
+branching forms to the point of departure. The edges were heavily
+scalloped, with an extension of the ornamentation which included a rose
+or leaf for the filling of every scallop. The centers of flowers, and
+even of leaves, were often filled with beautiful variations of lace
+stitches worked into the meshes of the ground, and were very curious and
+interesting.
+
+[Illustration: LACE WEDDING VEIL, 36 x 40 inches, used in 1806. From the
+collection of Mrs. Charles H. Lozier.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+[Illustration: HOMESPUN LINEN NEEDLEWORK called "Benewacka" by the
+Dutch. The threads were drawn and then whipped into a net on which the
+design was darned with linen. Made about 1800 and used in the end of
+linen pillow cases.
+
+_Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J._]
+
+Darning with flosses upon both white and black bobbinet, or silk net,
+was a very common form of the art, and veils of white with seed or
+all-over designs darned in white silk floss, may be called the "personal
+needlework" of the period, and some of the shawls were superb stretches
+of design and stitching. This art, although so beautiful in effect,
+demanded very little of the skill necessary to the preceding methods of
+embroidery. The lace was simply stretched or basted over paper or white
+cloth, upon which the design was heavily traced in ink; the spaces which
+were to be solidly filled were sometimes covered with a shading of red
+chalk, and when this was done, it was a matter of simple running over
+and under the meshes of the net, in directions indicated by the shape of
+the leaf or flower. The work could be heavier or lighter, according to
+the design and size or weight of the flosses used. I have seen a wedding
+veil worked upon a beautiful white silk net, carrying a sprinkling of
+orange flowers, darned with white silk flosses, and a heavy wreath
+around the border. Certainly no veil of priceless point lace could be so
+etherially beautiful as was this relic of the past, and certainly no
+commercial product, however costly, could carry in its transparent folds
+the sentiment of such a bridal veil, wrought in love by the bride who
+was to wear it.
+
+I have seen one beautiful shawl, where the entire design was done in
+shining silver-white flosses, upon a ground of black net, with the
+effect of a disappearance of the background, the wreaths and groups of
+flowers seeming to float around the figure of the wearer.
+
+In one or two instances, also, I have seen shawls in varicolored flosses
+producing a silvery mass of ornamentation which was most effective, but
+they were experiments which evidently did not commend themselves to
+North American taste.
+
+The same method of darning was used upon what was then called, "bobbinet
+footing," narrow lengths of bobbinet lace which were extensively used as
+ruffles for caps and trimming and garniture of capes and various
+articles of personal wear.
+
+Cap bodies were also worked in this method; in fact, the decorative
+treatment of caps must have been a trying question. The dignity of the
+married woman depended somewhat upon the size of the cap she wore, and
+it was as necessary to convention that the crow-black locks of the
+matron of twenty-five should be hidden, as that the scant locks of sixty
+should be decently shrouded.
+
+Insertings of darned footing, alternating with bands of muslin, were
+largely used in the construction of gowns, and, in short, this style of
+needlework, while not as universal or absorbing as French embroidery,
+continued longer in vogue and perhaps amused or solaced some who had
+little skill or time for the more exacting methods of embroidery.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V -- BERLIN WOOLWORK
+
+
+It surprises us in these latter days of demand for the best conditions
+in the prosecution of decorative work, that it should have lived at all
+through the days of existence in one-roomed log cabins of early settlers
+and the conflicting demands of pioneer life. It survived them all, and
+the little, fast-arriving Puritan children were taught their stitches as
+religiously as their commandments; and so American embroidery grew to be
+an art which has enriched the past and future of its executants.
+
+After the two periods of French and Spanish needlework passed by, there
+appeared what was known as Berlin woolwork. Those who in earlier times
+were devoted to fine embroidery solaced their idleness with this new
+work--certainly a poor substitute for the beautiful embroidery of the
+preceding generation, but answering the purpose of traditional
+employment for the leisure class. This came into vogue and was rather
+extensively used for coverings of screens, chairs, sofas, footstools and
+the various specimens of household furniture made by workmen who had
+served with Adam, Chippendale and Sheraton, and who had brought books of
+patterns with them to the prosperous, growing market of the New World.
+Berlin woolwork was a method of cross-stitch upon canvas in colored
+wools or silks--in fact, an extension of sampler methods into pictures
+and screens, or the more utilitarian chair and sofa covers. It was
+sometimes varied by using broadcloth or velvet as a foundation, the
+canvas threads being drawn out after the picture was complete. We
+occasionally find entire sets of beautiful old mahogany chairs, with
+cushions of cross-stitch embroidery, the subjects ranging over
+everything in the animal or vegetable world, so that one might sit in
+turn upon horses, bead-eyed and curled lap dogs, or wreaths of lilies
+and roses.
+
+Occasionally, also, a glassed and framed picture of elaborate design and
+beautiful workmanship is seen, but as a rule it must be confessed that
+in America this method of embroidery, as an art, failed to achieve
+dignity. This was not in the least owing to the actual technique of the
+process, since beautiful tapestries have been accomplished, taking
+canvas as a medium and foundation for a dexterous use of design and
+color.
+
+The square blocks of the canvas stitch are no more objectionable in an
+art process than the block of enamel of which priceless mosaics are
+made, but one can easily see that if every design for mosaic work could
+be indefinitely reproduced and sold by the thousands, with numbered and
+colored blocks of glass, something--we hardly know what--would be lost
+in even the most exact reproductions.
+
+Original design, however simple, is the expression of a thought, and
+passes directly from the mind of the originator to the material upon
+which it is expressed; but when the design becomes an article of
+commercial supply it loses in interest, and if the process of production
+is simple, requiring little thought and skill, the work also fails to
+call out in us the reverence we willingly accord to skillful and
+painstaking embroidery.
+
+[Illustration: BED HANGING of polychrome cross-stitch appliqued on blue
+woolen ground.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: NEEDLEPOINT SCREEN made in fine and coarse point. Single
+cross-stitch.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+Yet we must acknowledge there are many examples of Berlin woolwork which
+possess the merits of beautiful color and exact and even workmanship.
+Some of them are done upon the finest of canvas with silks of exquisite
+shadings, and where figures are represented the faces are worked with
+silk in "single stitch," which means one crossing of the canvas instead
+of two, as in ordinary cross-stitch. The latter was of course better
+suited for furniture coverings, both in strength and quality of surface,
+while the method of single stitch succeeded in presenting a smooth and
+well-shaded surface, sufficiently like a painted one to stand for a
+picture. Indeed, veritable pictures were produced in this method and
+were effective and interesting. In these specimens the faces and hands,
+while worked in the same cross-stitch, were varied by being done on a
+single crossing of the canvas with one stitch, while the costumes and
+accessories of the picture were done over the larger square of two
+threads of the canvas, with the double crossing of the stitch.
+
+The faces were, in some cases, still further differentiated by being
+wrought in silk instead of wool threads.
+
+The embroidered chair and sofa covers had quite the effect of
+tapestries, and were far better than a not uncommon variation of the
+same needlework, where the broadcloth or velvet background held the
+embroidery.
+
+The designs were copied from patterns printed in color upon cross-ruled
+paper, and consisted of bunches of flowers of various sorts, or pictures
+of dogs, and horses, and birds. A white lap dog worked upon a dark
+background was the favorite design for a footstool, and this small
+object tapered out the existence of decorative cross-stitch, until it
+grew to be in use only as a decoration for toilet slippers. The final
+end of this style of work was long deferred on account of the fact that
+a pair of cloth slippers, embroidered by the hands of some affectionate
+girl or doting woman, was a token which was not too unusual to carry
+inconvenient significance. It might mean much or little, much tenderness
+or affection, or a work of idleness tinctured with sentiment.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--HAND-WOVEN TAPESTRY of fine and coarse
+needlepoint.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_
+
+_Right_--TAPESTRY woven on a hand loom. The design worked in fine point
+and the background coarse point. A new effect in hand weave originated
+at the Edgewater Tapestry Looms.
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+The mechanical and commercial effect of this stitchery discouraged its
+use; its printed patterns and the regularity of its counted stitches
+giving neither provocation nor scope to originality of thought or
+design. This was not the fault of the stitch itself, since
+"cross-stitch" was the first form of needle decoration. It is, in fact,
+the A B C of all decorative stitchery, the method evolved by all
+primitive races except the American Indian. It followed, more or less
+closely, the development of the art of weaving. When this had passed
+from the weaving together of osiers into mats or baskets, and had
+reached the stage of the weaving of hair and vegetable fiber into cloth,
+the decoration of such cloth with independent colored fiber was the next
+step in the creation of values, and, naturally, the form of decorative
+stitches followed the lines of weaving. Simple as was its evolution, and
+its preliminary use, cross-stitch has a past which entitles it to
+reverence. With many races it has remained a habitual form of
+expression, and, as in Moorish and Algerian work, is carried to a
+refinement of beauty which would seem beyond so simple a method. It has
+given form to a lasting style of design, to geometrical borders, which
+have survived races and periods of history, and still remain an
+underlying part of the world of decorative linens.
+
+It is interesting to note that it had no place in aboriginal embroidery,
+and marks its creation as following the art of weaving. It is a long
+step from this traditional past of its origin to the short past of the
+stitchery of America, where the little fingers of small Puritan maids
+followed the lines evolved by the generations of the earlier world.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI -- REVIVAL OF EMBROIDERY, AND THE FOUNDING OF THE SOCIETY OF
+DECORATIVE ART
+
+
+When French needlework had had its day, and the evanescent life of
+Berlin woolwork had passed, for a period of half a century needlework
+ceased to flourish in America. Indeed, the art seemed to have died out
+root and branch, and only necessary and utilitarian needlework was
+practiced. It seems strange, after all the wonderful triumphs of the
+needle in earlier years, that for the succeeding half or three-quarters
+of a century needlework as an art should actually have ceased to be. It
+had died, branch and stem and root, vanished as if it had never been.
+During at least half a century we were a people without decorative
+needlework art in any form. The eyes and thoughts of women were turned
+in other directions.
+
+Of course there is always a reason for a change in public taste,
+something in the development of the time leads and governs every trend
+of popular thought. It may be the attraction of new inventions, or the
+perfection of new processes, or even, and this is not uncommon, the
+charm and fascination of some rare personality, whose ruling is absolute
+in its own immediate vicinity, and whose example spreads like circles in
+water far and far beyond the immediate personal influence. We cannot
+trace this apparent dearth of the art to one particular cause, we only
+know that in America the practice and study of music succeeded to its
+place in almost every household. The needle, that honored implement of
+woman, bade fair to be a thing almost of tradition, something which
+would be in time relegated to museums and collections, to be studied
+historically, as we study the implements of the Stone Age, and other
+prehistoric periods.
+
+I remember an amusing story told by a Baltimore friend, not given to the
+manufacture of instances, that during those years of dearth soon after
+the Civil War she was visiting a lovely southern family who had lived
+through the days of privation. One day there arose a great cry and
+disturbance in the house, which turned out to be a quest for _the_
+needle, where was _the_ needle. Nobody could find it, although it could
+be proved that at a certain date it had been quilted into its accustomed
+place on the edge of the drawing-room curtain of the east window.
+Finally it was found on the wrong curtain, minus the point, and this
+disability gave rise to a discussion. Should it be taken to town, and
+have the point renewed by the watchmaker? This decision was discouraged
+by the daughter of the house, who related that the last time she had
+taken it for the same purpose, the watchmaker had said to her, "Miss
+Cassy, I have put a point on that needle three times, and I would
+seriously advise you to buy a new one."
+
+It was only in America that the needle had ceased to be an active
+implement. In England it had never been so constantly or feverishly
+employed. For the second time in its long history, its work became
+purely personal. The same necessity which impressed itself upon the poor
+little mother of mankind, when she sought among the fig leaves for
+wherewithal to clothe herself, was upon the domestic woman, who sewed
+cloth into skirts instead of vegetable fiber into aprons.
+
+[Illustration: _Left_--EMBROIDERED MITS
+
+_Right_--WHITE COTTON VEST embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+[Illustration: WHITE MULL embroidered in colors. Eighteenth-nineteenth
+century American.
+
+_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]
+
+[Illustration: EMBROIDERED VALANCE, part of set and spread for high-post
+bedstead, 1788. Worked in crewels on India cotton, by Mrs. Gideon
+Granger, Canandaigua, New York.]
+
+It is curious to contrast the effect of this loss of embroidery in
+the two countries, England and America. Doubtless there were other
+reasons than the lost popularity of needlework as an art, that in
+England it should have resulted in the life or death practice of
+necessary needlework, and in America, that the facile fingers of woman
+simply turned to the ivory keys of the piano for occupation. But the
+fact remains that starvation threatened the woman of one country, while
+in the other they were practicing scales. In England it was a period of
+stress and strain, of veritable "work for a living," the period of "The
+Song of the Shirt." Happily, in this blessed land, where hunger was
+unknown, we were not conscious of its terrors, and perhaps hardly knew
+why the "cambric needle" and the darning needle were the only ones in
+the market. Embroidery needles had "gone out." Then came the relief of
+the sewing machine, born in America, where it was scarcely needed, but
+speedily flying across the ocean to its life-saving work in England,
+where the tragedy of the poor seamstress was on the stage of life. Like
+many another form of relief, it was not entirely adequate to the
+situation. Its first effect was to create a need of remunerative work.
+The sewing machine took upon itself the toil of the seamstress, but it
+left the seamstress idle and hungry. This was a new and even darker
+situation than the last, but Englishwomen came to the rescue with a
+resuscitated form of needlework and embroidery tiptoed upon the empty
+stage, new garments covering her ancient form, and was welcomed with
+universal acclaim.
+
+Most cultivated and fortunate Englishwomen had a certain knowledge of
+art and were eager to put all of their uncoined effort at the service of
+that body of unhappy women, who, without money, had the culture which
+goes with the use and possession of money. These unfortunate sisters,
+who were rather malodorously called decayed gentlewomen, became eager
+and petted pupils of a new and popular organization called the South
+Kensington School. Its peculiar claims upon English society gave it from
+the first the help of the most advanced and intelligent artistic
+assistance. The result of this was not only a resuscitation of old
+methods of embroidery, but the great gain to the school, or society, of
+design and criticism of such men as Burne-Jones, Walter Crane, and
+William Morris.
+
+It was with this vogue that it appeared in America, and attracted the
+attention of those who were afterward to be interested in the formation
+of a society which was founded for almost identical purposes. Not indeed
+to prevent starvation of body, but to comfort the souls of women who
+pined for independence, who did not care to indulge in luxuries which
+fathers and brothers and husbands found it hard to supply. So, from what
+was perhaps a social and mental, rather than a physical, want, grew the
+great remedy of a resuscitation of one of the valuable arts of the
+world, a woman's art, hers by right of inheritance as well as peculiar
+fitness.
+
+With true business enterprise, the new English Society prepared an
+important exhibit for our memorial fair, the Centennial, held in
+Philadelphia to mark the one-hundredth anniversary of national
+independence. This exhibit of Kensington Embroidery all unwittingly
+sowed the seed not only of great results, but in decorative art worked
+in many other directions. The exhibits of art needlework from the New
+Kensington School of Art in London, their beauty, novelty and easy
+adaptiveness, exactly fitted it to experiment by all the dreaming
+forces of the American woman. They were good needlewomen by inheritance
+and sensitive to art influences by nature, and the initiative capacity
+which belongs to power and feeling enabled them at once to seize upon
+this mode of expression and make it their own. It was the means of
+inaugurating another era of true decorative needlework, perfectly
+adapted to the capacity of all women, and destined to be developed on
+lines peculiarly national in character. The effect of this exhibit was
+not exactly what was expected in the sale of its works, and long
+afterward, when discussing this apparent failure, in the face of an
+immediate adoption in America of the Society's methods and productions,
+I explained it to myself and an English friend, by the national
+difference in the race feeling for art, and especially for color.
+
+[Illustration: DETAIL of linen coverlet worked in colored wool.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: LINEN COVERLET embroidered in Kensington stitch with
+colored wool.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+It seems to me, after the observation and intimacy of years with the
+growing art of decoration in this country, that the color gift is a race
+gift with us. English art-work is nearly always characterized by subdued
+and modified harmony, while that of America has vivid and striking notes
+which play upon a higher key, and still melt as softly into each
+other as the perfect modulations of the best English art. I was very
+conscious of this during the year of my directorship of the Woman's
+Building and exhibits in the World's Columbian Fair at Chicago, that
+place of wonderful comparisons of the art-work of the world. I could
+nearly always recognize work of American origin by its singing
+color-quality, as different from the sharp semibarbaric notes of
+Oriental art as from the minor cadences of English decorative work. But
+to return to the effect of the English exhibit at the Philadelphia
+Centennial: it was followed by the immediate formation of the Society of
+Decorative Art in New York City, which became the parent of like
+societies in every considerable city or town in the United States. By
+its good fortune in having a president who belonged by right of birth,
+and certainly of ability and achievement, to the best of New York
+society, the movement enlisted the sympathy and interest of the
+influential class of New York women, while there was waiting in the
+shadow a troop of able women who were shut out from the costly gayeties
+of society by comparative poverty, but connected with it by friendships
+and associations, often, indeed, by ties of blood.
+
+Embroidery became once more the most facile and successful of pursuits.
+Graduates from the Kensington School were employed as teachers in nearly
+all of the different societies, and in this way every city became the
+center of this new-old form of embroidery, for what is called
+"Kensington Embroidery" is in fact a far-away repetition of old triumphs
+of the British needle. I use the word "British" advisedly, for it was
+when England was known as Britain among the nations that her embroidery
+was a thing of almost priceless value. In modern English embroidery, the
+days of Queen Anne have been the limit of backward imitation; and, in
+fact, ancient English embroidery was a process of long and assiduous
+labor, as well as of knowledge and inspiration. Our hurried modern
+conditions would not encourage the repetition of the hand-breadth
+pictures in embroidery of the earliest specimens, where countless
+numbers of stitches were lavished upon a single production. The
+embroidered picture of The Garden of Eden described in chapter four is a
+specimen of the minute representation. These specimens are, to the art
+of needlework, what the Dutch school of painting is to the great mural
+canvases of the present day.
+
+The development of the nineteenth century in America was only at first
+an exact reflection of English methods. The first thing which marked the
+influence of national character and taste was, that English models and
+designs almost immediately disappeared, only a few such, consisting of
+those which had been given to the art by masters of design like Morris
+and Marcus Ward, were retained, and American needlewomen boldly took to
+the representation of vivid and graceful groups of natural flowers,
+following the lead of Moravian practice and of flower painting, rather
+than that of decorative design.
+
+As a natural result, crewels were soon discarded in favor of silks, and
+natural extravagance, or national influence, led to the use of costly
+materials instead of the linens of English choice and preference. So the
+old flower embroidery of Bethlehem had a second birth. American girl
+art-students soon found their opportunity in the creation of applied
+design, and before embroidery had ceased to be a matter of
+representation of flowers in colored silks, the flowers grew into
+restrained and appropriate borders, or proper and correct space
+decoration, and the day of women designers for manufacturers had come.
+
+The circulars of the first Society of Decorative Art were not only
+comprehensive, but were ambitious. Its objects were set forth as
+follows:
+
+     1. To encourage profitable industries among women who possess
+     artistic talent, and to furnish a standard of excellence and a
+     market for their work.
+
+     2. To accumulate and distribute information concerning the various
+     art industries which have been found remunerative in other
+     countries, and to form classes in Art Needlework.
+
+     3. To establish rooms for the exhibition and sale of Sculptures,
+     Paintings, Wood Carvings, Paintings upon Slate, Porcelain and
+     Pottery, Lacework, Art and Ecclesiastical Needlework, Tapestries
+     and Hangings, and, in short, decorative work of any description,
+     done by women, and of sufficient excellence to meet the recently
+     stimulated demand for such work.
+
+     4. To form Auxiliary Committees in other cities and towns of the
+     United States, which committees shall receive and pronounce upon
+     work produced in, or in the vicinity of, such places, and which, if
+     approved by them, may be consigned to the salesrooms in New York.
+
+     5. To make connections with potteries, by which desirable forms for
+     decoration, or original designs for special orders, may be
+     procured, and with manufacturers and importers of the various
+     materials used in art work, by which artists may profit.
+
+     6. To endeavor to obtain orders from dealers in China, Cabinet
+     Work, or articles belonging to Household Art throughout the United
+     States.
+
+     7. To induce each worker thoroughly to master the details of one
+     variety of decoration, and endeavor to make for her work a
+     reputation of commercial value.
+
+     The Society meets an actual want in the community by furnishing a
+     place where orders can be given directly to the artist for any kind
+     of art or decorative work on exhibition.
+
+     It is believed that, by the encouragement of this Society, the
+     large amount of work done by those who do not make it a profession
+     will be brought to the notice of buyers outside a limited circle of
+     friends. The aggregate of this work is large, and when directed
+     into remunerative channels will prove a very important department
+     of industry.
+
+     The necessary expenses of the Society for the first, and possibly
+     the second, year will be defrayed by a membership fee of Five
+     Dollars, as well as by donations; but after that time it is
+     expected that all expenses will be met by commissions upon the sale
+     of articles consigned to it.
+
+     The contributions of all women artists of acknowledged ability are
+     earnestly requested. By their co-operation it is intended that a
+     high standard of excellence shall be established in what is offered
+     to the public, and, by seeing truly artistic decorative work, it is
+     hoped many women who have found the painting of pictures
+     unremunerative may turn their efforts in more practical directions.
+
+     All work approved by the Committee of Examination will be
+     attractively exhibited without expense to the artist, but in case
+     of sale a commission of 10 per cent will be charged upon the price
+     received.
+
+There was good teaching from the first, but very independent judgment,
+and it was not long before the more liberal and less chastened American
+mind followed national impulses. Why, said the practical American, shall
+we spend time and effort in doing things which are not adequate in final
+effect to the labor and cost we bestow upon them, and which do not
+really accord with costly surroundings, and, in addition to these
+detriments, can and probably will be eaten by moths when all is done?
+The result of this interrogative reasoning was an immediate resort to
+satins and silks and flosses, wherewith larger and more important things
+than tidies were created--lambrequins, hangings, bedspreads, screens,
+and many other furnishings, all wrought in exquisite flosses, and more
+or less beautiful in color.
+
+The institution of this Society of Decorative Art was in every respect a
+timely and popular movement. It followed the example of the English
+Society in making needlework the chief object of instruction. Our
+artists became interested in the matter of design, as the English
+artists had been, and under their influence the scope of embroidery was
+much enlarged. I remember the first contribution which indicated
+original talent was a piece of needlework by Mrs. W. S. Hoyt of Pelham,
+which was peculiarly ingenious, making a curious link between the
+cross-stitch tapestries of the German school and the woven tapestries of
+France. This needlework was done upon a fabric which imitated the corded
+texture of tapestries, and was stamped in a design which carried the
+color and idea of a tapestry background. Upon this surface Mrs. Hoyt had
+drawn a group of figures in mediaeval costumes, afterward working them in
+single cross-stitch over the ribs produced by the filling threads of the
+fabric. The figures and costumes were done in faded tints which
+harmonized with the background, the stitches keeping the general effect
+of surface in the fabric. It will be seen that the result was extremely
+like that of a tapestry of the fifteenth century. This was followed by
+an exhibit of various landscape pictures of Mrs. Holmes of Boston, a
+daughter-in-law of the poet and writer. Mrs. Holmes had chosen silks and
+bits of weavings for her medium, using them as a painter uses colors
+upon his palette. A stretch of pale blue silk, with outlined hills lying
+against it, made for her a sky and background, while a middle distance
+of flossy white stitches, advancing into well-defined daisies, brought
+the foreground to one's very feet. Flower-laden apple branches against
+the sky were lightly sketched in embroidery stitches, like the daisies.
+It was a delicious bit of color and so well managed as to be as
+efficient a wall decoration as a water color picture.
+
+In what may be called pictorial art in textiles Mrs. Holmes was not
+alone, although her work probably incited to the same sort of
+experiment. Miss Weld of Boston sent a picture made up in the same way,
+of a background of material which lent itself to the representation of a
+field of swampy ground where the spotted leaves of the adder's tongue,
+the yellow water-lily, with its compact balls, and the flaming cardinal
+flower are growing, while swamp grasses are nodding above. This was as
+good in its way as any sketch of them could be, and affected one with
+the _sentiment_ of the scene, as it is the mission of art to do. Miss
+Weld, Miss Carolina Townshend of Albany, Mrs. William Hoyt of Pelham and
+Mrs. Dewey of New York, each contributed very largely to the formation
+of characteristic and progressive needlework art in America. There were
+other individuals whose work was inciting many, who have also, perhaps
+unknown to themselves, helped in this progress. Indeed, I remember many
+pieces of embroidery, loaned for the Bartholdi Exhibition of 1883, which
+would have done credit to any period of the art, and each piece
+undoubtedly had its influence.
+
+The work of schools or societies had been much less marked by original
+development. During the ten years of their existence the four largest
+societies, those of New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago, have
+been under the direction of English teachers, and have followed more or
+less closely the excellencies of the English School. Even in Boston,
+where, owing to the decided cultivation of art and the early
+introduction of drawing in the public schools, one would have looked
+for a rather characteristic development, English designs and English
+methods have been somewhat closely followed.
+
+In attempting to account for this fact one must remember that it is
+against the nature of associated authority to follow individual or
+original suggestions. There must be a broad and well-trodden path for
+committees to walk together in, and the track of the Kensington School
+is broad and authoritative enough for such following. The example and
+incitement of the various societies were the seed of much good and
+progressive art in America. In saying this I do not by any means confine
+the credit of the growth or development of needlework to this society
+alone, for there have been other influences at work. What I mean to say
+is this, that the other kindred societies, like the Woman's Exchange,
+the Needlework Societies, the Household Art Societies, and the
+Blue-and-White Industries started from this one root, and are as much
+indebted to the original society as things must always be to the central
+thought which inspired them. Compared with English work of the same
+period, they were distinguished by a certain spontaneity of motive
+and a luxuriance of effect, which has made these specimens more valuable
+to present possessors, and will make them far more precious as
+heirlooms. This sudden efflorescence of the art was, however, almost in
+the hands of amateurs, except for the occasional effort by some of the
+advanced contributors of the New York and Boston societies.
+
+[Illustration: QUILTED COVERLET worked entirely by hand.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+[Illustration: DETAIL of above coverlet.
+
+_Courtesy of Brooklyn Museum_]
+
+The commercial development of embroidery in this country has been in the
+direction of embroidery upon linen, and in this line each and every
+society of decorative art has been a center of valuable teaching. At the
+Columbian Exposition, to which all prominent societies contributed, the
+perfection of design, color and method, the general level of excellence,
+was on the highest possible plane. In its line nothing could be better,
+and it was encouraging to see that it was _not_ amateur work, _not_ a
+thing to be taken up and laid down according to moods and circumstances,
+but an educated profession or occupation for women, the acquirement of a
+knowledge which might develop indefinitely.
+
+Of course the trend of the decorative needlework was almost entirely in
+the direction of stitchery pure and simple, devoted to table linen and
+luxurious household uses, and this grew to a point of absolute
+perfection. Table-centers and doilies embroidered in colors on pure
+white linen reached a point of beauty which was amazing. When I saw, at
+the World's Columbian Exposition, the napery of the world, wrought by
+all races of women, I was delighted to see that the line of linen
+embroidery which was the direction of the common effort did not in the
+least surpass the work sent by the Decorative Art societies of most of
+our American cities.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII -- AMERICAN TAPESTRY
+
+
+The Society of Decorative Art, has proved itself a means for the
+accomplishment of the two ends for which it was founded--namely, the
+fostering and incitement of good taste in needlework and artistic
+production, and the encouragement of talent in women, as well as
+providing a means of remunerative employment for their gifts in this
+direction.
+
+While the success of this Society was a source of great satisfaction to
+me, I had in my mind larger ambitions, which, by its very philanthropic
+purposes, could not be satisfied, ambitions toward a truly great
+American effort in a lasting direction.
+
+I therefore allied myself with a newly formed group of men, all
+well-known in their own lines of art, Louis Tiffany, famed for his
+Stained Glass, Mr. Coleman for color decoration and the use of textiles,
+and Mr. De Forest for carved and ornamental woodwork. My interests lay
+in the direction and execution of embroideries. I can speak
+authoritatively as to the effect upon it of the other arts, and I can
+hardly imagine better conditions for its development. The kindred arts
+of weaving and embroidery were carried on with those of stained glass,
+mural painting, illustration, and the other expressions of art peculiar
+to the different members. The association of different forms of art
+stimulated and developed and was the means of producing very important
+examples both in embroidery, needle-woven tapestries and loom weaving.
+
+As I was the woman member of this association of artists, it rested with
+me to adapt the feminine art, which was a part of its activities, to the
+requirements of the association. This was no small task. It meant the
+fitting of any and every textile used in the furnishing of a house to
+its use and place, whether it might be curtains, portieres, or wall
+coverings. I drew designs which would give my draperies a framing which
+carried out the woodwork, and served as backgrounds for the desired
+wreaths and garlands of embroidered flowers. I learned many valuable
+lessons of adaptation for the beautiful embroideries we produced. The
+net holding roses was a triumph of picturesque stitchery, and most
+acceptable as placed in the house of the man whose fortunes depended
+upon fish, and many another of like character.
+
+[Illustration: THE WINGED MOON
+
+Designed by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.]
+
+Then one day appeared Mrs. Langtry in her then radiance of beauty,
+insisting upon a conference with me upon the production of a set of
+bed-hangings which were intended for the astonishment of the London
+world and to overshadow all the modest and schooled productions of the
+Kensington, when she herself should be the proud exhibitor. She looked
+at all the beautiful things we had done and were doing, and admired and
+approved, but still she wanted "something different, something unusual."
+I suggested a canopy of our strong, gauze-like, creamy silk
+bolting-cloth, the tissue used in flour mills for sifting the superfine
+flour. I explained that the canopy could be crosses on the under side
+with loops of full-blown, sunset-colored roses, and the hanging border
+heaped with them. That there might be a coverlet of bolting-cloth lined
+with the delicatest shade of rose-pink satin, sprinkled plentifully with
+rose petals fallen from the wreaths above. This idea satisfied the
+pretty lady, who seemed to find great pleasure in the range of our
+exhibits, our designs and our workrooms, and when her order was
+completed, she was triumphantly satisfied with its beauty and
+unusualness. The scattered petals were true portraits done from nature,
+and looked as though they could be shaken off at any minute. I came to
+see much of this beautiful specimen of womanhood, who played her part in
+the eyes of the world; and of things of more lasting importance than her
+somewhat ephemeral career, I should be tempted to tell amusing
+conclusions. She was an Oriental butterfly, which flitted along our
+sober, serious by-path of business and labor, looking for honey of any
+sort to be gathered on its sober track.
+
+When Mr. Tiffany came to me with an order for the drop-curtain of a
+theater, I did not trouble myself about a scheme for it, knowing that it
+had probably taken exact and interesting form in his own mind. It was a
+beautiful lesson to me, this largeness of purpose in needlework. The
+design for this curtain turned out to be a very realistic view of a
+vista in the woods, which gave opportunity for wonderful studies of
+color, from clear sun-lit foregrounds to tangles of misty green, melting
+into blue perspectives of distance. It was really a daring experiment in
+methods of applique, for no stitchery pure and simple was in place in
+the wide reaches of the picture. So we went on painting a woods interior
+in materials of all sorts, from tenuous crepes to solid velvets and
+plushes. It was one of Mrs. Holmes' silk pictures on a large scale, and
+was perhaps more than reasonably successful. I remember the great
+delight in marking the difference between oak and birch trees and
+fitting each with its appropriate effect of color and texture of leaf;
+and the building of a tall gray-green yucca, with its thick satin leaves
+and tall white pyramidal groups of velvet blossoms, standing in the very
+foreground, was as exciting as if it were standing posed for its
+portrait, and being painted in oils.
+
+The variety of our work was a good influence for progress. We were
+constantly reaching out to fill the various demands, and, beyond them,
+to materialize our ideals. As far as art was concerned in our work, what
+we tried to do was not to repeat the triumphs of past needlework, but to
+see how far the best which had been done was applicable to the present.
+
+If tapestries had been the highest mark of the past, to see whether and
+how their use could be fitted to the circumstances of today, and, if we
+found a fit place for them in modern decoration, to see that their
+production took account of the methods and materials which belonged to
+present periods, and adapted the production to modern demands.
+
+[Illustration: SEVENTEENTH CENTURY DESIGN TAPESTRY PANEL
+
+_Courtesy of the Edgewater Tapestry Looms_]
+
+We soon came to the ideal of tapestries which loomed above and beyond us
+and had been reached by every nation in turn which had applied art to
+textiles, but in all except very early work the accomplishment had been
+more of the loom than of hand work. My dream was of American Tapestries,
+made by embroidery alone, carrying personal thought into method. We
+decided that there was no reason for the limitation of the beautiful art
+of needlework to personal use, or even to its numerous domestic
+purposes. This most intimate of the arts of decoration has been in the
+form of wall hangings for the bare wall spaces of architecture from the
+time when dwellings passed their first limited use of protection and
+defense. After this first use of houses came the instinct and longing
+for beauty, and the feeling which prompts us in these wider days of
+achievement to cover our wall spaces with pictures, moved our far-off
+forefathers and mothers to offer their skill in spinning, and weaving,
+and picturing with the needle hangings to cover the bareness of the
+home. This impulse grew with the centuries, until tapestries were a
+natural art expression of different races of men, so that we have
+Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch and English tapestries, each with
+national tastes and characteristics of production. As time went on,
+inevitable machinery undertook the task of making wall hangings, with
+the whole-hearted help of all who had given their lives to art, and
+tapestries had become a part of the riches of the world. When the
+greater part of the world's wealth was in the possession of Popes and
+Princes, it was usual to expend a goodly portion of it in works of art.
+Pictures and tapestries and exquisitely wrought metal work, weavings and
+embroideries, made priceless by costly materials and the thoughts and
+labor of artists, were reckoned not as a sign of wealth but as actual
+wealth. They were really riches, as much as stocks and bonds are riches
+today. Such things were accumulated as anxiously and persistently as one
+accumulates land or houses, or railroad bonds or stocks, and the buyer
+was not poorer; but in fact he was richer for money expended in this
+fashion. This everyday financial fact lay underneath and supported the
+beautiful pageant of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, gilding them
+with a radiance which has attracted the admiration and excited the
+wonder of all succeeding years.
+
+That flower and culmination of labor which we call art was the capital
+of those early centuries, and took the place of the Bank, the Bourse,
+and the Exchange which later financial ideas have created.
+
+It is in a great measure to this fact, as well as to the intense love
+for, and appreciation of, art which distinguished this period, that we
+owe the wonderful treasures which have enriched the later world. They
+belong no longer to princes and prelates, but to governments and
+museums, and are object lessons to the student and the artisan, and an
+inheritance for both rich and poor of all mankind.
+
+Except in the light of these treasures of art, it would be difficult to
+understand how far-reaching and comprehensive was the greed of beauty
+which possessed and distinguished the centers of tapestry production.
+The museums of the world are made up of what remains of them. The
+pictures and tapestries, the weavings and embroideries, the carvings and
+metal work which the world is studying, belonged to the daily life of
+those past centuries. The stamp of thought and the seal of art were set
+upon the simplest conveniences of life. The very keys of the locks and
+hinges of the doors were designed, not by mere workers in metal, but by
+sculptors and artists who were pre-eminent for genius. It was in the
+spirit of this period that Benvenuto Cellini modeled saltcellars as well
+as statues, and his compeers designed carvings and gildings for state
+carriages, and painted pictures upon the panels. Painters of divine
+pictures designed cartoons and borders for tapestries, and wreaths and
+garlands for ceiling pilasters.
+
+Among the names of painters who designed cartoons for tapestries, we
+find those of Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Titian, Guido and Giulio
+Romano, Albert Duerer, Rubens and Van Dyck. Indeed, there is hardly a
+great name among the painters of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
+which has not contributed to the value of the tapestries dating from
+those times. Among them all none have a greater share of glory than the
+series known as "The Acts of the Apostles," designed by Raphael for Pope
+Leo X, in the year 1515. The history of these cartoons is full of
+interest. After the weaving of the first set of these tapestries, which
+was hung in the Sistine Chapel and regarded as among the greatest
+treasures of the world, the cartoons remained for more than a hundred
+years in the manufactory at Brussels. During this period one or more
+sets must have been woven from them, but in 1630 seven were transferred
+to the Mortlake Tapestry works near London, having been purchased by
+Charles I, who was advised of their existence by Rubens. The Mortlake
+tapestry had been established by James I, who was greatly aided by the
+interest of the then Prince of Wales, and the Duke of Buckingham. It is
+charming to think of "Baby Charles" and "Steenie" busying themselves
+with the encouragement of art in the way of the production of tapestry
+pictures, and after the accession of the Prince, to follow the progress
+of this taste in the purchase of the famous cartoons, and the employment
+of no less a genius than Van Dyck in the composition of new and more
+elaborate borders for them. It was probably during the reign of Charles
+that these glorious compositions went into use as illustrations of
+Biblical text, for we find "Paul preaching at Athens," "Peter and Paul
+at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple," and "The Miraculous Draught of
+Fishes" figuring as full-page frontispieces to many old copies of King
+James' Bible. After the tragic close of the reign of King Charles, the
+treasures of tapestries he had accumulated were dispersed and sold by
+order of Cromwell; but the cartoons remained the property of the nation
+and, though lost to sight for another hundred years or so, finally
+reappeared from their obscurity, at Hampton Court, and in these later
+years, at the Kensington Museum, have again taken their place as one of
+the most valuable lessons of earlier centuries. It was probably the
+story of these cartoons which inspired the determination which had taken
+possession of us, to do a real tapestry, something greatly worthy of
+accomplishment.
+
+[Illustration: THE MIRACULOUS DRAUGHT OF FISHES
+
+Arranged (from photographs made in London of the original cartoon by
+Raphael, in the Kensington Museum) by Candace Wheeler and executed in
+needle-woven tapestry by the Associated Artists.]
+
+When we came to the decision to create tapestries, the actual substance
+of them, as well as the art, was a thing to be considered. The wool
+fiber upon which they were usually based was a prey to many enemies.
+Dust may corrupt and moths utterly destroy fiber of wool, but dust does
+not accumulate on threads of silk, neither are they quite acceptable to
+the appetite of moths. Therefore, we reasoned, if we did work which was
+worthy of comparative immortality, it must be done with comparatively
+imperishable material. Fiber of flax and fiber of silk shared this
+advantage, and the silk was tenacious of color, which was not the case
+with flax; therefore we chose silk and went bravely to our task of
+creating American tapestries.
+
+Having decided upon our material, we consulted with our friendly and
+interested manufacturers, and finally ordered a broad, heavily marked,
+loosely woven fabric which would hold our precious stitches safely and
+show them to advantage. The woof of the canvas upon which we were to
+experiment was also of silk, not fine and twisted like the warp, but
+soft and full enough to hold silk stitchery. In this way the face of the
+canvas, or ground, could be quite covered by a full thread of embroidery
+silk passed under the slender warp and actually sewn into the woof.
+
+[Illustration: MINNEHAHA LISTENING TO THE WATERFALL
+
+Drawn by Dora Wheeler and executed in needle-woven tapestry by The
+Associated Artists, 1884.]
+
+Being thus fully equipped for the production of real tapestries, well
+adapted to the processes of what I called "needle weaving," since the
+needle was really used as a shuttle to carry threads over and under the
+already fixed warp, the next decision rested upon the subject of this
+new application of the art and the knowledge we had gained by study and
+practice and love of textile art. With a courage which we now wonder at,
+we selected perhaps the most difficult, as it certainly is the most
+beautiful, of surviving tapestries, "The Miraculous Draught of Fishes,"
+the cartoon of which, designed by Raphael, is at present to be seen and
+studied at the Kensington Museum in London. The decision to copy this
+was perhaps influenced by the fact that it was the only original cartoon
+of which I had knowledge, and my summer holiday in London was spent in
+its study, and schemes for its exact reproduction. As it was spread upon
+a wall in museum fashion, a drawing could not be actually verified by
+measurements, but an expedient came to me which proved to be
+satisfactory. I had two photographs, as large as possible, made from
+the cartoon, and one of them, being very faintly printed, copied exactly
+in color; the other was ruled and cut into squares, and was again
+photographed and enlarged to a size which would bring them, when joined,
+to the same measurements as the original cartoon. These, very carefully
+put together, made a working drawing for my tapestry copy, and the
+lighter photograph, which had been most carefully water-colored, gave
+the color guide for the copy.
+
+It was interesting to find the perforations along the lines of the
+composition still showing in the photographed cartoon, and we made use
+of them by going over them with pin pricks, fastening the cartoon over
+the sheet of silk canvas woven for the background, so that there was no
+possibility of shifting. Prepared powder was sifted through the lines of
+perforation and fixed by the application of heat, and we then had the
+entire composition exactly outlined upon the ground. After that the work
+of superimposing color and shading by needle weaving was a labor of love
+and diligent fingers during many months. Every inch of stitchery was
+carefully criticized and constantly compared with the colored copy,
+and at last it was a finished tapestry and was hung in a north light on
+one of the great spaces of the studio, where it was an object of expert
+examination and general admiration.
+
+[Illustration: APHRODITE
+
+Designed by Dora Wheeler for needle-woven tapestry worked by The
+Associated Artists, 1883.]
+
+It is by far the most important work accomplished by needle weaving
+which has ever been made in America, and is as veritable a copy of the
+original as if it were painted with brush and pigment, instead of being
+woven with threads of silk. The low lights of the evening sky, the
+reflections of the boats, and the stooping figures of the fishermen, the
+perspective of the distant shore, and the wonderful grouping in the
+foreground, keep their charm in the tapestry as they do in the picture.
+Even the mystery of the twilight is rendered, with the subtle effect we
+feel, but can scarcely define, in the original drawing.
+
+It has been a curiously direct process from the hand of the great
+master, to this new reproduction, although it stands so far from his
+time and life. His very thought was painted by his very hand upon the
+paper of the cartoon, and this painted thought has been photographed
+upon another paper which has served as a guide to the copy.
+
+It makes us sharers in the art riches of Raphael's own time, to see a
+new embodiment of his thought appearing as a part of the nineteenth
+century's accomplishments and possessions.
+
+After this achievement we naturally began to look for appropriate use
+for the small tapestries, but here came our stumbling block. The breed
+of princes, who had been the former patrons of such works of art, were
+all asleep in their graves, and knew not America, or its ambitions, and
+our native breed was not an hereditary one, building galleries in
+palaces, and collecting there the largest of precious accomplishments in
+artistic skill in order to perpetuate their own memories, as well as to
+enrich their descendants. Our princes were perhaps as rich as they, and
+possibly as powerful, but their ambitions did not usually extend to a
+line of posterity. Their palaces were contracted to a "three score and
+ten" size; for each of them, no matter how wide his capability of
+enjoyment, knew that it was personal and ended when his little spark of
+life should be extinguished. I gladly record, however, that in these
+later days some of them have made the American world their heirs, and
+are building and enriching museums and colleges, making them palaces of
+growth and enlightenment, and so giving to the many what an older race
+of princes built and enriched and guarded for the few.
+
+But in the meantime what were we to do about our tapestries? They were
+costly, very costly to produce, and although we took account of the
+delight of their creation and put it on the credit side of our books,
+along with the fact that the weekly pay roll of the tapestry room went
+for the comfort and maintenance of the students whom we loved and
+cherished, I soon realized the fact that a commercial firm could not be
+burdened with the fads of any one member. Before I had carried this
+conclusion to its logical end, we had opportunities of using our skill
+worthily in several of the new great houses of the time. When the
+Cornelius Vanderbilt house was erected on Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh
+Street we received an order for a set of tapestries for the drawing-room
+walls. These were executed from ideal subjects and of single figures. I
+remember the "Winged Moon" among them, which was an ideal figure of the
+new moon lying in a cradle of her own wings. This was but one of the
+set, one or two of which we afterward made in replica for an exhibit in
+London. There was no lack of subjects in our background of American
+history. The legends and beliefs of our North American Indians were full
+of them, and one of the first we selected was the lovely story of
+"Minnehaha, Laughing Water," from Longfellow's "Hiawatha." The sketch
+had been sent to us by Miss Dora Wheeler, as the prize composition of
+the Saturday Composition Class at Julien's Studio in Paris.
+
+The literary past of the country furnished subjects enough and to spare,
+and if we wished to walk into the shadowy realms of legend and fiction,
+there were the picturesque legends of the American Indian from which to
+choose. Our subjects were often one-figure designs, as such pieces were
+suitable in size to wall spaces and door openings. Of course commercial
+considerations could not be lost sight of in our enthusiasm for progress
+in textile art. Potter Palmer, the multimillionaire of Chicago, was
+building at the time a palace home on the Lake Shore, and one auspicious
+day Mrs. Palmer bestowed her beautiful presence upon us, and was
+mightily taken with our tapestries. Her clever mind was attracted by the
+"bookishness" of some of the panels of incidents from American
+literature, and several of them went to beautify the great house on the
+Lake Shore, in the form of several panels of portraits. Mrs. Palmer was
+a delightful patron, her own enjoyment of art, in any of its forms,
+amounted to enthusiasm, and her great physical beauty, to a beauty
+lover, made every visit from her an epoch. I have never seen the face of
+an adult woman who has had the experience of wifehood and motherhood
+which retained so perfectly the flawless beauty of childhood. I have
+often gazed at the angelic face of some child, and wondered why each
+year of life should wipe out some exquisite line of drawing, or absorb
+the entrancing shadows which rest upon the face of childhood. It was a
+great satisfaction to personally assist in the furnishing of the home of
+this beautiful aristocrat, whose own law allowed of no infringement by
+our mighty three, having been shaped in a mind enriched by much
+classical study and constant acquaintance with the beautiful.
+
+When our embroideries and needlework had taken their place in this
+country, we were asked to make part of an Exhibition of American Art in
+London. This we were very glad to do, for the artistic gratification of
+being able to measure what we were doing with the best art of the kind
+abroad. It was also pleasant to be considered worthy company with the
+best in our own land, to rub shoulders with our best painters, our great
+makers of stained glass, leaders who take genuine pleasure in ideal
+work. Of course this applies to amateur work only, as professional
+decoration must accord with the general plan which has been selected.
+
+[Illustration: FIGHTING DRAGONS
+
+Drawn by Candace Wheeler and embroidered by The Associated Artists,
+1885.]
+
+I had reason to think that the Exhibition made by the Associated Artists
+at Chicago was of lasting use to all lovers of needlework, the world
+over, since so many other races came there to get their world lessons. I
+learned much that was of value to me from familiar study of the exhibits
+from different countries, from their excellencies and differences and
+the reasons why such wide divergences existed, and from observation of
+the people themselves who produced them--for many of the exhibits were
+in charge of practical needleworkers who knew the history of their art
+from its very beginning. I found more of interest in Oriental art
+from seeing that it was not merely a perfunctory repetition of stitches
+and patterns, but that there was a stanch, almost a religious, integrity
+in doing the thing exactly as it had been done by generations of
+forefathers, and that the silks and tissues and flosses and threads of
+gold were the best the world produced. In the presence of such fidelity,
+what mattered it that the borders and blocks were formed of angles, or
+zigzags, or squares, or any other fixed and mechanical shapes? The
+spirit of it was true to its race and traditions. In the face of it, all
+our beautiful copies of flowers, and growths, and gracious forms of
+nature seemed almost experimental--the art of growing and changing
+nations.
+
+But as we do not make the early art of long existent races models upon
+which to shape our search for the most beautiful, the persistence of
+Eastern form in embroidery need not prevent our progress in design. I
+made an interesting note of this persistence of Eastern design, when,
+many years ago, I had an opportunity of examining some mummy wrappings
+from a burial ground at Lima, Peru. They were wonderful weavings of
+aboriginal cloth, bordered with embroidery done in dyed or colored
+threads of flax, in designs as purely Eastern as can be found in any
+ancient or modern Eastern embroidery. How could it happen that the
+ornamental designs of the Far East and the Far West should touch each
+other? Was it similarity of thought knowledge, the kinship of the human
+mind, or some long-forgotten means of transmission of the material and
+actual, of which we all-knowing moderns do not even dream? This
+wonderful South American embroidery of past ages antedated many antique
+remains of the art of stitchery which we treasure with as wide a margin
+of time as lies between their day and ours.
+
+Embroidery has become a dependence and a business for thousands of
+women, and it is this which secures its permanence. We may trust
+skillful executants who live by its practice to keep ahead of the
+changing fancies of society and invent for it new wants and new
+fashions. And this, because their chance of living depends upon it, and
+it promises to be a permanent and growing art. It may, and will,
+undoubtedly, take on new directions, but it is no longer a lost art. On
+the contrary, it is one where practice has attained such perfection that
+it is fully equal to any new demands and quite competent to answer any
+of the higher calls of art.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII -- THE BAYEUX TAPESTRIES
+
+
+While a description of this most important work of women's hands may
+seem somewhat irrelevant in a book devoted to the development of the art
+of embroidery in America, it is so important a link in the subject of
+stitchery, executed as it was in the eleventh century, that a short
+chapter on this most interesting and vital subject may not come amiss.
+
+Among all our present possessions of early skill, perhaps nothing is
+more widely known than what is called the Bayeux Tapestry. This much
+venerated work is not tapestry at all, but a pictorial record in
+outline, done with a needle, as simply as though written in ink, at
+least according to our present understanding of what is known as
+tapestry.
+
+We read of the subject, and the name of William the Conqueror looms
+large in the imagination. We think of the tapestry as a great
+illustrated page of history, large in proportion not alone to the deeds
+it chronicles, but to their importance in the story of one of the
+greatest, perhaps, of the modern races; and across this illustrated page
+we fancy the prancing of war horses and the prowess of the knight, the
+passing of seas and the march of armies, with all the attendant tragedy
+of circumstance.
+
+But this is only in one's mind. The reality is a more or less tattered
+strip of grayish-white linen, two feet in width and two hundred and
+thirty feet long, and along this frail bridge between the past and
+present march the actors in the great conquest. It seems but an
+inadequate pathway, but it has borne its phalanxes of men, its two
+hundred horses, its five hundred and fifty-five dogs and other animals,
+its forty-one ships, its numberless castles and trees, its roads and
+farms safely through all the intervening years from 1066 to 1919, and it
+still holds them.
+
+In truth, we wonder much over this production of the past, and not alone
+over the heroes who career so mildly in their armor of colored crewels
+on the linen background. We wonder, in the first place, how a continuous
+web of over two hundred feet in length could have been woven. Then, we
+know that lengths of woven stuffs are limited only by the requirements
+of commerce, and that Matilda was of Flanders, and her father had
+learned the princely trick of loving and encouraging manufactures, and
+had, indeed, taught it to his daughter, and that Flanders was a noted
+center of manufacture. Then we decide that if Matilda had called for a
+strip of linen two thousand feet long, whereon to write the warlike
+history of a spouse who began his gentle part toward her (for so history
+avers) by pulling her from her horse and rolling her in the mud because
+she refused to marry him, it would have been forthcoming as easily as
+two hundred. Should the Queen of England require a stretch of linen as
+long as from England to America, whereon to record the successes of her
+reign, who doubts that it would be supplied her?
+
+[Illustration: THREE SCENES FROM THE BAYEUX TAPESTRY]
+
+So, when the question of this web is disposed of, we wonder who drew all
+these figures of men and horses, for Queen Matilda and her ladies to
+overlay with stitchery, and why his name has not come down to us. We
+decide within our minds, for it never occurs to us to impute such
+ability in drawing to the Queen or her ladies, that it was the work of
+some monkish brother who varied his illuminating labor upon missals
+and copies of the Scripture by doing these worldly and interesting
+things.
+
+We think of the never to be forgotten Gerard in _The Cloister and the
+Hearth_, and wonder if it was some monastery-trained youth like him who
+rested from the creation of saints and angels upon vellum, to draw
+fighting knights upon linen, and whether, perchance, his hushed heart
+burned within him at the stir and valor of the deeds he portrayed. And
+then some one, better informed than we, points out the figure of a
+dwarf, nicely labeled as Turold--for many of the actors in this
+embroidered story are labeled in delicate stitches--and tells us that
+his was the hand that set the copy for all the happy and beloved maids
+of the Queen, and the hapless and perhaps equally beloved Saxon maids.
+We wonder, again, how these skillful and noble Saxons like to find
+themselves thus writing their own infelicities and humiliations for all
+the world to see, and then--for so does the human mind go groping into
+motives and springs of action--we wonder if their famous skill in
+needlework, of which the wide-awake Matilda must surely have known, put
+it into her head to make this curious life-record of her great lord,
+and we reflect that if it were so, it would only be another facet of her
+many-sided ability.
+
+But that was underneath the surface. Outside was the queenly
+magnificence and wifely glorification of her lot, a smooth current of
+irresistible prosperity. Underneath was the whirling and buzzing of the
+wheels of thought, the springs of motion which governed the great
+current.
+
+In truth, two such clever thought centers as William of Normandy and
+Matilda of Flanders seldom in the world have made a conjunction, or we
+would have had more great conquests to record. We may fancy what we will
+in the far background which this slender length of linen reaches, all
+the byplay which accompanied the guarded life of the castle, the
+religious life of the cathedral and monastery, the colored and bannered
+pomp of duke and noble.
+
+It was all mightily picturesque, with its contrasts of gorgeousness and
+privation, but probably Matilda the dexterous thought that times were
+good enough when she could sit in safety, surrounded by her maids and
+priests, and write her royal journal as she pleased, with a threaded
+stylus; and well for us that she elected to do this, although her
+records are written in so quaint a fashion that amusement and interest
+are twin spectators of the result.
+
+Two borders, upper and lower, remind one irresistibly of a child's
+processional picture on a slate. The figures are done in outline only,
+colors corresponding to those used in the body of the work. Each border
+is some six inches wide, and has the air of a little running commentary
+or enlargement of the main story. There are variations and incidents
+which could not perhaps be put down in the main body, where all the
+figures are worked solidly in the stitch which has been rechristened
+"Kensington stitch." The horses are worked in red-brown and gray
+crewels, some of them duly spotted and dappled, the banners and
+gonfalons carefully wrought in the colors and devices belonging to them.
+The whole work follows scrupulously the scenes of the Conquest, giving
+the lives of the actors both in Normandy and England, as well as the
+transit from one country to the other.
+
+The first scene evidently represents Edward the Confessor giving
+audience to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. The next gives the
+embarkation of Harold, and the third his capture in France.
+
+Then comes the death of Edward, and the tapestry story struggles
+ineffectually with the incidents of his death and funeral; and the
+election of Harold as King of England, showing him seated crowned and in
+royal robes under a very primitive canopy. After this, the scene shifts
+again to France, and portrays the preparations for invasion made by the
+Duke of Normandy, who was called by the people of the country he invaded
+"William the Conqueror," and who have continued to know him only by that
+name through all succeeding centuries, the shame and sorrow of
+vanquishment quite buried under the glory of the performance, Saxon and
+Norman uniting in esteem of the successful result.
+
+All this history is duly set forth in archaic simplicity by the stitches
+of Queen Matilda, who, in preserving the record of the deeds of her
+doughty lord, has set down also a record of herself as the ideal wife,
+who glorifies her husband, and merges all she is of woman into that
+condition--and still it is only a strip of linen worked in crewels. All
+the triumphs of the great Conqueror are written upon it, but none of the
+disappointments. The needlework story does not relate (how could it when
+Matilda's active, trained and industrious fingers had been stilled by
+death?) the sorrows which overcame even her fortunate hero--that his
+body was robbed of its clothing, and lay naked and dishonored beside a
+disputed grave, where even the solemn claim of death to burial was
+resisted until an old wrong "done in the body" was righted. And though
+his son reigned after him, and he founded a royal line, perhaps one of
+the greatest enjoyments of his successful life consisted in watching the
+fingers of his well-beloved Matilda as they worked this linen record.
+
+Of course it is the great events it portrays and the human interest it
+holds which make this tapestry exceedingly valuable, for, artistically,
+it is of no more value than a child's sampler. But, simple as it is,
+volumes have been written about it. Scholars and historians have pored
+over its pictured history, money without stint has been spent in paper
+reproductions of it, and, finally, the whole important embroidery
+society of Leeds, England, spent two industrious years in copying it,
+and earned fame and envy thereby.
+
+The wonderful remains of the work of skilled fingers serve to dignify
+the art of which it is capable, and to sing a varied song in the ears of
+the modern embroiderer, who follows her own will in spite of
+time-hallowed examples. The women of today, 1920, have been called to
+work that is widely different from that of the ages when embroidery was
+a natural recourse and almost universal practice, but it is an art which
+has done too much for the progress of the world, in all its different
+phases, to die, or to cease to progress. There will always be quiet
+souls, whose lives have been made so by circumstances, who will find
+solace in the practice of needlework, so we may safely leave with them
+an art which has done so much for mankind.
+
+                    THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+The following corrections have been applied to the text:
+
+Porcupine quill work seems to have
+been no longer practiced,
+    'no' is missing in the original text
+
+which were novelties to the imported artisan.
+    corrected from 'novelites'
+
+Miss Mather or Miss Coffin or Miss Hooker
+    'of' corrected to 'or'
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Development of Embroidery in
+America, by Candace Wheeler
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMBROIDERY IN AMERICA ***
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