Customer Reviews

A Maryland Sampling: Girlhood Embroidery 1738-1860

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I have been stitching and researching early American samplers for many years. I have always been interested in the history behind each one I complete. A Maryland Sampling by Gloria Seaman Allen is comprehensive and highly detailed. This book is filled with exquisite photographs of hundreds of samplers completed by Maryland schoolgirls prior to the Civil War. Each sampler stitching technique is identified. The author has gone to great lengths to research each girl's family history and place the work in proper historical context. The footnotes are at the bottom of each page so I don't have to keep flipping back to the Bibliography to find amplifying information. I believe this book will become the definitive text used by needlework enthusiast interested in early Maryland samplers.
This book is a "Must Have" for the historian or embroiderer

A former curator and then director of the Daughters of the American Revolution Museum in Washington, D.C., Gloria Seaman Allen brings to bear her considerable years of experience and expertise in "A Maryland Sampling: Girlhood Embroidery 1738-1860". A beautifully illustrated history of Maryland samplers and pictorial embroideries that were the instructed obligation of young girls who were thereby able to showcase their needlecraft skills and abilities. Now these samplers are highly prized among collectors and antiques dealers. Allen focuses specifically on Maryland and how needlework traditions from its 18th and early 19th century English, German, and French settlers were carried on down through the end of the American Civil War. A truly seminal work of painstaking scholarship, "A Maryland Sampling" is especially recommended as an addition to academic library American Cultural History reference collections, and to the attention of needlecrafters, as well as Americana collectors and dealer.

Dr. Allen is an excellent historian and this beautiful, informative book gives evidence to it. For anyone interested in the historical aspects of needlework of the Baltimore area, this is a must see and read book. The pictures are sharp and clear and the history of the girlhood embroideries is right on track.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL BOOK OF 384 PAGES, WITH MANY BEAUTIFUL PICTURES. IT DOCUMENTS MARYLAND SAMPLERS AND EMBROIDERIES. THE BOOK GOES IN DEPTH TELLING ABOUT THE SCHOOLS, TEACHERS AND THE PUPILS, INCLUDING THE AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITY WHO CREATED THESE BEAUTIFUL WORKS OF ART.

VERY INTERESTING TO READ, AND A VALUABLE BOOK TO HAVE, FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN SAMPLERS AND THEIR HISTORIES.

Gloria Allen's "A Maryland Sampling" is much more than a book about needlework or samplers. In truth, it weaves multiple histories of young girls, the early days of female education in Maryland, families and tradition to create a fascinating picture that deserves to be told. Equally important, "A Maryland Sampling" details, to a greater extent than ever before, the embroidery work of young African-American girls in Baltimore and the teachers and schools that sought to give young girls of color an education equal to that of while children. Even if you're not a needleworker or sampler collector - and I am neither - "A Maryland Sampling" is a beautiful book with a beautiful story.

Schoolgirl samplers and embroideries record in subtle ways the cultural, religious, social, and historical point when the needlework was created. This study of Maryland embroidery significantly increases the knowledge about this girlhood representation of refinement and education, south of Mason and Dixon's line. It also takes the reader on journey of Maryland localities, people, and events between the 1730s and 1860s. The diverse range of Maryland embroidery subjects (generously illustrated) included maps, public and private buildings, memorials, religious teaching, and pure needlework technique that were overlaid with various regional influences as well as the morals and virtues imparted by a teacher. Dr. Allen has again brought her historian perspective about the material culture and social history of the Chesapeake region to the intriguing styles of girlhood embroidery in 18th and 19th century Maryland.

A fabulous book, with so much to read and see, and LEARN! Gloria Allen is always thorough in her research. Wonderful!