Stitching status into silk and linen.
In the 1790s, needlework at the Female Academy was the only public record of a girl’s literacy and status. Girls like Augusta Ann Phillip materialized their education into showpieces displayed on family walls.
“The rof[s]e, The Sweetly Blooming rof[s]e Ere from the Tree itf[s] torn Itf[s] Like the charmf[s] which Beauty Show In Livef[s] exulting Morn.”
This Family Record sampler in the Smithsonian collection acts as the other half of our visual rhyme. It shows how the European tradition used needlework to document genealogy when women were excluded from public legal spheres.