Martha Bush/Martha Cleaveland
Marking Sampler
Dimensions: 52.07 x 41.91 cm
Medium: silk thread on linen foundation
Date Created: 1803 – 1826
Samplers were a staple of a young woman’s education during the eighteen and nineteen-hundreds across the United States and in Europe. Created as a way for young women to practice and display their embroidery skills, girls made samplers while in school as a way of learning skills thought to be necessary for a woman’s expected role as a wife. For example, mending and embroidering decorative patterns. This particular sampler was created by Martha Bush who married Parker Cleveland, a professor at Bowdoin College in 1806. Interestingly, this sampler might show that these sorts of objects acted as generational teaching tools for young women. This is because this sampler has two different names, Martha Bush and Martha Cleveland, as well as two different dates: 1803 and 1826. The large difference in dates and the differing names might suggest that the sampler could have been started by Martha Bush and finished by her daughter, Martha Ann Cleveland. If so, this is showing the common practice of how a daughter learns traditionally feminine skills through her mother. Ultimately, samplers such as these are important because they give us an insights into the past. This particular example shows us how gendered forms of education supported the gendering of textile production as feminine in nature.
