Needlework education in antebellum Alexandria, Virginia.

Alexandria is situated on the river Potomac, one of the largest, handsomest, and most commercial cities in Virginia. The situation is pleasant and elevated, the city is built on the plan of Philadelphia, the streets are as wide if not wider than those of that city. The trade of Alexandria is very considerable; ships of almost any burthen can ride in the river.

Jo wrote a New England teacher visiting Alexandria (then part of the District of Columbia), for the first time in 1810. [1] Numerous other visitors to Alexandria also remarked on the city's orderly plan and riverfront prosperity, and at least one took time to observe the inhabitants, writing,

Females amongst them [are] uncommonly intelligent, uncommonly courteous and polite in their behavior with each other and especially with strangers. Polite and courteous conduct.. does much credit to parents, to the teachers, to the clergy and to human nature itself. [2]

Indeed, the young women of Alexandria did not lack opportunities to acquire the attributes of polite society. Individual schoolmistresses and teachers in the academies and seminaries that proliferated in Alexandria during the antebellum period offered instruction in a wide range of useful and ornamental subjects. Many parents who had benefited from Alexandria's commercial prosperity considered needlework an essential component of their daughters' genteel education. As one advice book proclaimed:

Amongst the accomplishments necessary to the female character...needlework may claim first place, it having so close a connection with neatness which is indisputably requisite to render you comfortable le to yourself or amiable in the esteem of others. [3]

While only a few examples of needlework by Alexandria schoolgirls are known today, documentary evidence in the form of newspaper advertisements contradicts the belief that there was little opportunity for southern girls to learn needlework. [4] Prior to 1830, numerous women in Alexandria provided instruction in plain and ornamental needlework. Even girls, including free blacks, whose parents lacked the financial resources to send their daughters to school or to a specialized instructor could become sufficiently proficient in sewing to obtain employment as seamstresses or skilled servants. [5] Mr. and Mrs. Winter offered such an opportunity when they advertised "Cheap Schooling" at their establishment on Wilkes Street in 1820:

Young Misses will be improved in Reading, Grammar, and Writing; and particular attention will be paid such whose abilities entitle them to become complete sempstresses. A part of the day will be taken up for that purpose. Price Two Dollars per Quarte. [6]