Tangible displays of refinements: southern needlework at MESDA.(Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts)

Southern domestic needlework of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has often been viewed as a traditional and, perhaps, parochial product of female hands. Family anecdotes and early scholarship have reinforced the perception of needlework as simply a homely vernacular artifact that added to the comfort and sometimes economic well-being of a household. Most ornamental work, however, served more than a practical purpose. In particular, schoolgirl embroideries--samplers and pictorial subjects--and quilts and coverlets made by younger and older women alike are tangible expressions of the workers' refined social and economic status in southern society. These objects ...