Tennessee samplers.(Design notes)

The state of Tennessee was formed from what was the western part of colonial North Carolina. Originally home to Cherokee Indians, the area was first settled by white people in the early 1750s. In 1789 North Carolina ceded the region to Congress, and in 1796 with sixty thousand free inhabitants, Tennessee became the sixteenth state of the Union. Many English, Irish, and Scots along with Africans, French, and Germans left the Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsylvania to settle there. Since acquiring land was their primary purpose, agriculture became the principal means of livelihood for these settlers, who brought with them their tastes, values, and traditions, which often included the art of making samplers.

While embroidered work from the original thirteen states of the Union has been well documented over the years, there is little recorded about Tennessee samplers or the girls and women who created them. This dearth of information is now being redressed thanks to the not-for-profit Tennessee Sampler Survey established by Jennifer C. Core and Janet S. Hasson in 2004. Their mission is to document and preserve Tennessee's needlework heritage, specifically samplers made before 1900. Core holds master's degrees in folklore and education from Indiana University and the University of Tennessee. She is a member of the Embroiderers' Guild of America and is accomplished at counted work and surface embroidery. Hasson has a degree in fashion design from Washington University in Saint Louis and served as curator of Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville. When embroideries and samplers are brought to Core and Hasson's attention, they attempt to identify the maker through family history and public ...