STITCHING INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH CONFORMITY: READING SAMPLERS 
FROM THE SARAH STIVOURS EMBROIDERY SCHOOL 
 
 
Except where reference is made to the work of others, the work described in this thesis is 
my own or was done in collaboration with my advisory committee. This thesis does not 
include proprietary or classified information. 
 
 
 
 
__________________________________ 
Antonia Michelle Bowden 
 
 
Certificate of Approval: 
 
 
 
____________________     ______________________ 
James Emmett Ryan      Hilary E. Wyss, Chair 
Associate Professor      Associate Professor 
English       English 
 
 
 
 
___________________     ______________________ 
Kathryn H. Braund      George T. Flowers 
Profesor       Interim Dean 
History       Graduate School 
STITCHING INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH CONFORMITY: READING SAMPLERS 
FROM THE SARAH STIVOURS EMBROIDERY SCHOOL 
 
Antonia Michelle Bowden 
 
 
A Thesis 
Submitted to 
the Graduate Faculty of 
Auburn University 
in Partial Fulfillment of the 
Requirements for the 
Degree of 
Master of Arts 
 
 
 
Auburn, Alabama 
May 10, 2007 
iii 
STITCHING INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH CONFORMITY: READING SAMPLERS 
FROM THE SARAH STIVOURS EMBROIDERY SCHOOL 
 
 
Antonia Michelle Bowden 
 
Permission is granted to Auburn University to make copies of this thesis at its discretion, 
upon request of individuals or institutions at their expense. The author reserves all 
publication rights. 
 
 
______________________________ 
        Signature of Author 
 
 
 
______________________________ 
       Date of Graduation
 iv
VITA 
 Antonia Michelle Bowden, daughter of Harold Bowden and Linda York Bowden, 
was raised in Burlington, North Carolina. She graduated from Walter M. Williams High 
School in 2000. She attended Catawba College in Salisbury, North Carolina and 
graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in Honors and English in May, 2004. 
After working as a copy editor and page designer at the Burlington Times News in 
Burlington, North Carolina for a year, she entered the Graduate School at Auburn 
University in August, 2005.
 v
THESIS ABSTRACT 
 
STITCHING INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH CONFORMITY: READING SAMPLERS 
FROM THE SARAH STIVOURS EMBROIDERY SCHOOL 
 
Antonia Michelle Bowden 
Master of Arts, May 10, 2007 
(B.S., Catawba College, 2004) 
 
 
61 Typed Pages 
Directed by Hilary E. Wyss 
 
 From the years 1778 to 1794 Sarah Stivours taught Salem, Massachusetts girls the 
art of sampler-making.  Sent to the school to hone their embroidery skills, these affluent 
young women created needleworks that are wholly unique compared to other designs 
being used at the time.  Using an Adam and Eve scene that is synonymous with the 
school, and forcing gaze to the center of their works with the famous Stivour Stitch, girls 
like Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen let their views of changes brought on by the 
American Revolution show through their stitches.  In order to begin see through these 
girls? eyes, scholars must read their embroideries as texts the same way we do a journal 
or poem. Samplers from the Stivours school have been compared with other samplers 
made in Salem during the Revolutionary period and the diary of Anna Green Winslow.
 vi
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
 The author would like to thank Dr. Hilary E. Wyss for her patient support and 
assistance during the writing process and Dr. James Emmett Ryan and Dr. Kathryn H. 
Braund for their suggestions on multiple drafts.  Thanks are also due to family members 
Harold and Linda, and friends Kellye Corcoran, Eva Shoop, and Corey Taylor for their 
unwavering support during the completion of the thesis.
vii 
This thesis has been written in MLA format. 
 
 
The document has been composed using Microsoft Word. 
 
 1
                                                
STITCHING INDIVIDUALITY THROUGH CONFORMITY: READING SAMPLERS 
FROM THE SARAH STIVOURS EMBROIDERY SCHOOL 
 
In 1783, 14-year-old Polly Phippen adorned her embroidery sampler with the 
verse ?No tis in vain to seek for/ blis can neer be/ found till we arrive where/ Jesus is and 
tread on heavnly/ ground.  Theres nothing/ round these painted skie nor/ round the dusty 
clod nothing/ my soul that worth thy joy/ or lovely as thy God.?
1
 A pupil at the 
prestigious Sarah Stivours embroidery school, Phippen?s verse is especially interesting 
because it is surrounded by a beautiful blue ?painted skie.? The sky shines down on 
flowers that grow around modernized Adam and Eve figures standing on a bed of green 
grass with sheep, dogs, and birds; the biblical figures are dressed in colonial American 
styles.   As we shall see, Phippen has taken familiar images and reworked them to define 
not only her religion, but her views on the rising emphasis on genteel activity as well.
2
 
Phippen may not know what God?s Eden is like, but she does know what it is like to be a 
girl in the quickly-growing city of Salem, Massachusetts in Post-Revolutionary America. 
 
1
 I have copied spelling and capitalization exactly as it appears in each girl?s text. These spellings will be 
used throughout. 
 
2
 See Appendix 1. Picture from Edmonds, page 31. 
 
 
 2
                                                
Several of Phippen?s classmates, like Ruthey Putnam, created strikingly similar 
scene in their samplers.
3
 These girls? embroideries are interesting for reasons beyond the 
identical patterns sewn into them: the Stivours girls were using religious imagery that is 
wholly absent from other samplers that were being created in Salem at the time.  The 
girls created a community within the school that becomes apparent when the Stivours 
samplers are compared with needlework done by other Salem girls during the Revolution.   
Other Salem girls were not focusing on the religious imagery that is central to the 
surviving Stivours samplers.
4
 The eighteen samplers from the Stivours School are 
alluring because of their distinct pattern and the stitches used to create them.  We will see 
that while other girls their age, such as Mary Richardson, were stitching wedding scenes 
into their works, the Stivours girls focus on Adam and Eve figures.  Regardless of 
whether they were sewing during the war (like Putnam) or after (such as Phippen), 
religion remained a constant and unwavering presence that they could always turn to.  
Stivours? pupils also differentiated themselves from their contemporaries with subtle 
changes in the color of their threads and the focus of their linen.  Despite having common 
Biblical themes other aspects of their samplers also allow for individualized readings?
the flowers that surround them, the number of dogs and sheep that run around their feet, 
the verse sewn into the linen, and the depth of the sky and grass are a little different for 
each girl.   
 
3
 See Appendix 2. Picture from Kruger, page 27. 
 
4
 Samplers were being created in all provinces in the northeast during the Revolution. For this study, 
however, I have chosen to look solely at samplers from Salem, Massachusetts. To find out more about 
popular themes worked in other areas Glee Krueger?s New England Samplers to 1840, Mary Jaene 
Edmonds?  Samplers and Samplermakers: An American Schoolgirl Art 1700-1850, and Betty Ring?s 
Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850 offer great overviews. 
 
 
 3
                                                
Before we can read the samplers as texts, we need to place the girls and their 
work into historical and cultural context.  From the minute they were able to thread a 
needle, girls of Revolutionary Era America were taught to sew.  All women learned how 
to do stitching essential to household upkeep, but girls who were lucky enough to come 
from affluent families were able to put their talents to less practical and more artistic 
uses.  Embroidery schools were used as a finishing school for these elite members of 
society.
5
 These affluent girls would have had the same education as youths of lower 
social classes first, though.  Jennifer Monaghan explains that primary education in 
Colonial America followed a set curriculum.  Students learned to read first from a 
hornbook, then a primer, and finally a Psalter.
6
 By the time they were pupils in Stivours? 
school, Putnam and Phippen would have mastered the entire Bible.  Monaghan points out 
that ?the use of the Scriptures as the climax of the reading curriculum is well known? ( 
Literacy Instruction 56).  The mastery of the Bible would mark the end of formal 
education for most students.  From this point, boys would go on to learn subjects such as 
writing and Latin.  For most girls, education was over, but lucky young ladies who had 
families that could afford it would be sent to women like Sara Stivours to hone their 
 
5
 For basic information on needlework in the Colonial and  Revolutionary America see Krueger, Edmonds, 
and Ring and also Georgiana Brown Haberson?s American Needlework: The History of Decorative 
Stitchery and Embroidery From the Late 16
th
 to the 20
th
 Century, Ring?s Needlework: An Historical Survey, 
and Susan Burrows Swan?s Plain and Fancy: American Women and Their Needlework, 1700-1850. 
 
6
 Monaghan explains the difference in these three types of texts in Learning to Read and Write in Colonial 
America and how they were used in a Biblical education: ?The hornbook was a little paddle of wood with a 
single page tacked onto it  that consisted of the alphabet, four lines of syllables, the invocation (?In the 
Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost?) and the Lord?s Prayer. The original meaning 
of a primer was a book of prayer. The instructional content of primers?the letters of the alphabet, the 
syllabry?and a few tables of words?was brief in relation to the religion content. The Psalter was the 
Book of Psalms, printed as a separate book? (13). 
 
 
 4
                                                
embroidery skills.
7
 Embroidery scholar Glee Kruger explores the idea of sewing as part 
of a girl?s formal education in detail: 
Ornamental sewing or embroidery?seems to have become a part of a 
young lady?s formal education, whether at home, in a boarding school, a 
young ladies? seminary, or some other select school.  She may well have 
completed her first sampler of simple marking stitches at a dame school or 
under her mother?s tutition.  The sampler of ornamental stitches or the 
embroidered picture would have been completed at a more advanced 
institution.  In today?s parlance, we might say that the ornamental sampler 
was a status symbol, evidence that a girl whose parents had some claim to 
social standing had completed or was acquiring her finishing school 
education (2). 
It is important to take these facts into consideration when thinking about what 
Putnam and Phippen would have understood and how they would have allowed their 
world view to show through their stitches.  They were not ?young? girls just beginning 
their schooling.  They had a complete education when they created their samplers.   
8
   
 
7
 Large cities like Salem were usually more advanced in their ideas of female education. Joel Perlmann, 
Silvana R. Siddali, and Keith Whitescarver?s explore the idea of women and public education in their 
article ?Literacy, Schooling, and Teaching among New England Women, 1730-1820.? History of 
Education Quarterly. 37.2 (1997) 117-139.  
 
8
 Idleness was discouraged in colonial children. State laws made it mandatory for them to be almost always 
busy with study or work. Play was not considered productive and children were valuable commodities to 
the work force of the home, so parents began to teach them to work as soon as they were old enough. Alice 
Morse Earle gives a helpful summary of children?s lives and many crafts colonial girls used to occupy their 
time and where they would pick up their embroidery skills in her book Child Life in Colonial Days. New 
York: The Macmillan Company, 1946. 
 
 
 5
                                                
The embroideries served as a ?coming out? of sorts that could be used as public displays 
of their values?they cemented their place in society. 
Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen were young, but they had much more 
responsibility than girls their age today.  They were counted on to help run the household, 
and their educations were geared to prepare them for this.  It makes sense that they would 
have had an understanding of town matters that affected their daily lives.  The political 
shift that occurred in the five years between the creation of Putnam and Phippen?s 
samplers would have been felt by all American citizens, not just the adults, and it makes 
sense that this shift would be recorded in material objects that were being created at the 
time.  This is exactly what we have within the Stivours samplers. 
Eighteen samplers are known to exist from the prestigious Sara Stivours 
embroidery school in Salem, Massachusetts.  Surprisingly, even with so many existing 
pieces from the girls who studied there, very little is known about the school itself.  
9
 
Embroidery scholar Betty Ring gives the most up-to-date information on the institution.  
Sara Fiske Stivours was ?the first American schoolmistress to have her name worked on a 
distinctive group of samplers? (Ring 105).  Samplers that name her school and that are in 
the distinctive pattern that emerged from it show that Stivours taught from at least 1778 
 
9
 To trace the information gathered on Sara Fiske Stivours?s life and her embroidery school see Ethel 
Stanwood Bolton and Eva Johnston Coe?s 1921 anthology of samplers, American Samplers. Boston, Mass.: 
Thomas Todd Company, 1921. Bolton and Coe?s book is the first anthology of its kind and has been used 
by most all other embroidery scholars since its publication. See also Mary Jaene Edmonds? 1991 work, 
Samplers & Samplermakers: An American Schoolgirl Art 1700-1850 (30-33). See also Krueger, and Ring.   
It must be noted that because we do not have any background on the school itself, we cannot determine 
whether or not these girls were fine-tuning other skills such as penmanship and/or other types of 
embroidery while they attended Stivours?s school. 
 
 
 6
                                                
through 1794.  Almost all of the eighteen known samplers from the Salem academy are 
worked in the same pattern; Stivours?s students stitched an Adam and Eve figure standing 
with an apple tree between them at the bottom of their embroideries.  
10
 Sheep, dogs, and 
birds are always present in the samplers along with vines of flowers growing along both 
sides.  All have a box in the middle of the linen where the girls sewed their alphabets, 
inscriptions with their names, age, and the year their samplers were finished, and a Bible 
verse or prayer of their choice.  The girls from Stivours? school focused on more than 
Bible verses in with their sewing, though.  Religion is an integral part of each of the 
works remaining from her school.  This religion must have come, in part, from their 
standard education, but it is more prevalent in the Stivours samplers than any others made 
in Salem during the period.  Looking into the importance of this religion can help us 
understand more about the community these girls were creating within their school. 
In Good Wives, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich reminds us that ?it is difficult for us to 
approach a world in which neither innovation nor individuality was celebrated, in which 
the rich particulars of daily life were willingly reduced to formulaic abstraction? (Ulrich 
3).
11
 In order to understand how these young ladies were redefining themselves as 
Americans during and after the Revolutionary war, we have to look beyond written texts 
and remember that ?significant evidence of female life lay buried in?embroideries? (5).  
To begin to grasp how these young girls defined themselves it is important to compare 
 
10
 There are only two samplers attributed to the  Stivours? school that are not in the pattern of the rest. 
Susannah Saunders created a pastoral sampler using the Stivour stitch in 1766 and Ruth Briggs finished a 
domestic scene in 1788. Neither samplers name Stivours? academy, so there is some debate as to their 
origins. For pictures of both see Betty Ring?s American Needlework Treasures (11-12). 
 
11
 See also Ulrich?s ?Of Pens and Needles: Sources in Early American Women?s History.? Journal of 
American History. 77.1 (1990). 200-207. Ulrich stresses the importance of looking to ?unwritten? texts for 
colonial American women?s history. 
 
 
 7
their samplers with work from other girls sewing at the same time as well as at both the 
similarities and differences in stitches created at Stivours? school.  For the girls under 
Stivours? guidance, the way to define their identities was to take the classic religious 
figures of Adam and Eve that were standard to sew into samplers and put them into 
American landscapes.  For example, Ruthey Putnam?s Adam and Eve live in a world of 
chaos and uncertainty while Polly Phippen?s figures are in the beautiful and orderly new 
Eden that was the emerging post-war America.  While young girls such as Polly Phippen 
and Ruthey Putnam were following a pre-set pattern in their samplers, they were able to 
take the standard form and still put touches of individuality into them.  Other Salem girls 
at the time were not using this religious imagery in their samplers.  As we will see in 
Elizabeth Derby and Mary Richardson?s works, religion was almost completely ignored.   
In order to gain a greater understanding of the every day lives of women in 
Revolutionary America, we as scholars must expand our notion of a text and read these 
samplers the same as we would a diary or poem.  While print culture was an avenue of 
expression for only a handful of women, sewing was an activity practiced by all.  Fancier 
embroidery was produced by members of the upper classes who had the time and money 
to spend on intricate stitches.   Needlework was not only acceptable, it was expected of 
women, so they gave their needles the voices they did not have and ?wrote? their words 
into their stitches.  It would not always have been appropriate for these girls to publicly 
voice their opinions about the Revolution openly, so in order to get an understanding of 
how they were dealing with the changing world around them we have to examine what 
they have left behind. 
 
 8
                                                
Material culturists have just begun to read samplers and other types of needlework 
in this way in order to gain a greater understanding of the every day lives of women in 
Colonial and Revolutionary  America.
12
 Sarah Stivours? students were using her guidance 
and preset pattern to create samplers that were nevertheless subtly individual.  Because 
the sampler patterns allowed for individualization, the pieces had the potential to become 
sites of self-expression.   The young ladies of Sitvours? school used them as visual 
representations of their personal world views.  Phippen, Putnam, and their classmates 
were able to choose their own verses and colors to put into Stivours? design.  By sticking 
to the same general pattern and using the same distinctive stitches, the girls were able to 
form a community with their fellow schoolmates while using their samplers as sites to 
work out their own identities within this community; this was achieved by directing gaze 
to the center of the work with the Stivour Stitch, varying the colors of thread, and 
frequency of items stitched into the linen.
13
Needlework is not the only tool that we can use to read these girls? samplers as 
texts; they should also be compared to written texts at the time.  From 1771-1773 Anna 
Green Winslow composed a diary of letters to her family in Nova Scotia that discussed 
her daily life in Boston.  Sent to the city for finishing school (for the same type of 
education the girls of the Stivours school would be receiving) Winslow?s main focus 
throughout the diary is split between religion and fashion.  While it is a diary, her words 
 
12
Interest in American needlework is quickly growing. Many recent studies have been done on the literal 
process of creating needlework, and its useful role in society. Mary C. Beaudry?s Findings: The Material 
Culture of Needlework and Sewing traces the importance of sewing instruments  (pins, needles, thimbles, 
ect.) and their contribution to the establishment of gender roles. Marla Miller?s The Needle?s Eye: Women 
and Work in the Age of Revolution examines the significance of women?s work in the clothing trade. 
 
13
 For an excellent reading of a New York Biblical sampler as a text, see Margaret K. Hofer?s article 
?Cross-Stitched History: Artistry and ambition in Christina Arcularius?s Tree of Knowledge sampler? 
(www.common-place.org. 4.4 (2004)). 
 
 9
                                                
are not private?they are meant for her family, so it would not be proper for her to write 
about unladylike concerns.  As we shall see, she, like Polly Phippen and Ruthey Putnam, 
is using her creation to indicate what aspects of her society are the most important..  The 
Stivours girls do the same thing with their stitches?Phippen and Putnam are able to use 
the words of their verses along with the direction and length of their stitches to voice their 
concern (or joy) at the changes the Revolution is bringing. 
Not only are Phippen and Putnam?s samplers important texts for accessing the 
ideals and anxieties of young women their age, they are also important for being truly 
American.  The Philadelphia Museum of Art?s publication on samplers discusses the 
emergence of wholly American samplers.  Most seventeenth and early eighteenth century 
samplers were made to look like English and German models: ?in fact, the seventeenth-
century sampler in America was so much influenced by English embroidery that it can 
hardly be called ?American? ? it was only by the end of the eighteenth century that the 
true American sampler had developed? (14).  The linen for each girl?s sampler would 
have been made locally.
14
Ultimately, we must come to understand that Colonial samplers are not simply 
pieces of art?they are works of literacy and self-expression.  Just as we can read 
between the lines of Anna Green Winslow?s diary to see that she was just as concerned 
with the frivolity of fashion as with her Christian faith, we must read beyond the stitches 
of embroideries to see into the worlds of the young women who created them.  The girls 
 
14
 In the early 1700?s sampler makers began to make their own linen instead of importing it from England. 
Samplers started to move from the long, thin English versions to wider, squarer works. The change in size 
occurred because American looms were wider than English ones. For more on the history of samplers see 
Edmonds? Samplers and Samplermakers: An American School Girl Art 1700-1850 along with Glee 
Krueger?s A Gallery of American Samplers.  
 
 
 10
that made these samplers were not just following the directions of their teachers.  The 
needlework from the Sara Stivours Embroidery School are all beautiful, and they are 
indeed pieces of art, but they are much more than pieces of linen used to fill girls? time.  
Each one can be read as a narration that tells a story specific to the girl who created it. 
Using both other samplers from Salem girls of the same age and Winslow?s diary, 
I will discuss the importance of the ?writing? of the Stivour stitch and the way each girl 
has sewn her alphabet into her sampler.  It is the combination of the Stivour stitch and 
religious imagery that make the Stivours samplers unique sites where the emerging 
feelings of these young women who were working during a transitional period can be 
seen.  With the Revolution coming to an end, class and gender roles were being defined 
and challenged.  Ruthey Putnam, Polly Phippen, and other students of Stivours? school 
created samplers that have become sites to demonstrate their views on what was most 
important during the time.  Regardless of which parts of her sampler each girl treats as 
the most important, an emphasis on the importance of religion is found in both.  These 
girls were using their roles as elite members of society in order to create works that 
served as guidelines for what other young women should have been focusing on; they 
have created embroideries that are negotiating what should be valued by the affluent 
members of society. 
 
The Stivour Stitch 
Before reading beyond the images in these embroideries, perhaps one way to 
understand the Stivours samplers in relation to other work being done by young women 
during the Revolution is to investigate the stitches themselves.  The stitch that has 
 
 11
become synonymous with the schools is now known as the Stivour stitch.  In her 
compilation of American samplers, Anne Sebba describes it as a long stitch ?placed 
diagonally in parallel lines ? at least 5cm long and sometimes more, the stitches in green 
at the bottom represented grass; those in blue and white overhead indicated the sky? 
(Sebba 88).  For the most part, it was used almost exclusively by girls taught by Stivours.  
The crinkled silk floss used in the Stivours embroideries is prevalent in samplers from 
Essex county starting in the 1740?s, but Putnam, Phippen and their classmates used it to 
make a stitch of their own that would serve as a tool for them to manipulate the gaze of 
their works? admirers.  The stitch is made to grab attention.  The long, diagonal lines are 
unlike any other type of stitch used in sampler embroidery.  Because the girls only used 
the stitch to represent sky and grass, its long jagged lines stand out.  Only the stitches 
used to make the sky were executed to direct gaze.  These lines stand out from the grass 
because they are often longer, and not as uniform.  We will see that Phippen and Putnam 
use these sky lines to draw attention to the religious imagery of their work.  Because they 
were working within a medium deemed appropriate for women, their manipulation of the 
gaze is very subtle.  This way, they were able to create wholly unique samplers without 
challenging the general attitudes toward individuality. 
The power given to Phippen and Putnam through even so small a thing as an 
individual stitch becomes apparent when compared to twelve-year-old Elizabeth Derby?s 
15 1/2 x 10 3/4 in.  sampler.  Though beautiful, Derby?s sampler (completed in 1774) is 
quite plain and lacks the striking stitches that are so noticeable in the Stivours works.  
She has sewn a green band to form a border around the band of flowers that has been 
stitched around the entire work.  A white box created out of triangles holds her verses and 
 
 12
                                                
alphabet inside of the flowers.  The alphabet has been repeated four times and is broken 
up by a row of strawberry plants and flowers, and the verses ?Idleness is The Root of all 
Evil,? and ?Modesty adorns the Fair Sex thro Life.?
15
 The colors of Derby?s needlework 
are the only similarities it has with embroideries created under Stivours? instruction; the 
focal points are very different from those stitched by her students like Phippen and 
Putnam. 
The stitches of a sampler are not simply aesthetic?they can be used to 
manipulate the focus of the viewer?s gaze.  Rudolph Arnheim discusses the importance of 
the focal center in works of art.  The center can also ?be exploited to create a teasing 
contradiction between an element kept deliberately small and its crucial importance for 
the story being presented? (Arnheim 113).  Just as in a painting, the center of a sampler 
indicates what is most important about it.  Derby?s sampler stands out because it is so 
plain?because it ostensibly has no center.  The border of flowers stitched around the 
work is perfectly symmetrical.  Clusters of two flowers found in the middle of each side 
shift the gaze toward the center, but do not give further indication of where a reader is to 
look.  Because she has chosen two very short verses that each fit one line, the text of 
Elizabeth Derby?s sampler does not break up the four alphabets she has stitched, nor do 
the stand out.  The reader?s gaze is likely to stop on the brightest spot of the work: the 
letters EF (stitched in red), LM (in blue), NO (in orange) and PQ (in green).
16
 Because 
she has no other indicators of what the center should be, the alphabet becomes the focus 
 
15
 See Appendix 3. Photo located in Betty Ring?s Needlework: An Historical Survey, page 34. 
 
16
 See appendix 4. 
 
 13
                                                
of the work and ends up serving the ?deliberately small? and ?crucial importance? 
Arnheim discusses. 
 The large alphabet that makes up the bottom half of Derby?s sampler is important 
because it holds her two verses.  Because she has stitched such a generic piece, the verses 
are the only indication we get of her values.  Instead of a favorite Bible verse or prayer, 
she has included two very generic sayings.  ?Idleness is the Root of all Evil? and 
?Modesty Adorns the Fair Sex Thro Life? can be seen as sentiments as to how women 
should conduct themselves in 1774.  Derby has avoided idleness by creating the sampler, 
and her work is indeed modest.  Even the stitches that have been used to write these 
verses are modes?they are smaller than the other letters on the work, and are noticed 
only after the large alphabet.  She wants to share her sentiments with the viewers of her 
embroidery, but she does not use her stitches to manipulate gaze as effectively at the 
Stivours girls. 
The uniqueness of the Stivour stitch is further emphasized when the works are 
compared to another Salem sampler, completed years after Derby?s.  Worked in a 
completely different style, Mary Richardson?s 1783 embroidery (the same year as 
Phippen?s), also shows a lack of concern for the center of the piece.
17
 Richardson is 
actually using a stitch very similar to the Stivour stitch, but instead of using it sparingly, 
to direct the viewer?s gaze, she uses it to cover all of the white space on her linen.  
18
 The 
stitches used to created her sky and grass are sewn in long, diagonal directions that mirror 
 
17
 See appendix 5. Photo located in Ring?s Needlework: An Historical Survey, page 37. 
 
18
 Ring explains that  Richardson?s work was actually long contributed to the Stivour School, but this has 
since been discredited because she uses the stitch to cover the entirety of her linen. See Needlework: An 
Historical Survey, page 37. 
 
 
 14
                                                
the Stivour stitch, but because they cover the entirety of the sampler, they fade into the 
background of the work.  Gaze is directed to the text box because it is the only area of the 
linen that is left with white space.
19
 Richardson?s liberal use of the stitch makes it fade 
into the background of her embroidery.  Like Derby?s, Richardson?s text box becomes 
the center of the work by default.  Once there, the dark color of the verse makes it the 
most noticeable.  Her verse is even more generic than Derby?s: Mary Richardson Is My 
Name and With My Needle I Did The Same And If My Skill Had Been Better I Would 
Have Mended Every Letter This Needle Work Of Mine Can Tell When A Child Is 
Learned Well By My Parants I Was Tought Not To Spend My Time For Nought.  As we 
shall see below, this verse is devoid of the religious sentiments key to Putnam and 
Phippen?s embroideries.  She stresses Puritan values with her center, but not religious 
ones.  First, though, we muse examine the centers of the Stivours works for comparison. 
The centers of Phippen and Putnam?s works are much more apparent because of 
the way they use the famous Stivour Stitch; they are not created by default.  Because the 
Stitch is used only to create the sky and grass in each sampler, their stitches do not cover 
the entirety of the linen, and the emphasis on their centers is very deliberate.  The white 
space around the jagged lines makes them stand out, and therefore allows the stitches to 
divert gaze to the center of the needlework; Derby and Richardson have failed to do this.  
Their use of the stitch is further complicated when Phippen and Putnam?s samplers are 
compared to each other.  All of the Sarah Stivours? students use the Stivour stitch in their 
works to represent the grass and sky, but the way each girl uses it is not the same.
20
 
 
19
 See appendix 6. 
 
20
 See appendix 7 for close-ups of Putnam?s work and appendix 8 for close-ups of Phippen?s. 
 
 15
                                                                                                                                                
Although Phippen and Putnam both have a rich, blue ?painted skie? pointing down 
toward their Adam and Eve figures, the colors and order of the colors of each girl?s is 
different.  Completed in 1778, Putnam?s sky at the top of her sampler consists mostly of 
white and brown diagonal stitches.  She has only two of the bright blue patches that are 
prevalent in Phippen?s sampler.  Putnam?s ?bottom layer? of sky is much the same as the 
top.  She uses much shorter stitches and alternates white thread with a light shade of blue.  
In 1783 Phippen used more blue for the sky on her sampler.  She starts with white the 
same way as Ruthey Putnam, but then alternates it with nine bursts of blue.  The stitches 
on the left and right all slant toward the middle where she has added two bands of red in 
the middle of the blue and white.  As we shall see, both the direction of the stitches and 
the colors that each girl used to create her sky may serve as indicators as to how she felt 
about the emerging America around her and help to emphasize the importance of religion 
in the works.   
Because they are using the same distinctive stitch, at first glance it is easy to miss 
the differences in Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen?s samplers.  The changes in sky are 
important, though.  The jagged diagonal stitches that make up the sky of each girl?s 
needlework demand attention and force a viewer?s gaze to the ?centers? of their work.  
Phippen?s stitches are a lot more ordered that Putnam?s.  Ruthey Putnam?s sky points in 
many different directions and forces the viewer to choose for herself where to look first.  
Polly Phippen?s sky carefully directs focus to the middle of her sampler; her stitches 
make the viewer notice the bold red bands in the middle of the blue and white sky.  The 
red bands in the middle then point toward the center of the sampler and bring the 
 
 
 
 16
                                                
viewer?s eyes to the second sky.  The stitches in this sky point away from the middle and 
direct gaze to the Adam and Eve figures.  What becomes apparent when the centers of the 
Phippen and Putnam samplers are investigated is their unique relationship the Revolution 
and religion. 
 
Samples and the Revolution 
Phippen and Putnam are using the Stivour stitch to indicate what is most 
important in their embroideries and also to show how they felt about the changing world 
around them.  Adam and Eve are placed in contemporary, Revolutionary Era clothing.  In 
juxtaposing them with the current period, it seems not unreasonable to then argue that the 
status of their Eden warrants a similar juxtaposition.  Wanting to be a part of the 
patriotism that was sweeping the nation before and after the war, mothers began to raise 
their children with the idea that everything they did was for the good of the nation.  The 
idea of the Republican Mother, coined by Linda Kerber, is tied to the belief that women 
were the moral centers of society.
21
 They were responsible for teaching their children the 
principals of republicanism and democracy in order to ensure continued success of the 
nation in future generations.  Kerber explains that ?the ideology of female education 
 
21
 In her work Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionary America, Kerber explains 
that the Revolutionary Mother is the notion that ?a mother can perform a political function.? It ?represents 
the recognition that a citizen?s political socialization takes place at an early age, that the family is a basic 
part of the system of political communication, and that patterns of family authority influence the general 
political culture? (283).  
 
Before Kerber?s work, Mary Beth Norton published Liberty?s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of 
American Women, 1750-1800. The first work of its kind, Norton?s work is one of the key texts about 
women?s experience during the Revolutionary period. Unlike those before her, Norton does not argue that 
women and men were seen as equals in the home until the years after the war, but instead that eighteenth-
century Americans had very set definitions of what was acceptable feminine activity and what was not. 
Both sexes believed that women were inferior to men, and ideology of the time was geared to uphold this 
belief. 
 
 17
came to be tied to ideas about the sort of women who would be of greatest service to the 
Rebublic? (10).  As we will see, both Phippen and Putnam were using their samplers as 
sites for this ideology.  Phippen and Putnam were working during a transition period and 
their samplers become sites for the transition. 
Gunderson elaborates on Kerber?s theories and posits that ?the Revolutionary era 
considered childhood a time of transition and learning about adult roles? (91).  In order to 
do this, the young women of the Revolutionary period had to work out what it meant for 
them to be women?and what it meant to live in their changing world.  The Stivours girls 
took their roles to be that of teachers.  They used their needlework as examples of what 
other young women at the time should strive for.  Though they were not mothers yet, part 
of Phippen and Putnam?s home education would have involved teaching them their 
proper roles within society.  If being a Republican Mother meant raising children who 
would carry the morals of the nation to future generations, this also meant reinforcing the 
dominant feelings about gender roles at the time.  Women were to be the teachers?the 
carriers of morals and piety.  Phippen and Putnam were growing into these roles, and 
their samplers become one of the media available to them in it.   
The types of samplers created by the Stivours girls, Derby, and Richardson were 
reserved for young women of wealthy families.  Middle and lower-class families could 
not afford to send their daughters to expensive finishing schools like Stivours?, and they 
also would have needed the money that would have been spent on expensive imported 
silk thread for other things.  Views dealing with what type of leisure activities were 
acceptable were changing during the Revolutionary Era.   Along with Republican 
Motherhood came the idea that leisure and gentility needed to be curbed for more 
 
 18
productive activities: ?The increasing political tensions surrounding the war years but a 
damper on this genteel social life.  As the political crisis grew deeper, criticism of the 
genteel style became sharper.  The critique was both political and religious.  The genteel 
style appeared indulgent, extravagant, or decadent.  Republican virtue stressed values of 
diligence, frugality, and restraint? (Gunderson 156).  The adherence to and then shift of 
these ideals can be seen within the Stivours girls? works.  They are willing to use the 
expensive thread and attend the school, but they do not create products that celebrate 
idleness.  Phippen and Putnam are participating in a genteel activity, but they have 
chosen to not make their samplers idle products; as we will see shortly, their works have 
a religious purpose.  Each sampler serves the purpose of teaching the girls to better their 
stitches, but are examples of religious piety.  Putnam and Phippen are showing that it is 
okay to use expensive thread to create a beautiful piece as long as the piece is used to 
express views that are good for the entire community.   
Gunderson stresses that ?although women claimed virtue as a special female gift, 
the Revolution provided them with no distinctive versions of public virtue to use in 
demonstrating patriotism? (170).  As accepted outlets of creativity for women, samplers 
could be used to work out what this public virtue should have been.  The Stivours girls 
have taken it upon themselves to do this with their religious needlework, though the way 
each girl does it is a little different.  While she still partakes in the genteel craft of 
sampler making, Putnam?s work is a lot less extravagant than others of the time (even 
when compared to Phippen?s).  Her focus is on religion and not leisure (as in the pastoral 
scenes created by girls like Richardson).  She has completed a work of art, but she has 
done so sparingly.  By the time Phippen created her sampler, the restrictive views against 
 
 19
                                                
gentility had begun to decrease; the war was almost over and Americans could go back to 
rebuilding a nation in which upper-class Americans could have leisurely lifestyles 
without compromising the survival of the nation.  Putnam does not give herself to 
frivolity completely, though.  Her sampler is still a work of religious art.  She has simply 
chosen to use more extravagant colors, and ?extras? (more animals and flowers) in her 
work. 
Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen?s works are examples of truly American 
samplers, and we can speculate that their views about their country can be seen within 
their stitches.  Phippen created her embroidery at a time when Americans were sure they 
had won their independence.  By the time Phippen sewed her embroidery the British had 
already begun to evacuate and a preliminary peace treaty had been signed.  It was a time 
for order to be restored.
22
 This type of order is seen in Phippen?s sampler.  Her sky is neat 
and the diagonal lines have a purpose.  She has even added red so that her sky reflects the 
patriotic attitude of the nation. 
Ruthey Putnam does not have this order in the world of her linen.  In 1778 the war 
could still go either way.  British and American forces both were facing setbacks.  To a 
10-year-old girl it must have been a terrifying time.  A ten year old may not understand 
exactly what is going on in the world around her, but she can pick up on the anxieties of 
her family.  The sharp, jagged edges and chaotic directions of the diagonals that create 
Putnam?s skies represent could be read as reflecting a sense of the chaos and uncertainty 
of 1778 America from a ten-year-old?s point of view.  The Stivour stitch is just one small 
 
22
 The Web site http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/revolution/ gives a very detailed timeline of 
major events in the Revolutionary War. 
 
 
 20
element of the text of the Stivour samplers, but we can see that it certainly see that it 
provides a site for reading the samplers as a text.  It also provides an emphasis for the 
major focus of both embroideries?religion.  
 
Samplers and Religion 
As we saw in the discussion of education, Christianity infiltrated almost every 
aspect of Revolutionary life.  Colleen McDannell posits that ?American Christians want 
to see, hear, and touch God.  It is not enough for Christians to go to church, lead a 
righteous life, and hope for an eventual place in heaven.  People build religion into the 
landscape, they make and buy pious images? (1).  Though her study focuses mostly on 
material Catholicism in the nineteenth century forward, McDannell?s sentiments are 
echoed in the samplers from Stivours? school.  Joan R.  Gunderson reminds us that 
?religion was not limited to acts of public worship on Sunday.  The practice of religion 
was deeply embedded in everyday life? (122).  With this in mind, one might expect to 
find a profusion of religious imagery throughout the embroidery school projects.  
Nonetheless, many young ladies chose to leave religious imagery out of their samplers 
and focus on generic pastoral scenes like Mary Richardson or, as in the case of Elizabeth 
Derby, the embroiderer would choose to sew only bands of flowers.  This is not the case 
for the students of Sarah Stivours? school.   
Derby and  Richardson?s samplers reveal a reluctance to put their piety on display 
publicly.  Joan Gunderson describes the growing separation between private and public 
spheres during the Revolution.  She writes that public spheres were oftentimes seen as 
places for men while women were to maintain order in the private, domestic spheres.  
 
 21
Religion ?uncomfortably straddled the fence between private and public, with piety and 
faith firmly tied to the private sphere while the institutional church was defined as public? 
(Gunderson 168).  Religious expression in samplers must similarly have straddled that 
uncomfortable fence as they also existed in the liminal space between public and private.  
Though Derby completed her sampler in 1774, one year before the war officially started, 
the beginnings of this division of spaces would have already started.  She, then, can be 
seen as reversing her displays of piety for other outlets.  The Stivours girls begin to blur 
the line between public and private spheres by making items that are meant to be seen in 
public places with images that represent their piety.  Phippen, Putnam, and their 
classmates have made a conscious, public decision to express their religious views in 
their needlework.   
The verses stitched into their works are further indication of this decision.  Paula 
Richter posits that Derby?s verses of ?Idleness is The Root of all Evil? and ?Modesty 
adorns the Fair Sex tho Life? ?express values that were held up as models for young 
women in the eighteenth century? (12).  Derby?s sampler itself embodies her adherence 
to these maxims.  As we saw above, she has done her duty to avoid idleness in the 
creation of the sampler and has done so with appropriate modesty.  There are no obvious 
religious images in Derby?s sampler.  In Sampler Motifs and Symbolism, Patricia Andrle 
writes that strawberries were viewed as perfect ?fruit because it has no pits, or thorns, or 
rinds? (64).  Because of this they were symbols of righteousness and ?associated with 
Christ? (64).  The lack of other religious images in Derby?s sampler makes it unfeasible 
to link her strawberries to Andrle?s definition.  Instead, the strawberries are simply 
secular pastoral images.  They add aesthetic value to her sampler.  The girls of the 
 
 22
                                                
Stivours school, however, were using blatant religious symbols to comment on their 
world. 
 
Samplers and the Issue of Religion in the Revolution 
Later samplers still maintain a guarded privacy about piety.  In fact, nine years 
later Richardson displays even less piety than Derby.  This becomes clear when we 
reference the ?verse? stitched into her sampler.  Instead of a favorite Bible passage or 
prayer she chose to stitch a very generic saying into her work: ?Mary Richardson is my 
name and with my/ needle I did the same and if my Skil Had Been/ Better I Would Have 
Mended Every Letter/ This Needle Work of Mine Can Tell When a/ Child is Learned 
Well By my Parents I Was/ Tought Not To Spend My Time for Nought.? This repeats the 
sense of rejection of idleness found in Derby?s verses, but is cast as necessary for parental 
obedience, and not explicit in terms of morality.  
23
 Richardson is expressing her views, 
but she is not doing so with religion.
24
  
Though I have stressed the importance of the religious figures (or lack of) found 
in these samplers, they only attain their true significance when placed within the 
historical context of the Revolutionary War?an experience which must have affected all 
 
23
 Richardson?s sampler borrows heavily from a group of 1750?s chimney pieces created by girls in Boston. 
Called the ?fishing lady pictures,? these embroideries are rich with color and feature scenes with a couple 
enjoying a picturesque landscape. For more on these works see Ring?s Girlhood Embroideries pages 45-53. 
 
24
 It is important to point out that Richardson?s couple are not Adam and Eve figures. In Samplers Motifs 
and Symbolism Patricia Andrle points out that Adam and Eve figures are ?depicted by a man and woman 
standing on either side of the tree of knowledge? (12). The lack of a tree is proof that Richardson has 
stitched regular people and not Biblical figures into her sampler. 
 
 
 23
                                                
of the Stivours girls.
25
 Their samplers served as a way to express their anxiety in an 
acceptable manner.  The Stivours girls are setting examples with their embroideries.  The 
first noticeable figures on Putnam and Phippen?s samplers are the modernized Adam and 
Eve figures that stand at the bottom of each piece.
26
 Both girls have stitched the figures 
into their embroideries, but they mean something different for each one.
27
 Because they 
have used the Stivour stitch to indicate different centers we can speculate a bit about what 
the figures meant for each girl.  Putnam?s figures can be read as symbols of hope and 
comfort for her to look toward during the unrest of 1778.  They are dressed very plainly.  
Eve is wearing a brown dress with a white bonnet and apron.  Adam has on a dark brown 
coat with lighter pants.  Her chaotic sky that points in no general direction at the top of 
her sampler is more focused at the bottom layer.  Almost all of the diagonal Stivour 
stitches of the second sky point to Eve.  Three diagonals that are directly above Adam 
point to him, but all the rest lead the viewer?s eyes to the female figure.  It is interesting 
that Ruthey Putnam would have the only directed lines force a viewer?s gaze to Eve.  For 
Putnam, Eve, as a woman, would have been a stable figure to focus on.  In 1778 men 
were constantly leaving for war, and the women were often left alone for long periods of 
 
25
 While I am not arguing that Richardson and Derby were not affected, as they would have been, their 
work reveals none of the tensions I note here. 
 
26
While there are American samplers with men and women that do not represent Biblical figures, most all 
samplers that have a man and a woman with a fruit tree in the middle are to represent an Eden scene. Averil 
Colby explains how the difference between family figures and representations of Adam and Eve are often 
ambiguous. Family figures, though, are ?shown either standing or sitting surrounded by a pattern of flowers 
or fruit in the form of an arbour? (69). The arbor and the family are ?given a place of importance at the 
bottom of the work? (69). Because Putnam and Phippen?s figures are not surrounded by an arbor (though 
Phippen does have one at the top of her sampler that will be discussed shortly) and they are separated by an 
apple tree, they are Americanized versions of Adam and Eve. See Colby?s ?Flowers, Fruit, and Trees? 39 
for a description of apple trees in samplers. 
 
27
 See Appendix 7 for close-ups of Putnam?s sampler and Appendix 8 for Phippen?s. 
 
 
 24
                                                
time.
28
 Women are the constant figures in Putnam?s life, so Eve, being a woman, is a 
spiritual character she can admire in her sampler.  It makes sense that a girl who is 
learning how to be a Republican Mother would emphasize the mother of humanity within 
her work. 
Polly Phippen?s Adam and Eve figures are given equal attention in the stitches of 
her bottom.  Her Eve is wearing an elegant white dress with lace along the bottom.  
Adam has on the same style jacket as the Adam in Putnam?s sampler, but Phippen?s is 
wearing a white jacket with a light blue undershirt and light blue pants.  Because America 
was regaining a sense of order, and life was once again becoming balanced, it is fitting 
that Phippen has directed equal focus to her figures.  In the five years after Putnam?s 
sampler was completed, men were beginning to return home.  Phippen would have had a 
more balanced community of men and women in her life than Putnam.  This balance is 
shown in the carefully place diagonals of her sky. 
As tensions with the British began to cool, the girls of Stivours school turned to 
another popular Biblical figure to understand the world around them.  Across the top of 
Polly Phippen?s sampler, under the first sky, many birds fly around an arbor overgrown 
with fruit.  Underneath the arbor is a plant with beautiful white flowers.  Putnam has no 
such image on her sampler.  In fact, the top of her embroidery has only a few cherry trees 
and yellow flowers.   The arch is obviously important to Phippen.  The two red angles she 
has sewn into her sampler are directly over it draw attention to it, and the arch itself is 
 
28
 During the Revolutionary War, women were often left wondering for weeks, and sometimes months, if 
their husbands, fathers, and sons were still alive. Battles left homes in ruin and families destroyed. These 
essentially abandoned women used each other as support groups of sorts. Carol Berkin discusses what life 
was like for these women in her book Revolutionary Mothers. 
 
 
 25
                                                
almost directly above the apple tree that stands between Adam and Eve.  The red, white, 
and blue angles of the top part of the sky draws attention to the arch at the same time that 
it directs gaze to the Adam and Eve figures.  She has created a second center using the 
Stivour stitch.   
Arches are Biblical references just like Adam and Eve.  In Genesis, after the 
flood, God promises Noah that he will never flood the earth again.  He tells him, ?I have 
set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be a sign of the covenant between me and the 
earth.  Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I 
will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind? 
(New Revised Standard Version, Gen 9.13-15).  The arbor that Phippen has sewn into her 
sampler is in the shape of a rainbow.  It became popular around the time Americans were 
sure they were going to win the Revolutionary War.  At least five other pupils of the Sara 
Stivours? school sewed this type of arch at the top of their embroidery starting in 1780.
29
 
None of Putnam?s classmates before 1780 have this arch in their samplers.
30
 Perhaps, the 
arch on the girl?s samplers represents the covenant they must have felt God made with 
the Americans when it was clear they were going to win the war.  When the ?clouds? that 
had been over America during the uncertain periods of the war parted and showed God 
was on their side, Phippen and her classmates probably related to Noah (since they were 
all masters of the Bible) and the relief and feelings of hope that his survival represents.  
 
29
 The first arch to appear in samplers from the Stivours school is found in Hannah Batchelder?s completed 
in 1780. Betsey Gill (1781), Sally Witt (1786), Sally Rust (1788), and Nabby Dane (1789) all include the 
arch in the years following. For pictures of Batchelder, Gill, and Rust?s samplers see Ring 105-07. For Witt 
see Bolton and Coe plate XCI, and for Dane see Edmonds 32. 
 
30
 Nabby Mason Peele?s sampler finished in 1778 is not only missing the arch that Putnam?s is, but her sky 
is sewn in the same chaotic manner too. Peele?s sampler is proof that Putnam was not alone in her feelings 
of uneasiness about the world around her. For a picture of Peele?s sampler see Bolton and Coe plate XC. 
 
 
 26
                                                
Though this is speculation, it is possible that Putnam and her classmates do not have the 
arch because the feeling of hope that it symbolizes was not prevalent when they were 
sewing their samplers. 
My speculation seems to be correct when we notice that Putnam?s pictoralized 
anxiety does not stop with the angles of her sky, her Adam and Eve figures or the lack of 
an arbor on her sampler.  Her tension is also felt in the verse she has chosen to sew into 
her work.  Girls in embroidery schools were given basic patterns to sew into their 
samplers by their teachers, but the verse they chose was usually up to them.
31
 A girl 
would often pick a Bible verse or particular prayer that meant a lot to her.  Under her 
alphabet Ruthey Putnam has sewn the words ?Lord address thy heavenly throne call/ me 
a child of thine send down the spi/rit of thy son to form my heart divine/ In thy fair book 
of life di/vine my God inscribe my n/ame and let it fill some/ humble place beneath/ the 
slaughtered lamb.? Putnam?s prayer is a bit desolate.  With the outcome of the war still 
up in the air, Americans must have felt confused as to how to define themselves.  If they 
lost the war they would not be citizens of their own country, but they would no longer be 
British either.  In her embroidery, Putnam appeals to the one supposedly stable figure in 
her life?God.  Everything may change around her, but she will always have her religion.  
Assuming that the prayer she sewed into her verse was meant to comfort her, it is 
interesting to read it with the juxtaposition of the chaos of her top sky and the emphasis 
on Eve at the bottom of her sampler.   In the midst of the uncertainty of her life, Putnam 
seems to be calling to God for comfort. 
 
31
 Bolton and Coe talk about the emergence of themes within samplers and how girls would often use the 
patterns of their instructors while putting their own personal touches into them. The verse they chose was 
one of the ways to personalize a popular style.  
 
 27
Polly Phippen?s verse is similar to Putnam?s.  Her verse reads, ?No tis in vain to 
seek for/ blis can neer be/ found till we arrive where/ Jesus is and tread on heavnly/ 
ground.  Theres nothing/ round these painted skie nor/ round the dusty clod nothing/ my 
soul that worth thy joy/ or lovely as thy God.? When read out of the context of her 
sampler, Phippen?s prayer seems almost more desolate than Ruthey Putnam?s.  If she 
were writing five years earlier there would have been no bliss in her world because of the 
uncertainty of the outcome of the Revolutionary War.  Phippen, like Putnam, would have 
had no choice but to look toward Heaven and the day that she would be united with her 
maker.  These verses cannot be taken out of context though.  In her sampler Phippen has 
created an Eden.  An apple tree stands between the Adam and Eve figures at the bottom 
of the embroidery.  Intricate flowers and cherry clusters are growing around the sides of 
the box that hold Phippen?s alphabet and verse.  Numerous birds are flying around the 
sampler and there are many sheep and dogs in the grass with Adam and Eve.  Cherry 
were considered a fruit of heaven and cherry trees represented ?prosperity, health, and 
happiness? (Andrle 22).  The whole scene is rich with color.  Everything sewn into 
Phippen?s sampler suggests happiness.  There is almost no ?white space? left on her 
linen.  All of the animals and the two Adam and Eve figures have every worldly necessity 
they could need.  Nothing on Earth is as magnificent as it is in Heaven, and Phippen?s 
verse indicates that she has not forgotten this.  She has an earthly life she has to live, 
though.  The rest of her sampler indicates that in the years after the war, life in Salem for 
an upper-class Salem young woman was as close to Eden as one could get. 
Ruthey Putnam does not have this Eden, which why Phippen?s is so interesting.  
There is a lot of white space on Putnam?s sampler.  An apple tree is growing between 
 
 28
Adam and Eve and there are beautiful flowers growing along the sides of the box 
containing her alphabet and verse like in Polly Phippen?s, but Putnam has only sewn two 
sheep, two birds, and one dog into her work.  Her flowers have a lot of space between 
them when Phippen?s are almost growing into each other.  The world of Putnam?s 
sampler is not desolate in any way, but it is definitely not the lush and bountiful Eden of 
Phippen?s.  So, taken in the context of each girl?s sampler, their verses take on different 
meanings.  Putnam appears to be for God to send down his son to take her from a world 
that is certainly not all together unpleasant (as the flowers of her sampler prove) but still 
chaotic (as shown in the lack of direction in her sky).  Phippen says that nothing on earth 
can be as lovely as it will be in Heaven (something every good Christian girl knows) but 
the world she has created certainly is not lacking beauty?it is a Heaven on Earth of 
sorts.  In a time span of five years the world has changed from simply livable for one girl 
to colorful and bountiful?an Eden?for another. 
 Though they were working within the community of Stivours? school, Putnam 
and Phippen were still making themselves individuals.  They all stressed the importance 
of religion within their works, but this religion had a different meaning for each girl.  
This working of individual identity within an established ideology mirrors Kerber?s 
sentiments that women worked as individuals during the war: ?They did not change their 
domestic identity (though they put it to a broader service), and they did not seriously 
challenge the traditional definition of the woman?s domestic domain? (74).  Embroidery 
and religion were part of Puritan domestic ideology.  With their works, Phippen and 
Putnam were working to maintain the status quo.  Perhaps they were disturbed by the 
lack of religious imagery in embroideries being created by their neighbors.  Obviously, 
 
 29
we cannot ultimately know why the Stivours girls were different from other Salem 
embroideries.  If we are to understand that these samplers were an outgrowth of the 
school they came from (and we are since they all have nearly identical patterns) we can 
assume that those values were ostensibly different from others stitching at the time.  In a 
period when women?s roles in society were being negotiated, it appears that the Stivours 
girls have shown that religion is definitely something that should be emphasized.  This 
emphasis becomes even more apparent when these samplers are compared to text written 
at the time. 
 
The ABCs of Samplers 
Journals provide an interesting foil to the Stivours? samplers for two reasons: first, 
they are actual print sources (like a book) that were used by girls to record their thoughts 
on sermons and schools, and to literally practice the art of writing.  Second, even though 
today we think of journals as private places to write our most intimate thoughts, the 
diaries of young women written during the Revolution were often read by their entire 
families.  The diary was in actuality more like a commonplace book than the diaries of 
today.  Like a sampler, diaries were used by young girls to hone the skills they learned in 
basic academies.  They showcased their skills that the girls learned in their upper-class 
societies.  Anna Greene Winslow?s diary, titled Diary of a Boston School Girl by editor 
Alice Morse Earl, is a great example of both of these.   
In eighteenth century America, penmanship was a status symbol.  Tamara 
Plankins Thornton points out that 
 
 30
For members of the Anglo-American world, men and women were social 
beings, whose places in the social order were determined by their gender, 
status, and occupation and whose social identity was defined accordingly.  
Proper presentation of one?s public self therefore consisted in the faithful 
representation of one?s place in society.  That means donning the visible 
signs of one?s gender and rank: in clothing, speaking, and carrying oneself 
in ways appropriate to one?s station in life.  Included among the arts of 
self-presentation, and sharing in aspects of its major elements?dress, 
speech, and deportments?was handwriting.  (35) 
Clearly, handwriting in the late eighteenth century was a marker of class (the same as a 
decorative sampler).  Monaghan comments that ?since calligraphy rather than 
composition was the focus of writing instruction, Anna?s attendance at school can be 
explained only by the importance that genteel families attached to fine penmanship as 
one of the attributes of a gentlewoman? (338).  This attainment of status is similar to the 
motives for attending embroidery school?in this way both diaries and samplers serve the 
same function. 
Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen?s verse are not the only ?writing? on their 
samplers that hold significance.  The size of each girl?s alphabet box, the type of letters 
she sewed into them, and the colors she used for her lettering all say something about 
what parts of her sampler she saw as most important.  In the seventeenth and early 
eighteenth centuries, most women did not write.  Though almost all learned to read, 
 
 31
                                                
penmanship was a skill usually preserved for boys.
32
 Girls began sewing first the 
alphabet, and then verses into their samplers as a way to learn writing that would not 
have been improper.  The study of each girl?s ?penmanship? and text box shows a lot 
about how she viewed the world around her, especially when looked at in conjunction 
with actual text written by a girl during the same period. 
Written text was supposed to be uniform.  The ?writing? inside of samplers is 
interesting because it can be manipulated in ways text written on a page cannot.  Girls of 
the Stivours School could use different colors and sizes to emphasize the most important 
aspects of their works.  Ruthey Putnam?s alphabet box takes up the majority of her 
sampler.  In it she has cross stitched her alphabet and verse in fairly large letters.  The 
thread that was used to stitch her alphabet alternates colors of brown, white, blue, and 
yellow.  Her inscription and verse are in a very dark shade of brown.  Putnam?s letters 
have been very carefully sewn into the linen.  Unlike her sky, they are very neat and 
orderly.  The large letters make her inscriptions easy to read and she was careful to use 
dyes that would not fade easily.  Polly Phippen did not take such care with her lettering.  
Her alphabet box is significantly smaller than Putnam?s and her lettering is tiny.  The 
thread she used for her alphabet is almost too faded to read, and the dark brown silk used 
in her inscription and is not any more legible because her letters are so small. 
Putnam has taken the status worth of penmanship to heart.  Even though she had 
to show her penmanship through her stitches, she has painstakingly made her letters 
almost perfect.  Putnam?s status in society has already been established with her 
 
32
 Monaghan discusses the idea of Colonial and women in great detail in ?Literacy Instruction and Gender 
in Colonial New England.?  
 
 
 32
                                                
enrollment in Sara Stivours? school.  She is careful to ?donn the visible signs? of her 
?gender and rank? by putting so much effort into stitching such precise letters.  In sewing 
her alphabet and verse so neatly, Putnam indicates that these are the most important 
aspects of her sampler.  The large text box has order that the rest of her sampler does not.  
Her alphabet is just as colorful, if not more so, that the Eden scene that surrounds it.  This 
is interesting because as Kruger points out, ?usually the focus of the design was the lower 
part of the sampler? (13).  The alternating colors of brown, white, green, and blue used 
for the alphabet call more attention to her lettering though.  The white space that is so 
prevalent around her flowers and Adam and Eve figures is not present within her words.  
Her verse stands out more than all other stitches on her embroidery.  The large, dark 
brown letters demand attention before any other figure on the linen.  The words of 
Putnam?s prayer are calling to God for comfort and the actual stitches and dark color she 
used to create her prayer emphasize this. 
Phippen?s lack of care for her lettering further emphasizes that her Adam and Eve 
figures and the Eden they are living in are the focus of her sampler.  The alphabet box for 
her is a significant element of the sampler that had to be included, but we can gather from 
it that Phippen found her images more important.
33
 She chose to use the more expensive 
and longer-lasting dyes on the embroideries of her figures, not of her letters.  For her, 
happiness is available in the world around her.  She has spent all her effort in creating the 
colorful world for her Adam and Eve figures.  We can speculate that unlike Putnam?s, 
Phippen?s America was a place of beauty?a new Eden.  This is why Phippen chose to 
 
33
 Certain items are sewn into almost all colonial samplers. Most consisted of the alphabet in basic stitches 
and a verse surrounded by intricate designs made with more difficult stitches. See Krueger?s A Gallery of 
American Sampler: The Theodore H. Kapnek Collection. New York : E. P. Dutton, 1978. 6-9. 
 
 
 33
make the most important aspect of her sampler.  Her verse, though meaningful, is tiny 
because she sees the beautiful ?painted skie? of Heaven in emerging 1783 America. 
The fact that these samplers were made to be displayed must be stressed again 
when we think about why each girl ?wrote? her sampler the way she did and compare 
their stitches to Winslow?s writing.  Winslow?s diary is composed of letters she wrote to 
her family in Nova Scotia while she lived in Boston at her aunt?s while attending school.  
Her letters were shared with her entire family.  Like Phippen and Putnam?s samplers, 
Winslow?s diary was written to be displayed.  In fact, Richard Bushman explains that 
writing was a very public activity.  As Americans were working to refine the art of 
gentility, many activities, such as cooking, were pushed to the private parts of the house, 
but writing was to be displayed.  Writing utensils and paper were left on desks in parlors 
so that home owners could subtly display the fact that they were capable of the status-
marking skill.  The Stivours girls were essentially doing the same thing.  Instead of being 
left on a desk, the ?writing? of their samplers were hung on a wall?a type of display that 
was the equivalent of framing and hanging a letter.   
Literacy scholar Jennifer Monaghan points out that ?the best single 
characterization of the journal is perhaps that it was an open site for family 
communication.  Its most important public function was to provide a place where the 
family members could draw closer and exchange news? (Monaghan 335).  Just because 
her diary was used as a means of communication does not mean that she left out intimate 
expressions of herself, though.  Monaghan goes on to say ?Anna?s entries in her diary 
shed much light on how a highly literate twelve-year old used and improved her literacy 
for her own ends.  One of the journal?s most striking features is that Anna had remarkable 
 
 34
                                                
control of biblical material and put both her writing and her reading to work in the service 
of her religion? (335).  I disagree with Monaghan slightly.  Winslow?s ability to repeat 
the sermons she has heard is very impressive, but there is little to no discussion of her 
views on what she has repeated.  Knowing full well that her writings were going to be 
shared with her family and visitors of her aunt?s house, Winslow let her pages become a 
site for what she deemed most important for gentility.  Religon is definitely something 
the genteel class should emphasize, but according to the content of Winslow?s journal, 
fashion is just as, if not more important.  Descriptions of important sermons are broken 
up by discussions on the importance of fashion.  
34
  
In the introduction to the diary, Alice Morse Earl jokes ?it is an even chance 
which ruling thought in the clever little writer, a love of religion or a love of dress, shows 
most plainly its influence on this diary? (iii-iv).  She goes on to posit that ?on the 
whole?youthful vanity, albeit of a very natural and innocent sort, is more pervasive of 
the pages? (iv).  Throughout her journal, Winslow discusses both religion and fashion 
twelve times.  She does not give both equal attention, though.  There are almost no 
discussions of the religious material she includes in her journal.  Winslow recounts 
numerous sermons, but she rarely reflects upon them.  On November 18, 1771, Anna 
gives a lengthy description of the sermon she has just heard by Mr.  Beacon.  After 
reciting a rather disturbing section, the entry ends.
35
 She never mentions it again.  The 
 
34
 Marla Miller mentions Winslow?s concern with fashion in her work The Needle?s Eye: Women and Work 
in the Age of Revolution. Miller posits that Winslow?s need to fit in with the fashion of the city ?marked the 
advent of dramatic new relationships between people and material goods and the exigencies associated with 
them, and the centrality of appearance as a means and an end in that effort? (35). For more on importance 
of clothing in New England the chapter ?Clothing and Consumers in Rural New England, 1760-1810? (25). 
 
35
 The text of Winslow?s diary reads as follows: ?You think me very unpolite no doubt to address you in 
this manner, but I must go a little further and tell you, how cource soever it may sound to your delicacy, 
 
 35
                                                                                                                                                
next entry mentions a visit with Mr.  Beacon and how much she likes him because of the 
?much notice? that was taken of her.  She is commenting on the attention he gives her (he 
is apparently flattered that she is able to recite his sermons), but not what he 
preaches.This is not the case with fashion.   
Winslow has much to say about her clothing and that of her friends.  On 
November 30, 1771, Winslow begs her mother for more fashionable clothing: ?Dear 
mamma, you dont know the fation here?I beg to look like other folk.  You dont know 
what a stir would be made in Sudbury street, were I to make my appearance there in my 
red Dominie & black Hatt? (7-8).   All of this goes to show that Earle is not incorrect in 
her assumption that fashion was more of a concern for Winslow than religion.  Winslow 
is clearly concerned with her faith, but it is not as pressing a matter as the clothing styles 
of her time.  She not only wants, but needs to fit in with the fashions of Boston.
36
 
Knowing that her journal was going to be shared, Winslow has placed such emphasis on 
clothing in order to show her peers that she finds it as important as they.  Her detailed 
descriptions of hats, gloves, and coats are her ways of defining what upper-class citizens 
of 1771 Boston should be wearing. 
As the genteel class grew in America so did their tastes.  Houses were getting 
larger and more elaborate, especially in seaports like Salem.
37
 With the addition of new 
 
that while you are without hiliness, your beauty is deformity?you are all over black & defil?d, ugly and 
loathsome to all holy beings, the wrath of th? great God lie?s upon you, & if you die in this condition, you 
wil be turn?d into hell, with ugly devils, to eternity? (2-3). 
 
36
 Bushman examines the importance of clothing, fashionable colors and cuts, and which classes would 
have worn certain types of clothing during the emergence of the upper-class society in America. See pages 
69-74. 
 
37
 Bushman discusses the expansion of houses and the addition of parlors in great detail in The Refinement 
of America. See pages 100-138. 
 
 36
space, new frivolous items were introduced to the home.  It seems as though Putnam and 
Phippen did not completely embrace these changes while Winslow was more accepting 
of them.  The Stivours girls have accepted their place as members of elite society by 
attending a prestigious school like Stivours? and have gone through the ritual required to 
keep their places within it by completing their samplers, but they keep an emphasis on 
what was most important?faith.  There was fear within society that refinement had the 
power to ?enfeeble? the republic (Bushman 193).  It was seen as almost dangerous in 
some facets.  Unlike Winslow, though, Putnam and Phippen?s displays are not marred 
with frivolous matters such as a concern for fashion.  They have created works that would 
add to the aesthetic value of these houses, and would be expensive show pieces, but the 
works celebrate religion.  While Putnam and Phippen may have had different emphasis, 
or centers, in each of their works, religion is the central element in both.  The Stivours 
girls are defining which aspects they may have seen as acceptable.  It was productive to 
create a sampler because they honed their sewing skills while doing so, but it was not 
productive to sew frivolous scenes into them.  There was only so much room for stitches 
on a piece of linen, so the girls working with it had to choose what was most important to 
them.  Stivours? students have created items that serve as place markers in the genteel 
realm, but they use them to emphasize religion.  Of course, the actual materials that make 
up the Stivours samplers are just as important as what has been stitched into them.  The 
thread and dyes used to color them are used to convey the girls? messages, so we must 
examine them, too. 
 
 
 
 37
                                                
Reading the Materials of Stitchery 
Glee Krueger explains that ?more often New England samplers were made of 
home-grown, home-manufactured linen, not surprising when one recalls that both 
Massachusetts and Connecticut colonies in the1640?s required that every family plant and 
raise flax or hemp? (5).  By the time Putnam and Phippen created their samplers, this 
would have been commonplace practice.  Also, trade to and from England had almost 
come to a standstill when they were students at Stivours? school.  Using American-made 
products could have been a way the girls could show pride for their emerging country.
38
If nothing was known about the samplers from the Stivours School, they could 
still be linked to Salem.  Silk thread was usually used in samplers made by girls from 
affluent families.  This silk thread became more accessible after the Revolutionary War 
because America began to trade directly with China and Japan.  Salem played a big part 
in the trade industry.  The seaport quickly became very successful with vessels shipping 
out and coming in from Asia all the time.
39
 The crinkled silk used in the Stivours school 
samplers is found mostly in needle work from the Salem area.  Kreuger posits that the 
silks used ?either floss or twist, appear individually or together and are by far the most 
frequently found threads.  They were often unraveled, imparting an additional sheen and 
variation? (6).  Fancy silk from Asia wasn?t cheap.  Imported fabrics and thread became 
 
38
Gunderson discusses how many affluent women who had been importing their linen before the war 
returned to making it themselves when the Stamp Act boycotts cut off imports to England. Most continued 
to do this even when trade was restored as a sign of their patriotism. Gunderson, Joan. ?Mistress and 
Servant.? To Be Useful to the World: Women in Revolutionary America, 1740-1790. . Revised Ed. Chapel 
Hill: The University of North  Carolina Press, 2006. 58-76.  Similarly, T.H. Breen outlines the importance 
of non-importation within the colonies during the Revolution. See The Marketplace of Revolution: How 
Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. 
 
39
 Morrison, Dane A. ?Salem as Citizen of the World.? Salem: Place, Myth, and Memory. Ed. Dane A. 
Morrison and Nancy Lusignan Shultz. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004. 107-127.  
 
 
 38
                                                
further indicators of social status.  Also, the thread is imported from China and Japan, not 
England.  They may not be American products like the linen they are sewn onto, but 
purchasing thread from Chinese merchants puts no money into the pockets of the 
Englishmen.   
The shine of the unraveled thread gives Putnam and Phippen?s samplers an added 
glow that girls of poorer families would not have been able to add to their embroideries.  
It also helps to emphasize what each girl felt about her America.  The glow of Ruthey 
Putnam?s sampler gives it an almost eerie feeling when placed next to Polly Phippen?s.  
The colorful silk floss lights up her sampler, but it also makes the bareness of the 
landscape stand out even more; the bare patches of linen look desolate next to the shiny 
bursts of colors.  The sheen of her sky is beautiful, but it draws attention to the fact that 
her diagonals have no direction.  The shine of Phippen?s thread is just as bright and 
beautiful as Putnam?s, but, as was discussed earlier, her Eden is bursting with life.  There 
is so little white space that the left over linen just fades into the background.  The shine of 
the crinkled floss only adds to the jubilance of her scene.  Phippen has used the imported 
floss to emphasize the new found order and joy that was going through America in 1783. 
The colors of the silk that each girl uses are important to emphasize what they felt 
about their America too.  Almost all thread used in the eighteenth century was dyed at 
home.  Women were constantly looking for new sources of color.
40
 Sebba explains that 
popular dyes made at home were ?made from onions for yellows, black walnut bark for 
 
40
 Jack Kramer?s Natural Dyes Plants & Processes. New York: Charles Scribner?s Sons, 1972. Kramer lists 
many different items that can be used to dye threads and cloth. He explains in detail what each plant or 
insect looks like (there are many pictures to help identify plants that can be found locally) and gives recipes 
for the reader to try at home. Rita Androsko also has a very informative book that lists dyestuff used in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by color and importance. Natural Dyes and Home Dyeing. New York, 
Dover Publications, Inc., 1971. 
 
 
 39
                                                
browns and elderberries for a lavender color? (88).  Many of these colors are used in 
Phippen?s and Putnam?s samplers.  Ruthey Putnam uses white and brown for the majority 
of her sky.  Her Adam and Eve figures, the apple tree growing between them, and many 
of the flowers growing along the sides of the sampler are all made of yellow and brown 
threads.  Phippen has yellow flowers, birds, and apples.  She has used brown in her grass, 
for the trunk of her apple tree, and to stitch her alphabet, inscription, and verse.  Silk 
thread that is dyed with American flowers and berries serve the same purpose as the 
American-made linen it is sewn into.  The ?home-found? colors help keep money in 
American society and away from the British.  The colors are just another small way 
Phippen and Putnam are able to create strictly American samplers that speak of their 
society. 
Usually, the more colorful the dye the more expensive it was because it (like the 
silk thread) had to be imported.  The girls both use blue thread to represent the sky and 
also in some of their flowers.  Most blue thread would have been colored from indigo.  
Indigo was very costly, but many well-to-do families would have had an indigo tub in the 
kitchen.
41
 Green thread would usually have been a mix of yellow dye made at home and 
indigo, so it too would have been costly.
42
 Cochineal, made from the dried bodies of the 
 
41
 Indigo dying was a fairly difficult, time consuming, and unpleasant task. Ulrich explains in detail how 
cakes of indigo would be steeped in stale urine and fermented for about two weeks. A covered pot would 
be used to try and control the smell which was hard because ?indigo smelled like putrefying flesh or feces 
even before it was added to urine? (222). The mixture was ready when it turned yellow or tan and ?in a 
process that must have seemed magical, yarn immersed in the pot became blue when exposed to the air? 
(223). Ulrich, Laura Thatcher. The Age of Homespun. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001. 222-223. 
 
42
 Androsko explains that green dye could also be obtained from a plant called Dyer?s Broom (also known 
as dyer?s weed, greenweed, woodwax, and woodwaxen)When mixed with indigo, the dye created from 
Dyer?s Broom, turns a dark green color, much like the one found on Putnam and Phippen?s samplers. The 
plant was not native to America, but was probably cultivated locally and would have been readily available 
by the late eighteenth century (35). 
 
 
 40
                                                
insect Dactylopius coccus, probably would have been used to dye the silk red, which was 
also very expensive.
43
 In fact, Krueger points out that ?A pound of cochineal required 
seventy thousand dried female scale insects? (7).  These expensive threads are used 
alongside the inexpensive ones in both Phippen and Putnam?s samplers. 
To understand what the colors mean in Putnam and Phippen?s samplers, the way 
each girl chooses to use the home-found colors must be compared to the way she uses the 
more expensive imported dyes.  Most of the colors throughout Ruthey Putnam?s sampler 
come from dyes that did not have to be imported.  She has four flowers, and a few 
diagonals of her sky made from the expensive indigo dye.  Green is used for her grass, 
the leaves and stems of her flowers, and three lines of saw-tooth patterning.  The rest of 
her embroidery is done in modest yellows, browns, and whites.  Putnam has used no red 
thread in her sampler at all.  Polly Phippen uses the more expensive colors freely 
throughout her work.  She uses the indigo-dyed thread for her sky and flowers as well as 
for many of the birds flying around the sampler.  Red thread stands out in the sky, on four 
of her flowers, the apple tree, and for many of her cherries.  Phippen also uses more green 
than Putnam; she has four rows of the saw tooth pattern, green in almost all of her 
flowers? leaves and stems.  There is also a green bird sitting on the arbor at the top of the 
alphabet box.   
Why would Phippen have used more of the bright, expensive colors in her 
sampler? Could it be that Putnam?s family could not afford the imported dyes? Most 
evidence says this was not the case.  In her brief description of Phippen?s life, Mary Jaene 
Edmonds notes that the year before she completed her sampler, her father, Joshua 
 
43
 See Kramer pgs 75-76. 
 
 41
Phippen, ?became a successful merchant [and] built a three-story mansion ? He was 
considered a kind, generous man who ?daily had seated at his table between twenty and 
twenty-five persons?? (31).  Phippen?s ?generous? wealthy father would have been the 
one funding her schooling.  He also would have been the person to buy her the expensive 
threads she uses so freely throughout her sampler.  This does not mean that her family is 
any wealthier than Putnam?s though.  Ostensibly, there is no information on Ruthey 
Putnam?s life but, because she was a pupil at Sara Stivours? school, it can be assumed 
that her family had money.  Also, though she has not used as much of the blue and green 
colored thread as Phippen, she has used enough of it to prove that her family could afford 
to buy it for her if she had wanted it.  Clearly, there is another reason why Putnam?s 
sampler is not as colorful as her classmate?s. 
A fairly simple reason for why Putnam would have chosen to leave out the bright 
colors for the same reason she has chaotic diagonal lines for her sky and she has left a lot 
of white space on her sampler.  The blue, green, and red thread adds a note of happiness 
to Phippen?s sampler.  Putnam?s does not have this brightness.  He sampler does not 
depict a sad scene, but it does not depict an overly happy one either.  The lack of color 
only emphasizes the feelings she has over the unknown fate of America she has sewn into 
her sampler.  Phippen on the other hand, uses the imported thread to emphasize the 
brightness and order of her Eden.  She has directed all of her energy into these colorful 
images so that they truly represent the feelings of hope and joy were so prevalent in 1783 
America. 
 
 
 
 42
The Final Stitch 
When looking at Ruthey Putnam and Polly Phippen?s samplers side by side and 
thinking about them in context with the changing world they lived in, fascinating 
comparisons can be made between the two.  While both girls have used the same basic 
pattern for their needle works, and the distinctive Stivour stitch to create their skies, there 
are subtle differences that tell a story about the particular time each girl?s work was 
finished.  Though her sampler is every bit as beautiful as Phippen?s, Putnam?s chaotic sky 
along with the verse she picked to sew into it show the uncertainty she was facing at the 
time.  Just five years later, Phippen ?writes? about not having bliss in this life, but she has 
created an Eden-like world for her Adam and Eve figures to live in.  Phippen seems to 
ask for earthly deliverance, whereas Putnam seems less concerned with her everyday 
existences and looks forward to deliverance in heaven.  The diagonal stitches that create 
her sky are carefully positioned to draw the viewers? gaze in specific directions.  She 
shows through her sampler that compared to Ruthey Putnam?s world, girls in 1783 
Salem, Mass.  had a stronger feeling of order and stability in their lives.  The chaos and 
uncertainty of Salem five years earlier left Ruthey Putnam calling to God through her 
sampler.  In fact, God and only God is the focus of her work.   
Through their patterns taken from the Sara Stivours Embroidery School, Ruthey 
Putnam and Polly Phippen have created wholly American samplers.  Adam and Eve 
scenes that were popular in England have been taken and modernized.  Putnam and 
Phippen used what few resources they had as young girls in colonial America to express 
what they felt about the changing world around them. 
 
 43
Different eyes see the stitches of each girl?s sky pointing in different ways.  What 
is important, though, is that embroideries made by girls in colonial America not be 
ignored or put off.  They are not simply pieces of art?they are works of basic literacy 
and incipient self-expression.  The girls that made them were not just following the 
directions of their teachers.  The samplers from the Sara Stivours Embroidery School are 
all beautiful, and they are indeed pieces of art, but they are much more than decorated 
pieces of linen used to fill girls? time.  Each one hints at a story specific to the girl who 
created it.
 
 44
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Appendix 1: 
 
Polly Phippen (1783) 
Salem, Massachusetts 
Silk and Linen; 21 x 21 in.
 48
 
Appendix 2: 
 
Ruthey Putnam (1778) 
Salem, Massachusetts 
Silk and Linen; 17 ? x 14 ? in.
 49
 
Appendix 3: 
 
Elizabeth Derby (1774) 
Salem, Massachusetts 
Silk and Linen; 15 ? x 10 ? in.
 50
 
Appendix 4: 
 
Elizabeth  Derby?s alphabet and strawberry line 
 
 
Close up of Elizabeth Derby?s  ?letter pyramid.?
 51
 
Appendix 5: 
 
 
Mary Richardson (1783) 
Silk and Linen; 24 ? x 23 ? in. 
Salem, Massachusetts
 52
 
Appendix 6: 
 
Top of Mary Richardson?s sampler. 
 
 
Mary Richardson?s text box. Verse: Mary Richardson Is My Name and With My Needle 
I Did The Same And If My Skill Had Been Better I Would Have Mended Every Letter 
This Needle Work Of Mine Can Tell When A Child Is Learned Well By My Parants I 
Was Tought Not To Spend My Time For Nought. 
 
 
Bottom of Mary Richardson?s sampler.
 53
 
Appendix 7: 
 
Top of Ruthey Putnam?s sampler. 
 
 
Ruthey Putnam?s text box. Verse: Ruthey Putnam her/ sampler wrought Nov/ember the 
27 1778 in/ the 10 year of her age/ Lord I address thy heavenly throne call/ me a child of 
thine. Send down the spi/rit of they god to form my heart divine/ In they fair book of life 
di/vine my god inscribe my n/ame and let it fill some/ humble place/ beneath the 
slaughtered lamb. 
 
 
Ruthey Putnam?s Adam and Eve figures.
 54
 
Appendix 8: 
 
Top of Polly Phippen?s sampler. 
 
 
Polly Phippen?s text box.  
 
 
 55
Polly Phippen?s Adam and Eve figures.