Stitches in Time

The New Jersey State Museum presents ‘The Needle’s Eye,’ an exhibit of quilts from its permanent collection.

By: Amy Brummer

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"Crazy Quilt," 1886, by Elyonta H. Yard Cole, Trenton.
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"Album Quilt," circa 1876 to 1889, Springfield (Burlington County).
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"Friendship Quilt," 1841, Burlington County.

   From colonial times through the early 20th century, needlework skills were an integral part of a woman’s education. From marking the linens to quilting bedspreads and making clothes, those stitches held together the fabric of her family’s life.
   "A woman in the 1830s
wrote that a woman who was not proficient in needlework was as deficient as a man who could not read or write," says James Turk, director of cultural history for the New Jersey State Museum.
   The museum is currently exhibiting needlework pieces from its permanent collection in The Needle’s Eye. Split into three parts, the show gives an overview of state trends in needlework, as well as how women gravitated toward more national styles in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.
   The first part of the show focuses on the sampler, the building block for future needlework. In its most basic form, the sampler consists of an alphabet and numbers that a woman would embroider onto a piece of linen. This would give her practical training with the needle and also serve as a template for domestic needs such as marking the linens.
   Mr. Turk points out a blanket with the letters "T, C, T" and the number "7" and compares them to a sampler that is hanging on the wall above it. Although the pieces were created by different women, the letters and numbers follow the same pattern. In the case of the blanket, the characters denote that this is one of seven blankets that belonged to Charlotte and Thomas Taylor. Keeping a personal inventory was customary at the time, as handmade items were an important part of the household.
   Young women would learn these skills at academies, where the teacher’s influence could often be seen in the more elaborate designs. When a student had achieved proficiency in her basic sampler, the next phase was to try her hand at more ornate needlework. These samplers often depicted domestic scenes such as houses or farms, embellished with flora and fauna, or simply a decorative border around a basic alphabet.
   In rare cases, the instructor’s name is marked on the sampler, and the exhibit includes one of those pieces.
   "We don’t know a lot about Sarah Shoemaker," Mr. Turk says, "but there is a body of work that has surfaced that shows her name. It is all from the Burlington County region, and it is believed that she taught in Mount Holly. The samplers have certain similarities but they are all somewhat different, which is also interesting. It shows that she is teaching a lot of different things."
   On the other hand, sometimes a teacher’s style is so distinctive that it is possible to immediately recognize her influence. This is apparent in looking at the sampler by Pemella Baldwin from Pennington and another by Eure Ann Titus that reflects the tutelage of Eliza Rue.
   "We know Eliza Rue was the daughter of a Presbyterian minister in Pennington and she started her school, we think, after her father died," Mr. Turk says. "There is a grouping of samplers that are attached or identified with Eliza Rue. Her sampler styles are very similar. There is a basket in the center with a grapevine wreath around it."
   This creates an intriguing point of comparison because it also makes clear how different pieces can look as a result of the embroiderer’s skills and personal approach to the composition.
   These decorative sewing skills could be put to use in creating fine detailing on clothing or quiltmaking. A comprehensive grouping of work from Rachel Van Riper Williams of Belleville gives a good understanding of how important all of these talents were in all aspects of domestic life.
   "This is a great group of material," Mr. Turk says. "You can see how it all comes together. Here is a pillowslip that she has marked. But she also did decorative needlework. Here is the application of other stitches she might have practiced in a sampler, but in this case applied to a christening dress. She made a whole cloth quilt, which means it wasn’t patched or pieced. These were whole panels of fabric. It is quite elegant and would have been fairly expensive fabric at the time."
   Her quilt, an elegant chocolate color with bright blue peacocks, also is reflective of certain trends associated with New Jersey quiltmaking, such as straight-line stitching, dark color and diagonal pattern alignment. New Jersey quilts tend to be rather dense in design, have a strong central focus, often employ naturalistic leaves to create patterns and utilize an outlining technique in appliqué work.
   Pointing out an album quilt from Elizabeth, Mr. Turk shows how the dense quilting around the appliquéd design creates a ripple effect.
   "This one does it almost on steroids," he says. "The outline is echoed extensively. The quilting is different on every square to emphasize the design. What this suggests is that New Jersey quilters valued the designs created by fabric and used quilting to highlight the designs rather than compete with them."
   Mr. Turk says that a survey of New Jersey quilts conducted in the 1990s revealed that the signature quilt also was a significant state tradition. In this second part of the exhibit, the focus is on how needlework was created for family and friends or as a community service.
   One example of this is an 1845 friendship quilt from the Hannah Hoyt Academy in New Brunswick. While Ms. Hoyt’s Academy offered rigorous academic coursework, her students chose to honor her through the domestic arts. The quilt contains signatures from 120 students, each in its own square, penned in fine calligraphy. Many are further decorated with whimsical drawings including garlands, lily of the valley, oak leaves, hearts and birds.
   In some cases the distinction of one’s name on a quilt was used as a fund-raising vehicle.
   "This is the fund-raising quilt extraordinaire," Mr. Turk says. "This is from Everittstown in Hunterdon County in 1908, and this was done as a fund-raiser for the ladies aid society at the Methodist church there. This one is interesting because it embroiders the names right onto the squares. It shows the amount of money that the woman raised, for example, Mrs. Niece, solicitor, amount $5. This quilt raised a little over $90 for the church when you add up all of the amounts."
   Toward the end of the 19th century, women’s publications such as Peterson’s and Godey’s were having a significant impact on needlework designs and regionality. Like the samplers of the previous centuries, these provided a new pattern of style that was being distributed nationwide.
   But the strength of regional traditions could not be completely washed away under the flood of these new trends. The exhibit includes a quilt made by Walter Raymond DeCamp from 1905, when he was 9. Embroidered in bright red on cream colored fabric, the squares are filled with images of the boy’s imagination and life. Elephants, sailors, farm animals and a snowman, as well as a needle, scissors and thimble, populate the squares.
   "He liked to draw," Mr. Turk says, "and continued to do so as an adult. His daughter remembers him drawing pictures for her. In this case, he designed all of the squares and embroidered them, and his mother and aunt put the quilt together. Look how he has the W.D. in the middle as the central focus. In one of our later quilts, we still have one that shows the tendencies of the past."
The Needle’s Eye is on view at the New Jersey State Museum, 205 W. State St., Trenton, through Sept. 14. Hours: Tues.-Sat. 9 a.m.-4:45 p.m., Sun. noon-5 p.m. Free admission. For information, call (609) 292-6464. On the web: www.newjerseystatemuseum.org