Sampler

Maker Deborah Oldham

Period1731

MediumPlied wool yarn on rough natural linen

Dimensions9.63 × 7.75 in. (24.4 × 19.7 cm)

SignedThe sampler is signed "DEBORAH / OLDHAM MADE THIS SAMPLER IN THE YEAR / ONE THOUSAND SEVEN / HUNDRED THIRTY ONE."

ClassificationsNeedlework

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Julia Hartshorne Trask, 1946

Object number2084.40

DescriptionA small rectangular sampler on rough natural linen, retaining its selvedge along the bottom edge and narrow hemming along the left, top, and right edges. The sampler is worked in plied wool thread in red, brick red, dark blue, medium blue (which in some cases was originally a purple tone), light blue, spring green, light brown (which appears to have been a deep maroon), pale yellow, light gray, off white, and dusty pink. All motifs and lettering are worked in either cross stitch or in Armenian eyelet stitch. The upper portion of the sampler contains multiple rows of decorative bands, worked in a variety of colors and combining cross and Armenian eyelet stitches in pleasing patterns. Below the rows of banding runs a half-inch upper case alphabet worked on four lines in a double lettering repeat, "AA," "BB," "CC," and so on in a variety of colors, ending with "YY" and "ZZ." The alphabet contains no J or U. The bottom five rows of the sampler include the inscription and date, which reads "DEBORAH / OLDHAM MADE THIS / SAMPLER IN THE YEAR / ONE THOUSAND SEVEN / HUNDRED THIRTY ONE." While most of the inscription rows are 3/4 inches high, the bottom row is only a half inch, in order to squeeze in the final date wording. Small diamond-shaped motifs are used as spacers on either side of "Deborah" and after the word "This."
Curatorial RemarksWhile the maker of this sampler has not been conclusively identified, there are indications that the sampler may be American in origin. Some early American samplers incorporate wool threads due to the difficulty of procuring the more desirable and elegant silk embroidery threads. Silk threads and fine linen were also relatively expensive as imports to the early colonies. The sampler's linen ground gives every appearance of being homespun, and provides a sturdy but rough base for the stitching. Deborah's sampler also has several design elements that point to an American origin, including the double letter alphabet arrangement.NotesThe surname of Oldham is a common one in England. But it is also not unknown in America in the early eighteenth century. One Deborah Oldham was born in 1712 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a daughter of Quakers Thomas Oldham and Susannah Few. She married on 19 November 1733 at the East Nottingham Monthly Meeting in Chester County to Joshua Littler, and died on 24 March 1773 in Wilmington, Delaware. Deborah Littler was interred in the burial ground of the Friends Meeting in Wilmington. It is doubtful that this Deborah Oldham stitched the sampler, however, as she would have been nineteen years old in 1731. But she serves as an example of the name presence in the northeastern United States at an early date.

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