The Sampler Collection of Alexandra Peters is a researched and curated collection of over 200 framed samplers, (ever growing!) stitched by girls mostly aged 5-16 between the years of 1698 and 1850. The collection is primarily American, with several British, as well as a few Dutch and French samplers. All are framed in different ways, most under museum glass, (although a few still have their original glass) and many have been conserved by the Textile Conservation Workshop. 

This collection honors and celebrates the enormous legacy of the thousands of samplers (made by girls) still in existence in the United States and in England. There is nothing comparable for boys.

Alexandra’s Story

We don’t know the history of women, especially girls. I emigrated to the US from England when I was ten, and I knew nothing about American history. (A revolution? I had never learned about that in England. I thought the British had given this upstart colony away.) I wanted to understand America, my new country - but wars, men in wigs signing documents, tea in the harbor  - where were the girls in our past? Invisible in our way of approaching history. 

But in the 1980’s I began to come across samplers in antique stores, pieces of linen and sometimes silk, stitched by the hands of real girls in the 18th and 19th centuries. I could hold in my hand the skilled work of young women before the Industrial Revolution and before sewing machines, when every girl sewed and every item of clothing, every textile, was pieced together and decorated by hand. These samplers were created for display  - and often hung on the wall for generations. Contrary to our modern ideas about the work of women in the home, I could see how much the needlework skills and education of girls had been valued and appreciated. And I could buy them! I began reading everything I could find about the history of needlework. By the time I had ten or twelve samplers, holding history in my hand from a viewpoint I had always wanted to understand, I was hooked. I began intentionally looking to buy samplers that have a story to tell, especially if they opened a way of understanding life in colonial and antebellum America in a historical context. 

And then the Internet transformed the ability to find information. Now I research every sampler before I buy it and in most cases do a deep exploration of the sampler maker, her family, her town, her school, and what was happening around her politically and socially. I always become completely absorbed in discovery and stay up way too late researching. History unfolds before me. Connections happen. Surprising things turn up! 

And before I realized it, I had become a collector. The Sharon Historical Society and Museum, near me in Sharon, CT, asked me if I would be willing to show some of my samplers. I curated an exhibit of about 55 framed pieces, and wrote the narration and the labels, with supporting photographs, maps and letters. Because this exhibit, “Girls Stitching History” used the works and lives of real girls as an entry point to history, it drew in people of all ages, interested in history, women’s lives, education, needlework, antiques, and there just to walk around and look. Men seemed to be its most vocal enthusiasts. 

I got to know Sharon Historical Society so well, from the inside out, and was so impressed with everything that they accomplish, that I joined their Board of Trustees, too.  

In 2024 I was honored to be invited to co-curate an exhibit, “With Their Busy Needles” at Litchfield Historical Society, with some of my samplers and some of theirs. Litchfield has an exceptional collection and museum, and it was so much fun to work with their knowledgeable team. The exhibit was up from April to December. We also held a symposium and invited different speakers to join us, and I created a catalog specifically of my samplers that were exhibited.

In 2025 The Salisbury Association asked me to do an exhibit at the much loved Salisbury Historical Society. “Birth, Death and Alphabets” had a particular focus on memorial samplers and how girls dealt with the death of siblings, and was up from February until May. 

I love bringing to life the stories of the girls and their needlework, and have been enjoying speaking at historical societies, museums, schools and conferences. Everyone, it turns out, is interested in the history of women, a history that we never knew.

— Alexandra