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Guest
Curator Article
Needle/Work: Art, Craft, and Industry
in a Port City, 1800–1930
By
Kathleen Staples and Madelyn Shaw
For
much of the nineteenth century, whaling was one of America ’s major
global industries. New England dominated whaling worldwide, with
New Bedford its epicenter. The New Bedford Whaling Museum , with
the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection related to
whales and whaling, has been interpreting the history of whaling
and its interrelated social and economic history since 1903. A new
exhibition at the museum, entitled Needle/Work: Art, Craft,
and Industry in a Port City ,
1800–1930, provides an opportunity to explore, for the first
time, the interrelationship of the whaling industry and needlework;
domestic and commercial, utilitarian and decorative. It crafts a
new understanding of how and where the worlds of consumption and
production in the needle arts and trades overlapped and interconnected.
In particular, it illustrates that the presumed distinctions between
male and female practices were not always clear cut. From accomplishment
and pastime to outwork and industry, this exhibition examines the
roles that working with a needle played in the social, economic,
and cultural lives of New Bedford ’s men and women during the preeminence
of the whaling industry.
Why
did needlework thrive here? From necessity and opportunity. Before
consumer goods were mass-produced, young girls helped their mothers
to sew and knit for the household. Men and women with needle skills
stitched the sails that powered ships across the sea and crafted
sailors’ clothing. A sailor’s skill with a needle was an important
test of seamanship, and even inexperienced whalemen learned to make
and mend for themselves. Whaling’s business elite patronized fine
dressmaking, tailoring, and millinery shops. The wives and daughters
of whaling entrepreneurs had the money and leisure to cultivate
ornamental, as well as more common utilitarian skills. Whaling generated
capital that funded new ventures, some in the needle trades, moving
workers from home or cottage industries to factories. Immigrants
to New Bedford brought their own traditional needlework skills,
and found new employment opportunities. At the same time, leisure-time
needlework became a symbol of refinement and gentility for a growing
middle class, and a means of creative expression that cut across
class lines.
Despite
the community’s substantial Quaker population, fewer than a dozen
of the known New Bedford samplers are associated with Quaker families
and none of the samplers—plain or fancy—conforms to the style of
cross-stitch samplers made at Quaker schools such as Westtown Boarding
School in Chester County , Pennsylvania , or Nine Partners’ Boarding
School in Dutchess County , New York . Only a handful of New Bedford
samplers have any affinity at all with the Quaker style. One was
completed in 1826 by Welthen S. Taber, whose family were members
of the Society of Friends early in the Town’s history (fig. 1).
Welthen’s third row of uppercase alphabets exemplifies the heavy
Roman case lettering favored in Quaker schools. However, her crenellated
border of strawberries is a fashionable addition found on samplers
throughout antebellum America .
The
New Bedford Academy , the first school in the town known to have
taken girls was organized not by the Friends but by Congregationalists.
Organized in 1797 by New Bedford merchants who lived on the Fairhaven
side of the Acushnet River , the two-story school was completed
in 1799; the first classes were held in 1800. Needlework and embroidery
were not included in the basic tuition but were available for an
additional charge. In 1812 Fairhaven was officially created as a
separate town, and in May of that year the New Bedford Academy officially
changed its name to Fairhaven Academy . In 1814, support for the
school began to decline, likely because the region suffered heavy
economic losses during the War of 1812. By 1816 the school was apparently
no longer in operation; in August of that year the academy building
was rented. It was sold at auction in 1841. Rebecca Nye was one
of the first students to complete a sampler at the school after
it changed its name to Fairhaven Academy in 1812. (fig. 2). Interestingly,
she was already an adult of twenty-four and still living at home
when she completed her embroidery.
In
1826 Mary Ann Jenney completed the only known mourning style sampler
known from New Bedford or Fairhaven (fig. 3). It is unusual in not
being dedicated to a particular person. Mary may have been unwell
and had herself in mind, for she died just four years after completing
the embroidery. The Jenneys were members of the Fairhaven Congregational
Church.
Kathleen
Staples
Consulting
Curator
Madelyn
Shaw
Vice-President
of Collections and Exhibitions
New
Bedford Whaling Museum
18
Johnny Cake Hill
New
Bedford , MA 02740
508-997-0046
www.whalingmuseum.org
The exhibition runs through
December 31, 2008; please visit their website for further information.
A sampler catalog is available
from the museum for $19.95.
Figure
1.
Sampler
by Welthen Taber (1817–1907), age 9
New
Bedford , dated September 29, 1826
Silk
thread; linen ground of 28 x 29 threads per in.
1992.47;
Old Dartmouth Historical Society purchase
Photograph
by Herb Andrew
Figure
2.
Sampler
by Rebecca Nye (1788–1867)
Fair
Haven Academy , dated 1812
Silk
thread; linen ground of 29 x 30 threads per in.
1999.36.108;
Gift of Anne Fitch
Photograph
by Herb Andrew
Figure
3.
Sampler
by Mary Ann Jenney (1815–1830), age 10
Fairhaven
, dated 1826
Two-ply
and crinkled silk threads; linen ground of 29 x 30 threads per in.
2005.50.1;
Old Dartmouth Historical Society purchase
Photograph
by Herb Andrew
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