Part of This Summer’s Sampler Driving Tour!

Who: The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety — Part of This Summer’s Sam­pler Dri­ving Tour. 

What: In coop­er­a­tion with the VT State 250th Com­mem­o­ra­tion of the start of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion, the VT Sam­pler Ini­tia­tive is pro­duc­ing a statewide dri­ving tour, to view school­girl needle­work sam­plers, from the post-Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War period.

These pieces of 19th cen­tu­ry needle­work were an essen­tial part of girls’ edu­ca­tion dur­ing the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary and fed­er­al peri­od of our his­to­ry. This is how girls learned to read, write, and spell their own names. Fam­i­lies often framed them and hung them on a par­lor wall, to announce to vis­i­tors that they val­ued edu­ca­tion enough to pay for their daugh­ters to become edu­cat­ed cit­i­zens – and mar­riage­able young women, to any aspir­ing suitors.

Where: Begin­ning at a sam­pler exhib­it at the Ben­ning­ton Muse­um in May 2025, statewide pre-iden­ti­fied sites, such as muse­ums, art gal­leries, libraries and his­tor­i­cal soci­eties will invite Ver­mont vis­i­tors to the State to explore var­i­ous com­mu­ni­ties in Ver­mont, to view these exam­ples of school­girl needle­work. The Danville His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety will be the site of the sam­ple exhib­it in Danville. Many Ver­mon­ters are con­tribut­ing their pri­vate sam­plers to this exhib­it, nev­er seen pub­licly before.

When: The dates of the dri­ving tour coin­cide with the statewide cel­e­bra­tion of our nation­al semi-quin­cen­ten­ni­al cel­e­bra­tion, from May 2025-Octo­ber 2025.

Why: The sto­ry of our Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War gen­er­a­tion hav­ing fought the war for our inde­pen­dence, and then hav­ing relo­cat­ed to Ver­mont to live their lives, is one that can be illus­trat­ed by study­ing the lives of their descen­dants.  The val­ues, artistry and degrees of suc­cess of these fam­i­lies are often con­veyed by the girls who pro­duced these sam­plers.  They are almost always the prog­e­ny – daugh­ters and grand­daugh­ters — of the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary War generation.

Please help spread the word to fam­i­ly and friends, who may be vis­it­ing Ver­mont this summer!

For more infor­ma­tion about the tour and Ver­mont sam­plers, please con­tact Michele at Mpp1@comcast.net