Mariah Kupfner

“Virtue’s the Chiefest Beauty of the Mind”: Black Girlhood Needlework, Repetition, and Agency in 1830s Baltimore

Focusing on two samplers stitched by free Black girls in 1830s Baltimore, this article argues that formulaic forms of needlework are potent sites of cultural meaning and access points into the contexts of childhood stitchers. Situating these samplers alongside disciplinary debates in material culture, women’s history,...