Genealogy samplers appeared in the late part of the eighteenth century. Some samplers contained full names and dates of births while others only marked their family by initials. By the end of the eighteenth century the variety of sampler work was infinite. Pious verse, prose, and alphabets do not always appear. The borders are not repeat designs but the free imagination of the needle worker.
Houses begin to sit on terraces with nature still included in the forefront of design.
The revival of embroidery during the first decade of the nineteenth century produced a large number of samplers. Perhaps the revival was due to the renewed interest in the arts during the period of peacetime after the Revolutionary War. The majority of American samplers were stitched on linen of a coarse, loose weave with threads that pulled together when cross-stitched. Finely woven material for background was not readily available on which to do very fine needlework. The silk was quite often home-dyed and was probably thickly twisted causing the crinkle often seen in the embroidery of solid areas.