Rachel Breck's Sampler
date: label: date made
content: 1803
name: label: maker
content: Breck, Rachel
notes: label: Description
content: This sampler features an alphabet, numbers, flowers, baskets, birds, and trees all worked in cross stitch, while the background is completely filled in with long vertical stitches. The flower baskets symbolize friendship and love, and the birds on the trees would indicate her love of nature. The figure within the cartouche is balanced by a four-storied building, which may depict the school or academy that inspired the design. The sampler is stitched with silk embroidery thread on a linen ground with a thread count of 26/in warp, 24/in weft. The stitches used are cross, satin, chain, French knots, and straight. Rachel included the inscription:
label: Description
content: <br>Alas how transient all our earthly store<br>To-day we bloom tomorrow are no more<br>Rachel Breck / aged 11<br>
label: Description
content: Rachel Breck also stitched a silk embroidery in 1810 entitled “Charity” at the Misses Patten School in Hartford, Connecticut.
label: Description
content: Rachel Breck was born July 22, 1792, to Joseph Hunt (1766-1801), a silversmith, and Abigail Kingsley (c1766-1846) Breck of Northampton, Massachusetts. In 1819 Rachel married George Hooker who was born 1798 to John and Sarah (Dwight) Hooker of Northampton. He went to Yale, class of 1814 and was a physician who resided in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. They had 8 children born between 1820 and 1833 and Rachel died in January 6,1879.
place: label: place made
content: United States: Massachusetts, Northampton
setName: label: See more items in
content: Home and Community Life: Textiles
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content: Samplers
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content: Textiles
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2011.0256.01
label: catalog number
content: 2011.0256.01
label: accession number
content: 2011.0256
objectType: label: Object Name
content: sampler
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: linen (ground material)
label: Physical Description
content: silk (thread material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 3/4 in x 13 3/4 in; 32.385 cm x 34.925 cm