A comprehensive 1921 study of American needlework samplers from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries, published by the Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America. It traces sampler styles by period, provides a large alphabetical register of samplers from 1800-1830 and earlier with maker, date, place, size, stitches, borders, motifs, verse numbers and owners, and includes an anthology of numbered sampler verses. Further chapters cover schools and schoolmistresses, materials, designs and stitches, and embroidered heraldry. Over a hundred plates reproduce individual samplers, and the book ends with an index of names.