Sampler (USA)

When Mary Emiston created this sampler in 1803, slavery was still very much a reality of life in New York City. It had, however, fallen into substantial decline, and free blacks and poor European immigrants in New York increasingly performed work formerly done by slaves. A number of factors contributed to the eventual demise of slavery in New York, including the American Revolution, during which British-controlled New York granted freedom to slaves who fought for the King, and the Gradual Emancipation Laws passed in 1799 and 1817. The first of these laws granted freedom to children born after July 4, 1799, but required them to work as slaves for their mother's owners until adulthood; the second provided for freedom for the majority of New York slaves by 1827.
The New York Manumission Society was founded in 1785 to promote the abolition of slavery in the State. In 1787, the Society established the African Free School, an institution dedicated to educating black children and preparing them for freedom. It began as a single room for about 40 students, many of whom were children of slaves. By the time the African Free School was absorbed into the New York public school system in 1835, it had educated thousands of black children in reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography. Boys were also taught astronomy, a necessary skill for seamen, and girls were trained in domestic skills such as sewing and marking. At the time of Mary Emiston's enrollment, the school was located at 65 Cliff Street, and the sewing instructor was Miss Abigail Nicholls.

Needlework by African American school girls is rare. It is only in recent years that scholars have become aware of a small number of schools that taught black girls decorative needlework. The large majority of known African American samplers were created in Baltimore schools run by the Oblate Sisters, an order of Roman Catholic women of African descent. Besides seventeen Baltimore pieces, only a handful of other African-American samplers have been identified. Mary Emiston's sampler, with its hopeful message of freedom, precedes the other known works by over twenty-five years and represents the earliest of these rare examples of African American schoolgirl needlework.

Sampler (USA); Embroidered by Mary Emiston (American); Student at New York African Free School; silk embroidery on linen foundation; H x W: 28 x 42.5cm (11 x 16 3/4 in.); Bequest of Gertrude M. Oppenheimer; 1981-28-77