The Plain and Ornamental Branches: A Sampling of Pennsylvania’s Girlhood Embroideries

December 30, 2015 - May 29, 2016 - Drawing from the important embroidery collections at the Museum, The Plain and Ornamental Branches presents fifteen embroidered samplers and silkwork pictures stitched by Pennsylvania girls and young women. From elegant and exuberant to plain and neat, these embroideries reflect important aspects of the lives of their makers their educational accomplishments, religious convictions, and ties of kinship. Among the objects on view are eight embroideries dating between 1802 and 1887, all of whose makers were related by blood or marrage to their donor, Hope Randolph Hacker.