SACO — There’s a common misperception that young girls, at one time, embroidered samplers to learn the letters of the alphabet.

People may have an image of girls sitting by their grandmother’s knee, stitching, when in fact they typically learned from professional teachers, said Executive Director of the Dyer Library and Saco Museum Leslie Rounds. And although some samplers contained the alphabet, the students were stitching them to learn fine sewing and embroidery skills.

Many samplers were made from expensive materials, such as imported thread, said Saco Museum Director Tara Vose Raiselis.

The two needlepoint enthusiasts were discussing samplers earlier this week as they prepared for a new exhibit at the museum, “I My Needle Ply With Skill,” which runs through March 2. The exhibit features more than 100 samplers created in Maine by schoolgirls during the Federal Period, in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

The samplers were made at a time when academic opportunities for girls and young women were limited, and private academies offered academic training as well as sewing skills.

Needlepoint was a necessary skill at the time, as all clothing was hand-stitched with needle and thread, said Rounds. The largest academies in Portland had about 40 students, while most of them had about 10, and they were often run by women, said Rounds. Samplers were typically completed over a span of one or two semesters, or four to eight months, she said.

Some of the samplers have a hand-stitched alphabet or a short verse, while others list a family’s genealogy. Some are hand-stitched text with simple borders, while others have more ornate and complex images, with detailed flowers or landscapes and images of people. Some of the work was done in part with metallic thread or accented by painting. Certain images and styles were specific to individual schools, though schools often copied styles of other academies.

Samplers were a source of pride, typically hung in the parlor to show off the skills of a sophisticated young woman, said Rounds and Raiselis.

In a few of the samplers, the artwork clearly shows the work of a more novice needlepoint artist, with a letter or a number stitched above a line of work when the young artist ran out of room at the end of the line.

It was not uncommon for women, as they got older, to pick out their date of birth on a sampler so their age would not be on display.

“It just goes to show that people have always been vain,” said Raiselis.

Rounds began doing research on needlepoint two years ago, searching the Internet, the Maine room at the Dyer library and advertisements in old newspapers for private academies.

Research has been a challenge, as little history on women from this time exists, and women weren’t recorded on the census until 1850, said Rounds. The samplers not only show the artistic work done by girls and young women during a time when their lives were not well documented, but also have accurate genealogy information.

“For many of these girls, it’s the sole reference of their existence,” said Rounds.

Some of the samplers are from the museum’s archive, while others are on loan from museums and private collections in Maine and beyond.

“For people who like samplers, this is a golden opportunity to see a lot of different styles,” said Rounds.

Often, museums only have few on display, she said.

Although it is rare to have this many samplers on display at one time, Rounds said this collection is just the “tip of the iceberg” and believes there are many undocumented samplers in existence. Rounds said a few years ago, at a museum-hosted antiques appraisal day, someone came in with a sampler that had been sitting in their basement. She said she hopes the exhibit may trigger people to share information about samplers they may have, which have been passed down by family members and have been stored away in their attics.

The Saco Museum is located at 371 Main St. Winter hours for the museum are Tuesday through Thursday noon to 4 p.m., Friday noon to 8 p.m. and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free on Friday nights after 4 p.m. and anytime with a Dyer Library card.

For more information on the museum, the exhibit and upcoming programs related to the exhibit, go to www.sacomuseum.org.

— Staff Writer Liz Gotthelf can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 325 or egotthelf@journaltribune.com.