A large part of the eighteenth and the first quarter of the nineteenth century was a period of remarkable skill in all kinds of stitchery. It was not confined to embroidery, but was also applied to all varieties of domestic needlework. Hemstitched ruffles were a part of masculine as well as feminine wear, and finely stitched and ruffled shirts for the head of the household were quite as necessary to the family dignity as embroidered gowns and caps for its feminine members.
It would be difficult to enumerate all the uses to which the national perfection of needle dexterity was put. It was, indeed, a national dexterity, for although its application was widely different in the eastern and southern states, the two schools of needlework, as we may term them, met and mingled to a common practice of both methods in the middle states.
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Courtesy of Bergen County Historical Society, Hackensack, N. J.
EMBROIDERED SILK WEDDING WAISTCOAT, 1829. From the Westervelt collection.
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