Virtual Lecture Series

Couldn’t make it to Pennsburg for the 2026 Penn Dry Goods? Eight lectures are now available as recordings so you can discover new things—from the history of cut-and-sew fabrics to Alexander Hamiltons’ wife Eliza’s sewing habits and the local history of women who worked in textile mills.

Each lecture costs $25, though check out our special packages to save money. Purchase allows you access through July 15.

Note: Orders that come in over the weekend will be fulfilled at the beginning of the work week.

Buy all 8 for $176! If you scroll through the listing of lectures below and decide that you want to see them all, use this PayPal link to purchase all eight of the recorded lectures.

The Special Semiquincentennial Package: $76

• Patriotic & Political Symbols on Baltimore Album Quilts,

  1846–1862 by Debbie Cooney

• Samplers with Patriotic Messages by Sheryl De Jong

• A Lifetime of Stitching: The Needlework of Eliza Hamilton by Susan Holloway Scott

• 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition Mottoes & More

Needlework Package:  $66

• Samplers with Patriotic Messages by Sheryl De Jong

• A Lifetime of Stitching: The Needlework of Eliza Hamilton by Susan

  Holloway Scott

• A Name in Thread: The Social Life of an Antebellum Whitework Table Cover by Matthew Monk

Patriotic & Political Symbols on Baltimore Album Quilts, 1846–1862 Debbie Cooney, Independent Quilt Scholar

Even with limited participation in public life and without the vote, mid-19th century American women made their opinions known—in letters, diaries, literary works, and in their quilts. Two conflicts, the Mexican War and the Civil War bookended the production of album quilts in Baltimore, Maryland. Many of these sampler/album quilts include appliques of U.S. flags, drums, eagles, and other symbols of national pride.  These quilts also include mascots of the Whig and Democratic political parties to show where their makers’ allegiances lay.  We will look at fabric representations of these images in a variety of styles.

Samplers with Patriotic Messages

Sheryl De Jong

2026 is the 250th Anniversary of the United States. Lots of celebrations are being planned and I didn’t want needlework to be overlooked. Some girls in the early years of our republic stitched patriotic inscriptions on their samplers and silk embroideries about Washington and others about the Declaration of Independence. This lecture will look at some of them.

Sponsored by M. Finkel & Daughter.

Knitting in the Knorth Country

Hallie Bond

Knitting was very much a part of the near-subsistence lifestyle of people in the isolated, mountainous region of New York State well into the 20th century. The story is similar to that in other parts of the Northern Forest, such as in Maine. Knitting mittens and socks was a way for women to supplement to domestic income, and knitted items appear in local store accounts as credited to the knitter’s account. There was a great market for them, of course, in this cold region, by outdoor workers, especially those in the logging industry. Styles and patterns came along with the primarily Yankee settlers in the nineteenth century, and then mirrored national trends as communication improved. Although my primary interest is in knitting and knitwear among the year-round population, we will also examine the growing appearance of knitted clothing among visitors in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries when knitwear paralleled the growth of the region as a “sporting paradise.” A few knitters even adapted the technique of  “buff knitting,” which appears across the Northern Forest, to other garments as the craze for snowmobiling grew.

Sponsored by the Ted Breckel Memorial Fund.

A Lifetime of Stitching: The Needlework of Eliza Hamilton

Susan Holloway Scott

Today Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (1757-1854) is best remembered today as the wife of Founder Alexander Hamilton, and, after his death, as a tireless advocate for orphaned children in early 19thc New York City. But throughout Eliza’s long life – she lived to be nearly one hundred – she was also an avid needleworker, and many of the pieces she created as gifts were treasured and preserved by friends and family members. Today these pieces survive not only as a testament to the satisfaction Eliza found in handwork, but also as a unique collection that reflects one woman’s changing tastes in stitching from the era of the American Revolution to the eve of the Civil War. Several of the examples to be shown in this talk have never been publicly exhibited.

Sponsored by Sampler Consortium International.

Playthings by the Yard: Cut and Sew Doll and Toy Panels of the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries

Kathy Metalica Cray

In the late 1800s to early 1900s, many children’s favorite playthings were stuffed dolls, printed commercially and then completed at home. Ranging from animals and puppets to baby doll and tin soldier motifs, the printed-panel creations were representative of the styles and popular toys of the time, including racist caricatures. The development of lithographic printing on cloth eventually led to a cost-effective process for producing dolls and other toys. The first fabric panel doll was patented in 1886 and printed by Oriental Print Works. Later, Arnold Print Works, Art Fabric Mills, Selchow & Righter Company, and Cocheco Manufacturing were a few of the cotton fabric mills manufacturing and marketing cloth dolls and toys. Saalfield Publishing was instrumental in the production of children’s cloth storybooks. Through examination of contemporary catalogs and advertising, newspapers, panels and dolls, and quilts, this research reveals the story of these imaginative, artistic, colorful products and the aggressive marketing techniques behind them and their place in quilt history.

Sponsored by Meadowood Senior Living.

1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition Mottoes & More

Claudia Dutcher Kistler

By 1876 Perforated Paper was a popular material used for stitching. The 1876 celebration of America’s 100th birthday inspired specific motto designs, sold only in Philadelphia, and other patriotic motto designs for needlework that were sold outside of the Exhibition. Claudia will share with you some of these patriotic mottoes and include, of course, a brief history of perforated paper needlework.  Celebrate again in 2026 by seeing what was done with needle and thread in 1876.

Sponsored by Master Supply Line.

A Name in Thread:
The Social Life of an Antebellum Whitework Table Cover

Matthew Monk

Winterthur recently acquired a whitework table cover with the name "Martha Battle" embroidered upon it. This talk explores the object biography of that antebellum table cover. Collected in Arizona from a charity shop, it came with a note linking it to one of the Battle family plantations in North Carolina.  There were two women within the same extended family who could have owned the table cover, underscoring how attribution matters less than the social world and complex relationships these kinds of objects reveal. Tracing the textile from plantation landscapes and North Carolina cotton mills through Reconstruction-era westward family migration and its eventual rediscovery, the talk follows the table cover’s long movement across time and place. Read closely, the embroidered name anchors the object within networks of family, power, and continuity that endured well beyond its original use.

Sponsored by Jeffrey S. Evans & Associates.

Scrappy Ladies: Creating New Textiles with Factory Remnants

Candace Perry
During the 20th century, factories producing clothing and other textiles were big business in our small towns throughout Pennsylvania. The women who worked in these factories were often permitted to take home scraps that they used to produce new textiles—often quilts, but also rugs and other items. Join Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center curator Candace Perry for an interactive program and discussion of the factories, the women who worked for them, and the projects they made from their stashes of scraps. We’ll be looking at some examples from the Schwenkfelder collection.  Also, a lucky attendee at this program will be randomly chosen to win a bag made from Knoll Inc. upholstery remnants!

Sponsored by Harleysville Bank.