Sewn in Place: Gender, Materiality, and Mapmaking in the Early United States

Abstract

Focused on four early nineteenth-century embroidered maps of the US capital in Washington, DC, the following analysis situates the maps’ appropriation of printed material in the context of early modern women’s work and its associated knowledge networks, exploring how embroidery’s unique set of material practices restructured conventional cartography’s claims to power and political oversight. Investigating how such practices shaped the mapmakers’ relationship to the powerful symbolism of the national capital, this account reveals embroidery to be more than just an imitative, schoolgirl art. Embroidery emerges as a way of thinking about and working with space all its own.