Page - 108 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 07/01

108 | Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati www.jrfm.eu 2021, 7/1, 95–122 Elizabeth Parker’s sampler also belongs to an old European textile tradi- tion. Samplers are important documents for exploring the techniques and styles of a domestic practice and the transmission of knowledge within this particular craft. Over the centuries, the techniques of embroidering as well as stitching and pattern-making changed. With the dissemination of printing in the early 16th century, books slowly took over the traditional function of samplers as a model for copying or inspiring patterns for embroidery.28 Nev- ertheless, samplers did not disappear. Rather, their function and significance were transformed. “By the nineteenth century,” Llewellyn writes, “samplers have become universally identified with social acceptability, domestic values, female discipline and modest piety.”29 Samplers were used to prove working-class girls’ skills to potential employ- ers and thus this textile technique ultimately helped them secure jobs and earn an income. Furthermore, needlework was understood as a means of teaching girls patience, endurance, and obedience. For these reasons, in the 19th cen- tury needlework was taught to girls at school along with other basic subjects. In the Manual of the system of the British and Foreign School Society of Lon- don for teaching reading, writing, arithmetic, and needle-work in the elementary schools, a teaching book widespread in non-conformist religious institutions, needlework is presented as the discipline that marks gender difference:30 Schools for girls are fitted up on the same plan as those for boys […] The sys- tem by which reading, writing, and arithmetic are taught in the boy’s school is applicable in all its parts to girls as well as to boys. – The method by which needlework is taught, is all that will therefore be necessary to detail respect- ing the system of education for girls.31 The girls were allowed to bring “work” – which means needlework – from home. Additionally, in some cases the schools allowed for the sale of the girls’ work: of the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge: https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/ samplers/what/index.html [accessed 20 April 2020]. For the collection of the V&A museum see Browne/Wearden 1999. 28 According to Browne/Wearden 1999, 7 the first such book was printed by Johann Schönsperger in Augsburg, Germany in 1524. 29 Llewellyn 1999, 64. Samplers continued to be an integral part of the education of girls in many European countries until the early 21st century. 30 I am quoting from an edition printed in London in 1816. 31 Manual 1816, 34.