Webb Deane Stevens Museum

LECTURE | Civic Stitches: Early American Needlework and National Identity
2026-09-10 18:00 - 19:30 (America/New_York) | WDS Museum, 211 Main Street, Wethersfield, CT, 06109
LECTURE | Civic Stitches: Early American Needlework and National Identity  with Emily Whitted, Guest-Curator, American Girlhood: Needlework, Memory, and The Making of a Nation

Thursday, September 10, 6:00 PM
Purchase Tickets
This companion lecture to the exhibition American Girlhood by guest curator Emily Whitted will explore the larger history of needlework as part of early American education for girls. In the aftermath of the American Revolution, female education was a critical space for civic development, and needlework was one educational medium in which girls processed their own identities within the new nation. This lecture will connect needlework within the exhibition with pieces from other public collections, and broadly trace the rich lives of early American girls engaged in crafting a nation.
Tickets: $15 |$12.50 Virtual | $10 Members
*This lecture will be offered in person and via Zoom. Zoom link will be provided in advance of the lecture.
About the Curator | Emily Whitted is a PhD candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the guest curator of American Girlhood: Needlework, Memory, and the Making of a Nation. Her research broadly explores the history of textiles, women’s history, and material culture in early America. Her current and past work includes projects with the New Bedford Whaling Museum, the National Park Service and National Council on Public History, the Mercer Museum & Fonthill Castle, and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Foundation. She also holds an M.A. in American Material Culture from the Winterthur Program at the University of Delaware.
