Overbeck Lecture: Samplers, Students, and Sailmakers: A Portrait of Federal-Era Capitol Hill
Federal-era Capitol Hill has left few markers on our cityscape and few artifacts survive to tell its tale. Surprisingly, a special group of textiles (usually ephemeral) created by girls (often invisible in records and histories) offers the best jumping-off point for painting a picture of 1810s-1820s Navy Yard and Capitol Hill populations.
Recent research into these embroidered samplers reveals they were made by daughters of Navy Yard workers attending the school run by progressive abolitionist educator John McLeod and his wife Rebecca. The samplers and the research that followed will be the subject of the May 4th Overbeck Capitol Hill History Lecture.
Using church records, maps, property records, paintings, and the earliest city directory, Alden O’Brien, recently retired curator of costumes and textiles at the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) Museum, will delve into the sampler makers’ families and through them the population distribution and demographics of early residential Capitol Hill.
Ms. O’Brien has lived on the Hill since moving to the District in 1989 and worked at the DAR Museum for more than 35 years. While serving as an archivist at Christ Church on G Street, SE, she became fascinated with early 19th-century Capitol Hill and began mapping Hill residents listed in the 1822 City Directory.
The 7 pm lecture on Samplers, Students, and Sailmakers will be held at Hill Center, Old Naval Hospital, 921 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE (www.hillcenterdc.org; 202-549-4172), on Monday May 4. Admission is free. Reservations can be made starting April 20. Seating will begin at 6:30 pm; the power point presentation will begin at 7 pm.
