Locating Girlhood. Place and Identity in Early American Schoolgirl Art

Featuring spectacular examples of needlework and other ornamental arts made by American girls in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art sheds new light on a rich but understudied genre, offering one of the most significant presentations on the subject in recent memory. Published on the occasion of the major exhibition at the American Folk Art Museum, the publication presents nearly 100 exceptional objects from over 35 museums and private collections nationwide, uniting celebrated masterpieces with remarkable lesser-known gems. Unlike many earlier exhibitions, Locating Girlhood explores girlhood artworks from an explicitly art historical perspective, reframing these objects through the lens of place. Though the story of landscape art in the United States has traditionally centered on male academic painters, American girls and young women were laboring over a variety of landscape scenes long before the Hudson River School. From the eighteenth century onwards, representations of landscape were a common visual thread in samplers, needlework pictures, watercolors, and other artworks commonly united under the umbrella term “schoolgirl art,” extending from country scenes and cityscapes to maps and other cartographic compositions. By considering these works as deeply resonant expressions of place, Locating Girlhood expands the story of the American landscape and situates women at its heart.