Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art

Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American “Schoolgirl” Art examines ornamental artworks made by American girls and young women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, focusing on needlework, samplers, watercolors, and related objects. Approaching this material from an art historical perspective, it considers how representations of landscape and place functioned within works often described as “schoolgirl art.” The presentation expands the history of American landscape imagery and situates these works within the cultural contexts that shaped their production.