WILLIAMSBURG, VA.- The nation’s founding story comes together stitch by stitch in “America’s Tapestry,” on view June 19-Sept. 6 at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary. The exhibition will commemorate America’s 250th anniversary with 13 hand-embroidered panels, one for each of the original colonies, telling unique stories drawn from each state’s Revolutionary-era history. Communally stitched by artisans from New Hampshire to Georgia, the panels weave together diverse stories — many overlooked — from the United States’ founding, revealing each colony’s struggle for independence.
“The 250th anniversary of the United States is a wonderful opportunity to dig deeper into specific experiences of the American Revolution,” said David Brashear, the Muscarelle’s director. “Many people remember learning about the larger narratives of our history. But what makes ‘America’s Tapestry’ exceptional is the way it reveals individual stories in a way that makes the struggle for independence feel more immediate and universal.”
As the exhibition nears, the Muscarelle is hosting members of the Williamsburg Rose and Thistle chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America, along with community volunteers, who spend hours at the Museum each week stitching the Virginia panel. Even stitchers with no experience are welcome. The Virginia tapestry illustrates the story of the lead mines in Wythe County that provided musket balls for the Continental Army. Composed of enslaved, convicted and imported labor, the mining community was a melting pot of people who were forced to work in dangerous, dark conditions. The panel highlights the story of an enslaved man named Aberdeen. After being forced to work for seven years in the mine, Aberdeen defied his Loyalist master’s orders to join the British cause and enlisted with the Continental Army, who later granted him freedom.
Each panel of “America’s Tapestry” invites visitors to engage more deeply with defining moments in U.S. history. They offer a panoramic view of the Revolution rarely seen in a single exhibition. The Georgia tapestry honors the Chasseurs Volontaires de Saint-Domingue, a Haitian militia unit composed of formerly enslaved and free soldiers from Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti). The New York panel pays tribute to Black Loyalists, whose service to the British Crown made them eligible to evacuate to Nova Scotia upon the war’s end. In North Carolina, the panel highlights the Edenton Tea Party, one of the first documented acts of political resistance by women in North America. Other panels tell the stories of lesser-known heroes in the fight for independence: Connecticut’s Hannah Bunce Watson, the first female editor of the Hartford Courant, who kept Patriot morale alive through her writing; Henry Fisher, whose naval ingenuity protected the Delaware Bay from British incursion; and Pennsylvania’s Rebecca Young, one of the first documented makers of an American flag.
“America’s Tapestry” is curated by textile scholar and designer Stefan Romero, who drew inspiration from The Great Tapestry of Scotland, a community art project that depicts 12,000 years of Scottish history across 160 hand-stitched panels.
“It’s special to see people come together across so many regions to tell these stories with their hands,” Romero said. “From the novice to the experienced artisan, over two years I’ve watched people collaborate to do work that would typically take triple or quadruple the time to achieve. The communities creating the tapestries are contributing to our country’s history, in addition to telling these founding stories.”…