Images(3)

Sampler by Rachel Cole

Date1868

Maker Rachel Cole (1854-1922)

OriginAmerica, Illinois, Chicago

MediumWool embroidery threads on a cotton ground of 20 x 20 threads per inch (fiber identification by eye)

DimensionsFramed: OH: 28 1/4" x OW: 13"

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Object number2018.608.1

DescriptionThis is a long and narrow framed alphabet sampler worked in red and green wool embroidery threads on a cotton ground. Woven into the cotton ground every ten threads is a blue cotton warp thread. At the top of the sampler are three alphabets. The first line reads, "A-L," all in upper case. The next line has "M-V," also all in upper case. The next line features, "W-Z" and "a-j," the second alphabet being all lower case. The next line reads, "k-w," also all lower case. The next line has, "x-z" in lower case, followed by "1-0." What follows is a large alphabet, all upper case, in five bands: the first band has "A-F," the second "G-L," the third "M-Q," the fourth "R-Q," and the fifth "X-Z." Below this is a large space filled with an inscription which reads, "RACHEL/COLE./Feb. 10th./1868/Chicago./Ill./". Between the bands are narrow bands of green cross stitch. The sampler features a simple cross stitch border on all four sides.

Stitches: cross over two

Label TextThis schoolgirl sampler is unique for who made it and where it was completed. The sampler is inscribed as being made by Rachel Cole in Chicago. No other samplers from Chicago are known to survive, probably because the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 destroyed much of the city. Additionally, research tells us Rachel Cole was Jewish. Very few samplers can be linked to Jewish makers. 150 years after Rachel made this sampler, it can tell modern viewers much about stitching in Chicago and provide a link to a young Jewish American.
InscribedThree alphabets, numerals 1 through 10, "RACHEL/COLE./Feb. 10th./1868/Chicago./Ill./"
MarkingsNone
ProvenanceRachel Cole was born on August 18th, 1854 in Chicago. She was the daughter of Sarah Frank, an immigrant from Germany, and Samuel Cole, an immigrant from Austria who was a co-founder of the Kehilath Anshe Ma'ariv (K.A.M.) congregation, which became Chicago's first Jewish synagogue. Rachel’s father was the president of K. A. M. for approximately a year, before being ousted and replaced by leadership that favored Reform Judaism to Orthodox. Rachel attended the Jones’ School, one of Chicago’s public schools, until she was 12. She stitched her sampler two years after this, in 1868. It is possible that, after graduating from Jones’ School, she was taught to stitch at the K. A. M. school that existed from 1853 to 1873. Rachel, a member of one of the earliest Jewish Chicago families herself, married into another early Jewish Chicago family. She married Michael Rosenfeld in 1877. Michael Rosenfeld was a son of Levi Rosenfeld, who, along with Jacob Rosenberg, co-owned a retail and wholesale dry-goods store that was the first meeting place of what would become K. A. M. Rachel and Michael had three surviving children, Mrs. L. A. De Berard, Mrs. M. R. Fox, and William C. Rosenfeld. Rachel died on August 25th, 1922 and is buried in Rose Hill cemetery.