Introduction
In I978， while making a film for public television about eighteenth- and
nine eenth-centurv traditional art bv women， l was surprised to discover tbat no
book had yet presented their art entireh as it was made-in tile midst of daily life.
This neglect seemed odd， because their samplers， paintings， needle pictures and
quilts gain in force and dignity when understood as the creative expressions of
everyday people who passed their lives in relative obscurity， raising children，
running fanns or homes and devoting themselves to \"useful work.\"
To rescue women folk artists from their anonymity is not exclusively a
matter of discovering nantes or assigning dates. Such facts alone provide little
insight into the significance of self-expression in lives consecrated to duty and
domestic industry. The task， rather， is to reconstruct the daily existence and
inner lives of girls and women who could execute the most intricate quilt pat-
terns without ever mastering the formal principles of geomett3 ， who could evoke
the most exotic imagery in thread or paint without ever traveling beyond their
counties of birth.
Unfortunately， the artists tbemselves rarely left accounts of their work.
In most cases they would not have dreamed of presenting themselves as \"artists，\"
or their samplers， school pieces and needlework as \"art.\" And so， in the absence
of direct testimony， I relied on their own traditional methods-gathering a scrap
of history here， including a bit of unexpected color there， composing the whole
out of an instinct for making strong patterns emerge. My materials were the
instructional and personal records of the day. I consuhed \"domestic receipt\"
books， published sermons， manners pamphlets and ladies magazines for the
reigning definitions of \"true womanhood.\" I found popular engravings prc~luced
by men， illustrating \"correct\" examples of feminine activity to be emulated. I
discovered diaries， memoirs and letters of generations of girls and women which
suggested the intense aspirations contained in their \"utilitarian\" creations. In
general， I have retained the form and irregularities of the original sources. Minor
changes in spelling， punctuation and syntax have been made only when abso-
lutely necessary for clarity. Stories， poems， songs-even the scantiest jottings of
families and loved ones-contributed vivid detail to the composite life story of
the Anonymous Von/an， who ornanwnted every phase of her experience from
girlhood dm~ueh ，，]d ~c ~if}~ I， ，ndi~o~k uf startling， nower an，I ; ~;~.
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