2025: Hats and Dresses!

Changing Times in Peacham as Seen Through Clothing of the 1920’s-40’s

Photo credit: Jock Gill

Additional Events 2026

2025: Vermont Sampler Initiative

Sampler Driving Tour

Peacham Historical Society and Peacham Library participated in the 2025 Sampler Driving Tour.

What: In cooperation with the VT State 250th Commemoration of the start of the American Revolution, the VT Sampler Initiative produced a statewide driving tour, to view schoolgirl needlework samplers, from the post-Revolutionary War period.

These pieces of 19th century needlework were an essential part of girls’ education during the Revolutionary and federal period of our history. This is how girls learned to read, write, and spell their own names. Families often framed them and hung them on a parlor wall, to announce to visitors that they valued education enough to pay for their daughters to become educated citizens – and marriageable young women, to any aspiring suitors.

Why: The story of our Revolutionary War generation having fought the war for our independence, and then having relocated to Vermont to live their lives, is one that can be illustrated by studying the lives of their descendants. The values, artistry and degrees of success of these families are often conveyed by the girls who produced these samplers. They are almost always the progeny – daughters and granddaughters – of the Revolutionary War generation.

For more information about Vermont samplers, please contact Michele at Mpp1@comcast.net