Handkerchief

Dateca. 1790

Terms

Handkerchiefs
Linen
England

Dimensions87.63 × 81.28 × 5.08 cm (34 1/2 × 32 × 2 in.)

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Horace U. Gage (1957)

Object numberPER1317

DescriptionHandkerchief or scarf, mounted on linen backing. Images of Revolution-era women's work with accompanying legends. Printed red on white ground. At center in a circle an anchor surrounded by hearts and clasped hands surrounded by a legend "Now independent, firm and free, by thirteen stripes distinguish'd, we unite our hearts, and join our hands. Our infant-states shall distant lands inform; that order, commerce, wealth, contentment, industry, and health, can only flourish in that soil, where, freedom like a son doth smile, and will reward the lab'rer's toil. Call'd from our wives, our children dear, by wars stern voice and fate severe, long have we toil'd; nor toil'd in vain, that Jewel Liberty to gain." Ovals depict women doing the work of men presumably while their husbands are at war. Images include: women discussing husbandry, women plowing fields, harvesting grain, working in barns, running a grist mill, baking bread, supplying an army camp, spinning and weaving, working a loom, working a field surrounded by palm trees presumably in a foreign land (re: commerce), drying tobacco, supplying sailing ships for trade, making barrels, and welcoming home the returning men. In each corner there is a legend: Justice, Freedom, Commerce, Wealth.

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