Sew What?

Text and Protest

May 21, 2020 Season 1 Episode 2
Sew What?
Text and Protest
Show Notes Transcript

In this episode, Isabella discusses two 19th-century pieces of needlework from opposite sides of the Atlantic, bound together by their tales of woe. The makers are Hannah Powell and Elizabeth Parker and they illustrate that needlework has always been personal and political. 

Whatsup stitches!!! Welcome to the first official episode of the podcast “Sew What,” your local podcast about historic needlework and the glorious gals who stitched. In this episode we’re finally gonna get into some objects. Yeehaw! 

The theme of this episode is “Text and Protest.” In it, I’ll be looking at two pieces of needlework that, while made within just a few decades of each other, were made thousands of miles apart by girls from two very different walks of life. The first is an embroidered document at LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It has never been on display and, as far I know, it hadn’t seen the light between 1977 and when I first saw it in 2017. The second object is at the Victoria and Albert Museum, previously on display but now in storage. These objects are united by the fact that their makers used needlework to stitch lengthy tales of woe. I’d recommend you check out the objects I’ll be discussing by looking at this podcast’s Twitter or Instagram, @sewwhatpodcast. And without further ado, here we go!!

 In 1813, Hannah Powell stitched a pretty massive embroidered document. You can’t really call it a sampler because it’s not really a display of a girl’s stitching, but also more than that, it is totally unclear how old the maker of this thing was. Throughout their history, samplers were typically made by girls or young teenagers as a testament to their embroidery skills and “womanly virtue.” I hope you hear the heavy quotations marks I’m throwing up there because yikes. If you get a gander at this object, you can tell this is much more than just a way to practice one’s stitching.

This embroidered document is a pretty specific 26 5/8 inches by 20 5/8 inches (that’s an equally unfun 67.63 centimetres by 52.39 centimetres for you metric people and WOW that is like a tongue twister). When I first saw this bad boy, I shed some ugly, UGLY tears. Out of shock, probably. I’d never seen anything like it and I didn’t really know how to make sense of it. Lemme break down what this thing looks like. This is a fair bit bigger than your average 19th-century American sampler, which is closer to a 15 to 18 inch square. This embroidered document was made by someone named Hannah Powell, who used silk embroidery threads to stitch on a wool plain weave ground. Most of Hannah’s work is monochrome, in all black thread, with the exception of a border on all four sides. The border is made up of a flowering, leafy vine. The vine is a faded kind of light brown/tan with small blue, red, and white flowers. Inside the border is a big, BIG chunk of text that is stitched to look like a written document – there is a title in all caps which is larger than the body text and there are lines separating out contextual information from the main body. 

I will read out the entirety of the stitched inscription but it is looooong so I will read it after giving you all some important historical context. 

Okay, so a guy named Alma (or Almas) Ali Cawn was the ruler of a portion of India. Another guy, Warren Hastings, was the de facto British Governor-General of India from 1774 to 1785 and he wanted Alma Ali Cawn’s land. But Cawn had done nothing Hastings could punish him for. Hastings had Cawn arrested by claiming Cawn was fomenting disturbance against the British. Almasa Ali Cawn, Alma Ali Cawn’s wife (I know that is very confusing) offered Hastings their kingdom and treasures in exchange for the return of her husband. Hastings agreed to release Alma to Almasa in exchange for their kingdom, but when Almasa went to the prison to get Alma, he had already been executed. 

While Alma was in jail, Almasa wrote a letter to Hastings petitioning for his freedom. It obviously didn’t sway him at all. And after Hastings had killed Alma and Almasa had time to be pissed and stew in her anger and everything, she wrote a poem about what happened. It was translated into English and put into free verse by a dude named Dr. Ladd. The poem is accompanied by an anti-British caption that provides an overview of what happened between Hastings and Alma Ali Cawn and what happened to Hastings after his rule of India. Hastings resigned in 1785 and, upon his return to England, he was impeached by the House of Commons for all the terrible stuff he did in India. His trial last seven years. He was acquitted in by the House of Lords on 24 April 1795, which is deeply cursed but not necessarily surprising. The trial financially ruined Hastings but, after appealing to the British government for financial assistance, he was compensated by the East India Company with a loan and yearly allowance. Yikes yikes yikes yikes yikes!!!! I cannot even tell you how many yikeses. Oy. Warren Hastings was friends with and was passionately supported by Jane Austen and her family. Now my Jane Austen-loving butt is VERY sad about that. All of our faves are problematic et cetera et cetera. We hate to see it. Ugh. 

Hannah Powell’s embroidered document features that original petition Almasa sent Hastings. Here is what the sampler says:

“THE SUBSTANCE OF A PETITION

Presented to W___n H___t___s Esq.

By the Wife of

ALMA ALI CAWN

Who was put to death in India for Political Purposes

------------------------------------------------------------------------

To the high and mighty Servant of the most powerful Prince George King of England...the lowly

and humble Slave of Misery comes praying for Mercy for the Father of her Children

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most Mighty Sir

May the Blessings of thy God ever wait on thee may the Sun of Glory shine round thy

Head, and may the Gates of Honour Plenty and Happiness be always open to thee and thine,

May no sorrow distress thy Days, may no Grief disturb thy Nights, may the Pillow of Peace kiss thy Cheek, and the pleasure of Imagination attend thy Dreams, and when length of Years

makes thee tired of Earthly Joys, and the Curtain of Death gently closes round thy last Sleep of Human Existence, may the Angel of thy God attend thy Bed, and take care that the expiring Lamp of Life, shall not receive one rude Blast to hasten its extinction....O hearken thou to the Voice of Distress and grant the Petition of thy Servant, Spare O Spare the Father of my Children, Save the Partner of my Bed….my Husband….my all that is dear….Consider

O….Mighty Sir that he not become Rich by Iniquity, and that what he possessed was the

Inheritence of a long Line of flourishing Ancestors who when the Thunder of Great Britain was not heard on the Fertile Plains of INDOSTAN reaped their Harvest in quiet, and enjoyed their Patrimony unmolested. Think O Think that the God whom thou worshippest delights not in the Blood of the Innocent, Remember thy own Commandment,….THOU SHALT NOT KILL and obey the Orders of Heaven...Give me back by Alma Ali Cawn, and take all our Wealth, strip us of our Jewels and precious Stones...of our Gold and Silver but take not away the Life of my Husband, Innocence is seated on his Brow and the Milk of Human Kindness flows round his Heart Let us go wander through the Deserts….let us become Toilers and Labourers in those delightful Spots of which was once Lord and Master...but spare O mighty Sir Spare his Life, Let not the Instrument of Death be lifted up against him, for he hath committed no Crime. Accept our Treasures with Gratitude thou hast them at present by Force, we will remember thee in our Prayers and forget that we were ever Rich and Powerful My Children the Children of Alma Ali Cawn, send their Petition for the Life of him who gave them Life They petition from thee the Author of their Existence By that Humanity which we have oft been told glows in the Breast of European Loveliness….by the enlightened Souls of Englishmen...by the Honour the Virtue the Honesty and the Maternal Feelings of thy Great Queen, whose numerous Offspring is so dear to Her the miserable Wife of thy Prisoner beseeches thee to Save her Husbands Life, and restore Him to her Arms Thy God will reward thee, thy Country must thank thee, and thy Petitioner will ever pray if thou grantest the Prayer of thy Humble Vassal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This Petition was presented by the Unhappy Woman to the Great Man, who when He had

perused it give Orders that Alma Ali Cawn should be immediately strangled which Orders were instantly put in Execution.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hannah Powell 1813

Isn’t that so incredibly sad? When I first saw this sampler while working at LACMA, I was confused by the inclusion of Hannah Powell’s name. I thought, “Is Hannah Powell Alma Ali Cawn’s daughter?” “Friend?” “How does she fit into this story?” Further research has shown that Hannah Powell was absolutely not related to Alma Ali Cawn or to Warren Hastings or to anyone in this sad tale. It turns out she was an American. At least twelve American newspapers published the story between 1784 and 1790. And then it resurfaced in 1813, probably sellable because of anti-English feelings during the War of 1812. Hannah Powell likely read about this story during that resurfacing and completed it the same year. She probably did it because she was less than fond of the English, and this story proved how bad the English could be. 

Hannah was an American who chose to spend hours upon hours turning Almasa and Alma Ali Cawn’s story into stitch. And it was either because she felt this tragic tale needed to be commemorated or she felt it properly represented why she sided against the British in the War of 1812, or both. Hannah used needlework not only to practice her stitching, but also to showcase her political allegiances. This needlework created a connection between women decades and continents apart, different in their surroundings and situations but similar in their desire to decry this event on a literally massive scale. And when I say literally, I refer to the widespread publication of Almasa’s writing and the truly massive size of Hannah’s needleworked document. Hannah’s work shows that stitching could do way more than mimic beautiful flowers or help a girl practice her sewing. Hannah made her needlework political. 

Hannah Powell’s needleworked document makes it clear that needlework can be very political. But as you’ll see with this next sampler, they can be really personal too.

This is a sampler unlike any other. It is even bigger than Hannah Powell’s quite sizable embroidered document. It was stitched by a girl named Elizabeth Parker in approximately 1830. It’s wider than it is tall, at about 33 ¾ inches long by about 29 ¼ inches tall. Its metric measurements are 85.8 cm by 74.4 cm. Elizabeth stitched on a plain weave linen ground and used only red silk thread. There is no decoration, just a mammoth amount of text in teeny, tiny cross stitches. It is literally just a big block of inscription and it’s honestly a bit overwhelming to look at. 

The inscription Elizabeth stitches is like a diary entry, an overview of the trials and tribulations of Elizabeth’s life thus far. Her sampler has very little punctuation. It is truly like the world’s longest run on sentence, which makes it an adventure to read. The lack of punctuation also adds to the grimness – it feels like Elizabeth is so overcome with emotion and sadness and despair that all of her thoughts, her entire stream of consciousness is stitched right onto the fabric. 

Elizabeth’s inscription is very, very long so I’m just going to read portions of the text. You can read the entire inscription on the Victoria and Albert Museum’s online catalog or by reading it directly from the sampler, photos of which are on this podcast’s Twitter and Instagram. I know you know this, but I just like to say it one more time. Buckle up for some sadness, folks!! Here we goooooo: 

‘As i cannot write I put this down simply and freely as I might speak to a person to whose intimacy and tenderness I can fully intrust myself and who I know will bear with all my weaknesses.... I was born at Ashburnham in the county of Sussex in the year 1813 of poor but pious parents ….at the early age of thirteen I left my parents to go and live with Mr and Mrs P to nurse the children which had I taken my Fathers and Mothers advice I might have remained in peace until this day but like many others not knowing when I was well of in fourteen months I left them for which my friends greatly blamed me then I went to Fairlight housemaid to Lieut G but there cruel usage soon made me curse my Disobedience to my parents wishing I had taken there advice and never left the Worthy Family of P but then alas to late they treated me with cruelty too horrible to mention for trying to avoid the wicked design of my master I was thrown down stairs… I acknowledge being guilty of that great sin of selfdestruction which I certainly should have done had it not been for the words of that worthy Gentleman Dr W. he came to me in the year 1829 he said unto me Elizabeth I understand you are guilty of saying you shall destroy yourself but never do that for Remember Elizabeth if you do when you come before that great God who is so good to you he will say unto you Thou hast taken that life that I gave to you Depart from me ye cursed/ but let me never hear those words pronounced by thee O Lord for surely I never felt such impressions of awe striking cold upon my breast as I felt when Dr W said so to me…. …which way can I turn oh whither must I flee to find the Lord wretch wretch that I am who shall deliver me from the body of this death that I have been seeking what will become of me ah me what will become of me when I come to die and kneel before the Lord my maker oh with what confidence can I approach the mercy seat of God oh with what confidence can I approach it….O Lord I pray thou Look down with an Eye of pity upon me and I pray thee turn my wicked Heart Day and night have I Cried unto the Lord to turn my wicked Heart the Lord has heard my prayer the Lord has given heed to my Complaint…The Living know that they must die But ah the dead forgotten lie Their memory and their name is gone They are alike unknowing and unknown. Their hatred and their love is lost. Their envy's buried in the dust By the will of God are all things done beneath the circuit of the sun Therefore O Lord take pity on me I pray Whenever my thoughts do from thee stray And lead me Lord to thy blest fold….I never knew anything like happiness till now O that I may but be saved on the day of judge- ment God be merciful to me a sinner But oh how can I expect mercy who went on in sin until Dr W remind me of my wickedness For with shame I own I returned to thee O God because I had nowhere else to go How can such repentance as mine be sincere What will become of my soul”

This very emotional inscription brings up questions about its maker, right? Well according to the V&A website, Elizabeth Parker eventually became a teacher at Ashburnham Charity School, in her home village. Although she never married, she raised her sister's daughter. At some point in the 1850s she moved into the Ashburnham Almshouses, where she died aged 76 on the 10th of April 1889. Her written tale is heart breaking and the end of her life seems equally sad. I really hope she had happier times, too. 

Elizabeth’s sadness and confusion are palpable in her sampler as she writes, ‘..which way can I turn... wretch that I am …what will become of me..’. She ends her writing mid-sentence, with the final words being ‘what will become of my soul’. That’s one of the saddest parts of the sampler, I think. It just trails off. It’s despairing and hopeless and because the sampler ends suddenly, those words hang in the balance.  

Like Hannah Powell in the earlier sampler, Elizabeth uses needlework to memorialise anguish, but unlike Hannah, the anguish Elizabeth describes is her own. And while Hannah uses stitching as a way to amplify an emotional story, Elizabeth uses it as a means to express thoughts she can’t anywhere else. She starts her sampler with “As i cannot write I put this down simply and freely.” It’s as if stitching is the only way she can get her thoughts out of her head. While writing isn’t a possibility, stitching those same words is. The juxtaposition of these two samplers illustrate that 19th-century women could make stitching both political and personal. They used it to voice their political opinions and their innermost thoughts. For these two 19th-century women, needlework could be as public as a wanted poster and as private as a diary. 

Both Hannah and Elizabeth used needlework to raise their voice and to ruminate on their own struggles or the struggles of others through the use of a medium often less ephemeral than paper. These pieces manifest the repression faced by women for centuries while also exhibiting the degree of creativity offered by stitching. Limitation and freedom are juxtaposed. The act of stitching these sentiments instead of simply writing them down is important – as it takes more patience and much more time, Hannah and Elizabeth would have sat with these thoughts for much longer than if they had written them with pen and paper. They were desperate to tell their stories, so it is only right we tell theirs. 

As I talked about in my introductory episode and as I will probably talk about until the day I die, women’s needlework has been brushed aside for centuries but really shouldn’t be. We can learn so much from stitched documents like this. These two examples of women’s work show that needlework has always been political. It is isn’t a new thing. It didn’t start with people selling embroidery that says “the future is female” on Etsy. Needlework has always had the capacity to be personal and political. You can even see it in instances like Mary Queen of Scots stitching while imprisoned and Agnes Richter embroidering her straitjacket while held in a psychiatric clinic in the 1890s. I’ll be talking about both of these needleworked objects in later episodes. That theme is there the whole time – personal and political. 

For women in dire circumstances, like Elizabeth Parker, needlework was a way to express their innermost feelings. And for those with strong political opinions, like Hannah Powell, needlework was a way to assert beliefs women may not have been able to express aloud. Today’s political stitchers have, without even realising it, followed in the footsteps of Hannah and Elizabeth. 

And that’s the tale of Hannah Powell, Elizabeth Parker, and their needlework.

Thank you for listening to “Sew What?” and for joining me on this needlework adventure. Please follow the podcast at sewwhatpodcast on Twitter and Instagram. And let me know what you think! And tell your friends! And be my friend! Please!!

Now go out and stitch some stories. Or help me come up with an end line that doesn’t make me cringe. Bye!

Thanks to producer Alex Forster for his recording and administrative help and Kameron Johnson for his graphic art skills and recording recommendations. And thank you to the internet for the royalty-free music because I can’t afford to pay for music. The song is “Monkeys Spinning Monkeys” by Kevin MacLeod. What a good song title.