This presentation is based on the research Michele Pagan has done into the Revolutionary War ancestors of the girls who made 19th century schoolgirl samplers. Needlework samplers are a visual record of the values that guided early female education in Vermont, including its focus on needlework as an essential skill for all girls and women. As artifacts of female education, they provide insight into family dynamics, local history, and community values.
About the presenter
Michele Pagán is a recently-returned native Vermonter, who spent her childhood in Bennington. She is a graduate of the University of Vermont and the University of Connecticut, where she studied clothing and textiles. She credits her early experience visiting the Bennington Museum with opening new doors to her, allowing her to envision a unique career trajectory. The Bennington Museum recently published her research entitled Geography and Technological Change in Vermont: The Transition from Homespun Flax To Machine-Made Cotton Textiles.
Today she is a textile conservator in private practice who likes to say that she is “saving history one piece of fabric at a time.” She works out of her studio in East Dorset. Michele is currently the Special Projects Coordinator with the VT Sampler Initiative, and instigated the 2025 “From Bennington to Brownington: the Vermont Samplers Driving Tour,” in conjunction with the Vermont State 250th Commemoration of the start of the American Revolution.
