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Representing one of Bowdoin’s foremost families, this sampler is especially important to the history of the early female education in Maine. Bowdoin College may not have admitted women in 1826 but their education was on the minds of many Maine families. The 1937 source cited above mentions that the Cleaveland house contained “many” samplers, the work of the mother and probably her three daughters. The Lord article also reveals that Martha Cleaveland was honored by the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association for “one of the best specimens of sewing silk exhibited at the fair in 1838.” (The Museum is an owner of the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association banners of 1841.) Remarkably, an image of the artist survives. Martha Bush Cleaveland’s daguerreotype is in the Vickery-Shettleworth Collection of Early Maine photography at Maine Historical Society. See https://www.mainememory.net/artifact/51047. According to Kate McBrien, chief curator, Maine Historical Society, Martha B. Cleaveland’s biography is not well known but based on materials at Pejepscot Historical Society, she was a leader in Brunswick society, involved in the First Parish Church and social organizations, and was a friend of Harriet Beecher Stowe. New research would help place Martha Cleaveland and her sampler into a larger cultural context. [See M34.5 Cleaveland Biographical materials for silhouette and probate inventory; M34.4 inventories while Cleaveland was still living.] (Laura Sprague, 2015)