EMBROIDERED COAT OF ARMS OF THE CUSHING FAMILY, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, CIRCA 1750

"Boston embroidered coats of arts are the most unique, personal and richly worked evidence of schoolgirl work to survive in large numbers from 18th century America. Like pastoral embroideries in canvas work, the majority were created as elegant and prestigious household decorations by young girls who were finishing their educations in Boston.

Probably the mostly costly embroideries undertaken by American schoolgirls, they were unquestionably peculiar to families of wealth and prominence, who did not hesitate to display arms as status symbols.  As posited by Mrs. Ring, the families whose young daughters were stitching these elegant embroidered coats of arms, were the same families that were commissioning fine silver from Paul Revere and Jacob Hurd, carved frames from John Welsh and portraits by John Singleton Copley."

For further information, see Betty Ring, “Heraldic Embroidery in eighteenth-century Boston, The Magazine Antiques, April, 1992 pp. 622-631.