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When Andrea Pappas was a kid, she loved spending her days at the library reading mysteries. Her dream was to one day become her hero, Nancy Drew—and in many ways she did.

“There’s a lot of detective work in being an art historian. I’m used to looking for holes in history and trying to find out what’s around that hole, which helps us better fill in those gaps,” she explains. “So, when I’m doing research and an archivist brings me a box of stuff, I’m always hunting for that missing treasure or clue.” 

Her current area of research is 18th-century colonial America, which is both broadly understudied in art history and dominated by portraits of Founding Fathers. However, Pappas believes that by focusing on “material culture,” or everyday objects like textiles or homeware, we can discover unique insights into the lives of women and people of color whose voices don’t often make it into the history books.

These untold stories, she says, can be found in almost anything made by humans—if you know how to look for them.

No stone (fruit) left unturned

Today, we see more images before breakfast than a person in the 18th century would have seen in their entire lives. Because images were far less commonplace then than they are now, the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” rings especially true as you start unpacking the details within.

“When I’m studying an art object, I always start with a really careful detailed description of what I’m looking at,” explains Pappas. “As humans, we tend to just scan our environments, and once we identify an object, it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a chair,’ without thinking very much about the details such as the material it would have been made of or its aesthetic style.”

In practice, this method is just as much about looking for things as at things. She’ll ask herself questions like: “Where is the artist spending a lot of attention?” or “How solid is my identification of certain objects?”

Often these questions can lead her down a myriad of investigative tracks.

For example, wondering why one woman’s dress sleeves are longer than another woman’s led her to consult the theater’s department former costume designer and Professor Emerita Barbara Murray on colonial-era fashion, giving her insights on how to recognize class differences, garment construction, and fabric sources depicted in these artworks.

In other embroideries, studying the stone fruit trees in the background inspired her to cross-reference colonial-era agronomy texts, cookbooks, and pharmacology and horticultural catalogs to determine what kind of fruits were represented (plums, if you’re interested). From this research, she better understood how these plants were grown, prepared to eat, or used in home remedies (including early birth control)—facts that would not have appeared anywhere else in mainstream historical records of that time.

“These embroideries serve as a critical repository of women’s knowledge about nature during the American agricultural revolution at a time when their contributions were largely excluded from universities and professional settings,” notes Pappas.

Among these embroidered images, there was one recurring motif that piqued Pappas’s interest—that of a woman fishing with a suitor vying for her attention. This “fishing lady” scene appeared in dozens of embroideries as well as in colonial-era prints and porcelain, however, no scholars had ever questioned why this image was so popular, dismissing it as a simple pattern.

But for Pappas, there was nothing simple about it.

Reeling in the facts

In trying to discover the meaning of this popular image, Pappas began with the most basic investigative question she had:

“Did real women actually fish in this period?”

To answer this, she had to take a deep dive into the history of sports, river management, and even the daily lives of the women who made these embroideries.

Embroideries of this period were primarily made by upper-class women who learned this decorative needlework and other “fancywork” at elite New England finishing schools. As opposed to garment-making and mending which were pragmatic skills taught to most 18th-century women, embroidering was a prized, labor-intensive skill that enhanced a wealthy woman’s eligibility for marriage.

But would these elite women go down to a muddy river bank for an afternoon of angling? How could she know for sure?

“When you’re working in women’s history, you have to figure out how to get the most mileage that you can out of every piece of evidence that you find because they’re so rare, and that means building a rich context for each little nugget,” Pappas explains.

For her, one of the biggest pieces of evidence came from an archived August 1737 letter from Province of Pennsylvania founder William Penn’s daughter, Margaretta Penn Freame. In that letter, she wrote to her brother in London saying:

“My chief Amusement this summer has been fishing. I therefore request the favor of you when a Laisure Hour will admit, you will buy for me a four joynted strong fishing Rod and Real with strong good Lines and assortment of hooks of the best sort.”

Freame’s word choice implied a deep familiarity with the technical needs of fishing gear, and the more Pappas considered lines and hooks, the more fishing seemed to evoke another skill that women of this time would have had clear access to: needlework.

“When you’re fishing, you need to tie the lure onto the line—so what’s the lure made out of?” Pappas asked. “My initial thought was, maybe they’re kind of like jewelry because it needs to be shiny. But then I found an account describing a lure made from beads and shiny fabric, which to me, sounds like the scrap stuff in a sewing box.”

Additionally, needles and fish hooks would have both been made from steel during this time, and from Pappas’ research in colonial attire, she knew a lot of clothes from that period were held together with steel pins, so she started tracing where these items were made.

“That led me to a curator of a historic pin factory museum in the UK, and sure enough, she sent me a scan of a receipt from that era that had both clothing needles and fish hooks on the same invoice,” she recalls. “How do you get so lucky?”

Between these clues, fishing club records, and several diary entries from other well-to-do young women describing fishing excursions, Pappas felt confident that the “fishing lady” image was based on these women’s direct experiences with the growing fishing culture in colonial America—one that was as gendered as the rest of 18th-century domestic life.

As she read more about courting customs, social hierarchies, and gender roles of the period, Pappas hypothesized that the fishing lady motif represented the moment when a woman could either accept or reject a suitor’s marriage offer. While marriage was typically a male-dominated process, their acceptance or rejection of a suitor was the only moment in courting where a woman could make a decision about her future. Similarly, in these embroideries, women portrayed themselves as skilled anglers, and men their metaphorical catches. For Pappas, this perspective revealed a lot about how women saw their autonomy within a deeply sexist society.

The material of “material culture”

As was the case in tracing the manufacturing history of fishing equipment depicted in embroideries, Pappas’ research has always put the “material” and “culture” parts of “material culture” on equal footing. That means connecting these embroidered images to the tangible materials they are made of.

For example, she says, the rich red and blue dyes used to color silk and wool threads came from several sources, including Caribbean logwood and cochineal insects from New Spain. High-quality blue and green dyes were made from indigo grown in India and Central America. The gilded frames that these embroideries were mounted within were made of mahogany, which also came from the Caribbean.

Thus, each of the thousands of stitches that comprise these embroideries was physically tied to the complex web of colonialism, slavery, and environmental exploitation that defined the global economy of this period.

The artist and her tools also contribute to this history. We can imagine a silver thimble on a New England woman’s thumb, procured from Spain’s brutal mines in South America where up to 8 million enslaved indigenous people died from poor labor conditions and illness. In her other hand, she would have grasped that steel needle—forged in England using prodigious amounts of coal and timber, contributing to extreme environmental degradation.

“There’s no way that this woman sewing knew any of this, but it is directly connected because almost all of these women’s families were part of this system as enslavers or financers of the transatlantic slave trade,” Pappas says.

Without their family’s ill-gotten wealth, these women would not have had access to the expensive materials or the elite education necessary to make these embroideries in the first place—and Pappas says it’s crucial to recognize that history too.

Bringing the background to the foreground

After over 30 years of studying art, Pappas has learned that just because something might be in the background of an art piece, it doesn’t mean that it’s unimportant.

In looking through dozens of colonial-era embroideries featuring courtship scenes, pastoral scenes, and other moments of domestic life, Pappas recently began exploring the unusual inclusion of a handful of Black figures in a couple of colonial embroideries. One of these is a 1756 embroidery of the wealthy and influential family of prominent Massachusetts judge, John Chandler IV, which features a courtship scene with two white couples—likely including Chandler’s two youngest daughters—being waited on by two enslaved Black people.

For Pappas, learning about these Black individuals felt like a worthy area of investigation that, like the “fishing lady” motif, could yield powerful insights into lesser-studied narratives.

“Black people in this period most frequently appear in property and court records, so finding them in these few embroideries allows us to dig deeper into their lives with questions like: ‘What kind of entangled relationship existed between the white figures in the embroidery and these enslaved figures?’”

For example, Pappas noticed in this courtship scene, the yellow-oche of the Black man’s undergarments matched the color of the Black woman’s apron, implying that these pieces of clothing were made from the same fabric. Professor Murray confirmed Pappas’ tentative finding that the Black woman’s shorter jacket was common in working uniforms—however, the fuller skirt implies that her dress underneath might have been a hand-me-down from her enslavers. The combination of these details indicates a connection between the Black man and Black woman, and a more removed closeness between them both and the Chandlers.

Like the “fishing lady” motif, these Black figures were liked based on reality, so Pappas was driven to put names to these people and fill in as many details of their lives as possible.

“I was able to identify these individuals as Sylvia and her son Worcester because, tragically, they appeared in the Chandler family’s property records and will inventories,” she says.

After receiving a fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society, Pappas traveled to Worcester, Massachusetts where the Chandler family lived and was given access to the town’s church records—a key primary source not always used by historians—including the registry of births, marriages, deaths, and baptisms. Because some wealthy white families felt strongly about their bondspeople attending the same churches as them, enslaved and free Black people were also included in the ministry records, which would note their race or if they were owned by or in service to someone else.

Comparing these details to tax records, a pre-Revolutionary War census, maps, and property records helped create a clearer image of the community where the Chandlers, Sylvia, and Worcester lived, allowing Pappas to enter the world within the embroidery itself.

In the case of the town of Worcester, Pappas determined that Judge Chandler’s family lived at one end of town while the jail and courthouse stood at the other end, connected by a main thoroughfare three-fourths of a mile long. During that period, there were at least two occasions when Black men were held in that jail who had either self-liberated or were born free and imprisoned for some other crimes.

“You want to use your historical imagination to try to put yourself in that three-dimensional space, right? If you’re Sylvia running an errand for Judge Chandler, and it takes you from the house to the courthouse, and a Black man is in jail right across the street, what would it be like to walk through that town and see that man?” she explains. “Do you ask him how he self-emancipated? Does his imprisonment represent some kind of threat because it makes visible the risk of attempting self-emancipation?”

While Pappas is careful about taking assumptions from the present with her when she’s ‘time-traveling,’ she’s found an exciting research path forward by transforming these embroideries into full spaces in which people actually moved and lived.

Though few other physical records of Sylvia and Worcester’s lives exist, one of Pappas’ favorite discoveries is an anecdote about Sylvia preserved in family history that was published in the 19th century.

The excerpt from the letter reads:

“well remembered old Sylvia, who made it her pleasure to attend young children of widows who came to the Probate Court. She would sit swaying to and fro with them in her arms, and sing “Pretty baby! Pretty baby! / Looks jist like his farder, dear! / Who is his farder, dear?”

Pappas reads this song as a veiled, tongue-in-cheek reference to enslaved children being secretly parented by their enslavers—a bold thing to sing about at the footsteps of the legal heart of the town, a space that was literally overseen by Sylvia’s own enslaver. It’s a compelling moment of resistance that might have remained lost to time without Sylvia’s peripheral inclusion within this embroidered family heirloom.

As Pappas prepares to continue hunting in Rhode Island for possible records of Sylvia’s birth, she hopes to see more scholars exploring these unconventional approaches to better tell the stories of people who may not otherwise be in the historical conversation. Not only does it increase access to previously undiscovered knowledge, but it’s a form of social justice that she finds personally very moving. 

“At the end of the day, Sylvia’s story and others like hers matter. They tell us who we were, and hopefully, who we can be,” says Pappas. “Especially in the case of people who didn’t leave written records, pulling stories out of these objects is a way to give voice to the voiceless and keep their stories alive in our collective memory.”

As a child, Andrea Pappas spent countless hours at the library, captivated by mystery stories. Inspired by her fictional hero, Nancy Drew, she has found her own detective-like role as an art historian.

“Being an art historian involves a lot of detective work. I look for missing pieces in history and try to figure out what else is connected to those gaps,” she explains. “When I get a box from an archivist, I’m always on the lookout for hidden treasures or clues.”

Currently, she studies 18th-century colonial America, a time period that is often overlooked in art history and primarily features portraits of well-known men. Pappas believes that by examining “material culture”—ordinary items like textiles or household goods—we can uncover important stories about women and people of color, whose experiences are rarely highlighted in mainstream history.

She insists that many untold stories are hiding in plain sight, waiting to be discovered.

Exploring Every Detail

Today, people see countless images daily, far more than someone living in the 18th century would have encountered in their lifetime. Given the rarity of images in that time, the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” has a particular significance.

“When I analyze an artwork, my first step is to create a detailed description of what I’m observing,” says Pappas. “Humans usually just glance at things and label them—for instance, ‘a chair’—without really considering its material or design.”

This approach involves looking closely and asking questions like, “What details is the artist emphasizing?” or “Am I certain about identifying specific objects?”

These inquiries often take her on various paths of investigation.

For instance, when she noticed that one woman’s dress sleeves were longer than another’s, she consulted Barbara Murray, a former costume designer, to understand colonial fashion better. This helped her learn about class distinctions, garment construction, and fabric sources depicted in artworks.

In other examples, she examined the stone fruit trees in the background of certain pieces, leading her to research colonial farming texts and cookbooks to identify what types of fruits were shown (they were plums). This research provided insights into how these fruits were cultivated, prepared for meals, and even used in home remedies—information often left out of official historical records.

“These embroideries are vital sources of women’s knowledge about nature during the American agricultural revolution, a time when their contributions were mostly ignored in academic fields,” emphasizes Pappas.

One recurring scene that caught Pappas’s attention features a woman fishing with a suitor, a motif found in many embroideries and colonial prints, yet scholars have rarely investigated its popularity, dismissing it as just a common pattern.

But to Pappas, it’s anything but simple.

Investigating the Meaning

Pappas began her research into this fishing motif with a straightforward question:

“Did real women actually fish during this time?”

To answer this, she delved into the history of fishing, river management, and the daily lives of the women who crafted these embroideries.

These artworks were typically created by upper-class women who learned this decorative skill at elite finishing schools. Unlike garment-making, which was a practical skill taught to many women, embroidery was considered an impressive, time-consuming art that could enhance these women’s marriage prospects.

But would such elite women actually spend time fishing? How could she be sure?

“When studying women’s history, you have to maximize the information from every piece of evidence you find, since it’s often scarce, and build a rich context for each discovery,” Pappas explains.

One significant piece of evidence she found was an old letter from Margaretta Penn Freame, the daughter of Pennsylvania’s founder William Penn. In a letter from August 1737 to her brother, she wrote:

“This summer, my main enjoyment has been fishing. Therefore, I kindly ask that you purchase for me a strong fishing rod with the best hooks and lines available.”

Freame’s choice of words indicated she was familiar with fishing gear, and Pappas connected fishing to another skill that women of that time may have had: needlework.

“When fishing, you have to attach the lure to the line—what’s the lure made of?” she pondered. “Initially, I thought it might be something shiny like jewelry. But then I found records of lures made from beads and shiny fabric, much like scraps from a sewing kit.”

Both needles and fish hooks were made from steel during this era, and Pappas knew many clothes were fastened with steel pins, so she traced where these items were produced.

“This led me to a curator from a historic pin factory in the UK, who shared a period invoice with clothing needles and fish hooks listed together,” she remembers. “What a lucky find!”

Combining these clues, fishing club records, and diary entries from other wealthy young women about fishing trips, Pappas felt justified in her conclusion: the “fishing lady” image reflected the genuine experiences of women involved in colonial America’s emerging fishing culture—a culture that was just as gendered as other aspects of 18th-century domestic life.

As she studied courting customs, social hierarchies, and the roles of men and women in this era, Pappas theorized that the fishing lady imagery illustrated a pivotal moment when a woman could choose whether to accept or decline a suitor’s marriage proposal. Although marriage was generally initiated by men, this acceptance or rejection allowed women to exert some control over their futures. The embroidery positions women as skilled fishers and men as their symbolic catches, highlighting women’s autonomy in a patriarchal society.

Understanding Material Culture

In her research, Pappas emphasizes both the “material” and “culture” aspects of “material culture”; this means examining these embroidered images alongside the physical materials used to create them.

For example, she notes that the vibrant dyes used in silk and wool threads came from various sources, including logwood from the Caribbean and cochineal insects from New Spain. High-quality blue and green dyes were derived from indigo grown in India and Central America. The frames that held these embroideries were made from mahogany sourced from the Caribbean.

Hence, every stitch in these artworks connects to the complex web of colonialism, slavery, and environmental exploitation that characterized this era’s global economy. The materials and tools used by these artists also contribute to this narrative. We can envision a silver thimble on a New England woman’s finger, obtained from Spain’s harsh mines in South America, where many enslaved Indigenous individuals suffered and died due to poor working conditions. In her other hand, she would hold a steel needle, primarily produced in England, using vast quantities of coal and timber that severely harmed the environment.

“It’s likely this woman sewing had no awareness of these connections, but her family was most likely involved in enslaving others or financing the transatlantic slave trade,” Pappas asserts.

Without the wealth gained from this unjust system, these women wouldn’t have had access to the luxurious materials or elite education required to create such embroideries. Pappas believes it’s essential to acknowledge this history as well.

Highlighting Hidden Details

After over 30 years of studying art, Pappas has realized that just because something appears in the background of an artwork doesn’t mean it lacks significance.

While examining numerous colonial-era embroideries featuring courtship and domestic scenes, she recently became intrigued by the presence of Black figures in a few pieces. One such embroidery from 1756 showcases the wealthy Massachusetts judge John Chandler IV’s family, with two white couples—possibly Chandler’s daughters—being attended to by two enslaved Black individuals.

Pappas believes that understanding these Black figures presents an excellent opportunity for research, much like the exploration of the fishing lady motif, potentially revealing important overlooked narratives.

“Black people from this time mainly show up in property records and court cases, so finding them in these rare embroideries gives us a chance to learn more about their lives and relationships with the white figures,” she says.

For instance, Pappas observed that the color of the Black man’s undergarments matched that of the Black woman’s apron, suggesting they might be made from the same fabric. Professor Murray confirmed Pappas’s observation, indicating that the Black woman’s shorter jacket was typical for working uniforms, while the fuller skirt hinted that her dress may have been a hand-me-down from her owners. These details point to a connection between the Black man and woman, as well as a more distant connection between them and the Chandlers.

Once again, these figures were based on reality, driving Pappas’s desire to uncover their identities and histories.

“I identified them as Sylvia and her son Worcester because they, unfortunately, appear in the Chandler family’s property records and will inventories,” she shares.

After receiving a fellowship at the American Antiquarian Society, Pappas traveled to Worcester, Massachusetts, where the Chandler family resided. She accessed the town’s church records—valuable primary sources often overlooked—including birth, marriage, death, and baptism registries. Because many wealthy white families insisted their enslaved and free Black individuals attend the same churches, these records also noted their status relative to their owners.

By comparing these entries with tax records, pre-Revolutionary War censuses, maps, and property documents, Pappas built a clearer picture of the community where the Chandlers, Sylvia, and Worcester lived, allowing her to visualize the world depicted in the embroidery.

Pappas found that Judge Chandler’s home was at one end of town while the jail and courthouse were at the other, connected by a main road about three-fourths of a mile long. During this period, at least two occasions arose where Black men were imprisoned—either having escaped or born free, then jailed for other crimes.

“You need to use historical imagination to picture navigating that space. If you’re Sylvia on an errand for Judge Chandler, and pass by a jail where a Black man is held, what would that encounter be like?” she explains. “Would you ask him how he became free? Does his imprisonment remind you of the dangers of seeking freedom?”

Pappas is cautious about projecting modern assumptions onto her historical research, but she has discovered a fascinating direction by transforming these embroideries into dynamic spaces where people lived and interacted.

Though physical records of Sylvia and Worcester’s lives are scarce, Pappas cherishes an anecdote about Sylvia found in family history published in the 19th century.

The excerpt reads:

“Well remembered old Sylvia, who made it her pleasure to care for young children of widows visiting the Probate Court. She would sway with them in her arms, singing: ‘Pretty baby! Pretty baby! / Looks just like his father, dear! / Who is his father, dear?’”

Pappas interprets this song as a subtle, cheeky reference to enslaved children being fathered by their enslavers—a daring subject to sing about at the courthouse, overseen by Sylvia’s own owner. It shows a moment of resistance that might have been lost to time without Sylvia’s subtle inclusion in the family embroidery.

As Pappas continues her search for records of Sylvia’s birth in Rhode Island, she hopes that more scholars will adopt similar unconventional methods to rediscover stories of people often excluded from historical narratives. Not only does this broaden access to hidden knowledge, but it also represents a form of social justice that profoundly resonates with her.
“Ultimately, stories like Sylvia’s are significant. They illuminate who we were—and what we can strive to be,” she asserts. “Especially for those who left no written records, unearthing these narratives through objects is a way to amplify the voices of the forgotten and preserve their stories in our shared memory.”