This book presents 30 American cross-stitch samplers, originally made in the 18th and early 19th centuries, which are now antiques in museums and historical collections. The book gathers a treasury of rare samplers and devised charts for their recreation in modern materials. The author's illustrated introduction to the collection offers historical and cultural insights into early American cross-stitch conventions. For each of the 30 samplers, a biography of the child who stitched the sampler, a photograph of the finished sampler and a close-up photograph of interesting features of each sampler is included.