Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American "Schoolgirl" Art

The American Folk Art Museum, a short walk from Lincoln Center, opened Locating Girlhood: Place and Identity in Early American "Schoolgirl" Art on October 9, 2026. The exhibition continues through February 28, 2027.

At its center are spectacular examples of needlework and other ornamental arts made by American girls in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Works of this kind, samplers among them, grew out of girls' education in the period. As the title signals, the show considers the places where these makers lived and how those places shaped their sense of identity.

The museum, which champions art by the self-taught, offers admission that is always free. It sits at 2 Lincoln Square, on Columbus Avenue between 65th and 66th Streets, and the closest subway stop is 66 St-Lincoln Center on the 1 train.

The location makes it an easy stop before or after an opera, ballet or concert. For anyone interested in handwork, history, or the roots of American visual culture, it is a chance to look closely at what young women made with needle and thread, at no cost.