Thank you for your interest in samplers in general and Kentucky samplers in specific.  There are a plethora of books and articles about American samplers.  This list is certainly not all-inclusive and AKS will add to the list as time permits.  The more well known of these include:

American Needlework Treasures: Samplers and Silk Embroideries from the Collection of Betty Ring, by Betty Ring, 1987

Girlhood Embroidery: American Samplers & Pictorial Needlework, 1650-1850, by Betty Ring, 1993

A Winterthur Guide to American Needlework, by Susan Swan, 1976

American Needlework: History of Decorative Stitchery from the Late 16th to the 20th Century, by Georgiana Harbeson, 1960

Ohio Is My Dwelling Place: Schoolgirl Embroideries, 1800-1850, by Sue Studebaker, 2002  

A Maryland Sampling: Girlhood Embroidery 1738-1860, by Gloria Seaman Allen, 2007

Delaware Discoveries: Girlhood Embroidery, 1750-1850, Gloria Seaman Allen & Cynthia Stark Steinhoff, 2019

Columbia’s Daughters: Girlhood Embroidery form the District of Columbia, by Gloria Seaman Allen, 2013

American Samplers, by Ethel Stanwood Bolton & Eva Johnston Coe, Massachusetts Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1921

     The number of articles available on the internet about American samplers is extensive.  AKS’s favorites include the stellar article, “Female Education and the Ornamental Arts in Antebellum Tennessee“, by Jennifer C. Core and Janet S. Hasson, of the Tennessee Sampler Survey published in The MESDA Journal 2019 VOLUME 40.  The article is wonderful!! 

From M. Finkel & Daughter the articles abound.  Two favorites include: “Documenting Delaware’s Schoolgirl Samplers” by Lynne Anderson, Ph.D. and Delaware Schoolgirl Samplers by Cynthia Shank Steinhoff.  Along with the other articles on M. Finkel & Daughter, these articles reflect Amy Finkel’s dedication to scholarship.

Articles by Sheryl De Jong written for The National Museum Of American History are entitled: “Mourning pictures: How women used embroidery to memorialize George Washington, family, and friends”,  “A Mystery solved in the Textile Collection”, and “In Pursuit of Jewish Sampler Makers”. Sheryl also wrote: “Schools and Teachers that Contributed to the Kentucky Sampler Tradition”  in The Journal of Early Southern Decorative Arts.

Two other interesting articles were written by Kathy Staples: This Have I Done: Samplers and Embroideries from Charleston and the Lowcountry (Curious Works Press and the Charleston Museum, 2002) and Georgia’s Girlhood Embroidery: Crowned with Glory and Immortality (Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 2015).

The following are a collection of helpful online resources for antique samplers: