America’s Tapestry

Showing from October 21, 2026 - January 31, 2027

Passaic County’s Revolutionary Women Take Center Stage as “America’s Tapestry” Comes to New Jersey

A nationally touring exhibition of thirteen hand-embroidered panels — one devoted to the women of Passaic County who sustained Washington’s army — arrives at the Passaic County Arts Center this fall.

HAWTHORNE, N.J. — In the winter of 1780, when General George Washington and the Continental Army encamped at the Dey family estate in Passaic County, it was the women of the household — free and enslaved — who kept the army fed and clothed. That largely untold story now hangs at the heart of America’s Tapestry, a national exhibition commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence, on view at the Passaic County Arts Center from October through December 2026.

The New Jersey panel, “Women of Passaic County,” honors the many roles women undertook during the Revolution. As the household hosted Washington and his troops, its women prepared food and fabricated clothing for Continental soldiers. Leading the philanthropic “Ladies of Trenton,” the matriarch Hester Dey and her daughter-in-law raised more than $15,000 for the Continental Army. A further vignette records a smallpox inoculation administered by Dr. Bodo Otto, Senior Surgeon of the Continental Army, who established a military hospital in Trenton at a moment when smallpox proved more lethal to American soldiers than British arms.

Fittingly, the panel came to life with research provided by the Passaic County Department of Cultural and Historic Affairs, and was embroidered by New Jersey volunteers under the direction of state directors Carol Prevost and Kiki Haumann. For the exhibition’s New Jersey audience, it is a homecoming — a chapter of local history, stitched by local hands, returning to the county that lived it.

“America’s Tapestry” gathers thirteen panels, one for each of the original colonies, each spotlighting a lesser-known story of the founding era. The panels were communally stitched by nearly 2,000 volunteers, ranging in age from 3 to 98, who together contributed close to 30,000 hours across thirteen states. Anyone could take up a needle; the making of the exhibition was itself an act of public history.

The project was conceived by costume designer and textile historian Stefan Romero and debuted in June 2026 at the Muscarelle Museum of Art at William & Mary, where it was featured on NBC Nightly News. It is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Coby Foundation, Seton Hill University, and Wichelt Imports, and endorsed by institutions including the Embroiderers’ Guild of America and the Atlanta History Center.

America’s Tapestry is on view at the Passaic County Arts Center, 675 Goffle Rd, Hawthorne, NJ, from October 2026 through January 2027.

America’s Tapestry opens on October 24th. Click here to RSVP to the opening reception.