“Work” with respect to girls and women used to be synonymous with “needlework.” Not just the stitching of samplers, but “plain sewing,” the making of shifts and shirts, aprons and babies’ caps for members of the family. Those tasks were not relegated to the servants: princesses and queens were supposed to cheerfully perform this necessary work as well. Virtuous female characters from the Bible and classical literature were cited as examples. It was said the daughters of Queen Charlotte were expert at tapestry work and fine embroidery of all kinds.
But times were changing according to the anonymous author of The Little Needle Woman: Or the Pleasures of Work. Published with the Approbation of The Princess Royal of Lilliput, for the Entertainment of the Ladies of Great-Britain and Ireland (Gainsborough: H. Mozley, 1792). He or she exclaimed:
Needle—work, the cares of domestic affairs, a serious and retired life, is the proper function of women; and for this they were designed by Providence. The depravity of the age has indeed affixed to these customs which are very near as old as the creation, an idea of meanness and contempt; but then what has it substituted in the room of them? A soft indolence, a stupid idleness, frivolous conversation, vain amusements, a strong passion for public shews, and a frantic love of gambling.
If dexterity with the needle was as important as claimed above, then surely this little pamphlet has illustrations of obedient little girls hard at work. Just one–the frontispiece shows a girl sewing while she watches the baby in the cradle. But there is also a picture of a girl practicing the piano while her mama watches, which directly contradicts the rant in the introduction.…
To be honest, there are more illustrations in 18th-century children’s books of boys mistreating animals in than of girls sewing. Only one I’ve found in the collection so far is The Brother’s Gift, which was first published by Francis Newbery in 1770. The story is straightforward enough. Kitty Bland returns home from boarding school “perfectly spoiled,” having picked up affected manners. Like most boarding school misses, she can’t spell correctly, write neatly, read aloud nicely, or, most important of all, sew carefully. In spite of all this her older brother Billy loves her too much to let this continue and explains kindly why it is to her advantage to learn all these things—and stop spending so much time staring at herself in the mirror. Here she is hard at work.
And here is her thimble.
If Kitty applies herself, she might one day produce a map sampler like this one in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Or aspire to needle paintings in worsted like Mary Linwood, who exhibited her full-size copies of old masters in a gallery on Leicester Square in London for decades. Here is one after the famous animal painter, George Stubbs. 
