Name/Title
Shipping CrateEntry/Object ID
2024.6.01Description
Wooden shipping box, with the dates 1878-9 stenciled on the side. The box has a sliding lid (now broken into two parts), and the exterior once had been varnished, although the varnish is now much scuffed up. The donor said that he had acquired the box fifty years previously from the "Button Box," an antique store in Willington, CT, long since closed. He told us that the proprietors of the Button Box had told him that the wooden box had once been used to ship industrial bobbins. The interior dimensions of the box are 18.5 in. long x 11.5 in. wide x 12.5 in. deep. The wood -- it looked like pine -- is 1/2 in. thick. Could the box actually have been used to ship bobbins? It's plausible. We searched both E-Bay and Etsy for images of antique bobbin boxes, but didn't find any that looked exactly like this one. We found lots of smaller, more elegant, furniture-y boxes means to hold small sewing machine bobbins, some 20th-century cardboard shipping boxes about the same size as this box, and a few 19th-century wooden shipping boxes about the same size as our box. Bobbins come in a vast array of shapes and sizes. We took some larger, early-20th-century wooden industrial twister bobbins from our collection, and they fit the box reasonably well (as shown in the first image).Use
Probable use was to ship 19th-century wooden industrial bobbins --- either empty bobbins shipped to a thread mill, or full bobbins (i.e., wound with thread) shipped to a weaving mill. In the 1880s, there were numerous cotton, woolen, and silk mills in the Willington area. The closest was the Gardiner Hall, Jr., cotton thread mill in South Willington.Collection
General CollectionMade/Created
Date made
1878Time Period
19th CenturyInscription/Signature/Marks
Type
StencilTranscription
1878-9Lexicon
Nomenclature 4.0
Nomenclature Secondary Object Term
Crate, ShippingNomenclature Primary Object Term
CrateNomenclature Class
ContainersNomenclature Category
Category 07: Distribution & Transportation ObjectsDimensions
Dimension Description
Interior measurementsWidth
11-1/2 inDepth
12-1/2 inLength
18-1/2 inLocation
Location
Room
Dugan Mill Factory Floor ExhibitBuilding
Duagn BuildingCategory
ExhibitDate
May 9, 2024Condition
Overall Condition
FairDate Examined
May 9, 2024Surface
Varnished, scuffed and scratchedMaterials
PineProvenance
Provenance Detail
Donor purchased object c. 1974 from Button Box, an antique store (no longer in existence) in Willington, CT.Created By
historian@millmuseum.orgCreate Date
May 9, 2024Updated By
historian@millmuseum.orgUpdate Date
May 9, 2024
