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Object Timeline

	We acquired this object.
-0001	We photographed this object.
2014	We exhibited this object.
2025	You found it!

Woman’s Workbox With Lid (USA)

This is a Woman’s Workbox with Lid.

This object is not part of the Cooper Hewitt's permanent collection. It was able to spend time at the museum on loan from National Museum of Natural History as part of Tools: Extending Our Reach.

It is dated Created before 1870s. Its medium is carved wood, walrus-ivory inlay.

A Yup’ik woman’s toolbox safeguarded some of her most precious instruments and materials. Small scrapers and awls; sinew, fiber, and scraps of yarn to sew with; and needle cases and other small objects would have been found in this personal container (gungasvik).
Yup’ik men made the chests, each one unique. This well-crafted box has a solid top and base, with an oval body that was formed by boiling and bending a narrow lath of wood. The walrus-ivory handle and inlays are incised with concentric circles, a Yup’ik design that symbolizes levels of the cosmos. The container’s other function—as a heavily used cutting board—is revealed by the numerous scratches on the bottom. The chest’s owner simply turned the box over to cut pieces of skin or sinew for sewing.

It is credited Collection of Edward W. Nelson, 1879, Gift of Edward W. Nelson, Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, E36240.