Images(2)

Sewing Scissors

Date1810-1825

OriginEurope

MediumSilver, steel

DimensionsOverall: 3 7/8 × 1 9/16 × 1/8 in (9.8 × 3.9 × 0.3cm)

Credit LineGift of Anonymous Donors

Object number1971-3450,B

DescriptionScissors with steel blades fastened by a screw; silver open work and engraved shanks and finger loops.Label TextStitched in Time:
What sort of tools might a woman need in her needlework pursuits? Retail advertisements throughout the 18th and 19th centuries often group the fiber arts accoutrement, including sewing and knitting needles, scissors (both with their respective cases), buttons, awls or punches, thimbles, thread, pins, knitting sheaths, and more. Like needlework, these practical tools were often decorative.

In 1819, new mother Lucy Clark Allen bemoaned the disorganization of her own needlework tools as she started a new project. She wrote, "where is my work all this time? When I go to sit down to it, my thimble is under one chair, my scissors under another, my needle is lost or stuck into a far distant part...and by the time I have collected all my materials, down it must go again."ProvenancePrior to 1940, Clara Frances Wolff [Mrs. DeWitt Clinton Cohen] (New York, NY); Roy Everett Tomlinson and Eleanor Parsons (Montclair, NJ); 1971, given to The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (Williamsburg, VA)