Museum Collections

This case holds three sterling silver bodkins that belonged to Emma Corby Hoyt (1855-1937) of Brooklyn, New York, who used them to make baby clothes. They were donated by her great-granddaughter. The bodkin --a blunt needle with a large eye for drawing tape or ribbon through a loop or hem -- was an essential needlework tool for sewing the heavily eyeleted, looped, and laced-together fashions dominating the nineteenth century.