Just purely fun guessing. By era, I think the boards were machine planed? The box lid, to me, is a problem. I am still guessing it's a later repair, not only because of the split, but it might not have been laying flat. The rigid cross grain gluing in the rabbet is not so good, but no doubt it works in this case. I think the rabbet was used to retain the original top, I'm still guessing repair, so that the lid still functioned at its original thickness.
The reason I leaned towards thinking utilitary construction, is because the lid doesn't follow wood movement rules. Back to strips attached inside the lid, rather than in rabbets. Maybe, it was a relatively tight squeeze between the sides and the hinges, maybe it might have been too bulky to close on the intended contents? Yes, I noticed the layout lines. The pins might be safe width at the top and bottom, where the piece might have had better visual balance if they were more proportional to the center pin? Again, just some guessing out loud, seeing what story it might tell, not picking on the box. Take care.
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