The doll book

Front matter

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Foreword

To all those who are interested in dolls, from the children who play with them to the students of their ethnological and educational aspects, I dedicate this story of the doll.

I take this opportunity of acknowledging my indebtedness to those who have contributed to my store of information, among whom are several authors unknown to me, as I found many unsigned paragraphs on the subject in magazines and newspapers. I am also grateful to the many friends who have brought and sent me dolls and puppets from all parts of the earth.

Especially are my thanks due to Mrs. John Cooper, of Shanghai, who from the first shared my enthusiasm and who has made my collection unique by her contribution of old and valuable Chinese and Japanese dolls.

My collection owes its origin to the following incident: In Yokohama, while shopping with a friend, I saw a number of Japanese manikins. I admired them so much that one of them was put into my Christmas stocking, making the nucleus

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FOREWORD

around which I have gathered several hundred character dolls.

During a six years' tour around the world, I had time and opportunity to study doll-lore in many countries. I found that the love of the doll is common to children of every land, and that many legends and folk-tales in which the doll figures, bear a striking resemblance to each other, though they may come from widely diverse parts of the earth — facts from which it is but natural to conclude that dolls are among the most potent factors in the civilization of the world.

The study of the doll has given me great pleasure, which I trust will be shared by my readers. Of these, the children will delight in the pictures of many forms of their beloved playthings; while the older readers may find food for thought in the ethnological, historic, and sociological aspect which the subject presents.

LAURA B. STARR

Pen and Brush Club

New York

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I Antiquity op the Doll 3

II Etymology of the Doll . . . . .13

Chapter I

WHO played with the first doll; how was it fashioned; when and where was it evolved, are questions to which history fails to give a satisfactory answer. We search the archives of the past, we unearth Egypt to discover the secret, we wander through pagan Rome, we travel to India, to the cradle of our civilization, as far back as documentary evidence, legend or myth will carry us, and we find dolls. Recorded history does not go back to the time when there were no dolls.

They are found in the sanctuary of the pagan, in the tombs of the dead; pictured in quaint and sometimes awkward lines in plaster and stone, that have withstood the elements for thousands of years.

Since time was they have been, apparently, the presiding deity of the hearthstone and the cradle. Most people would subscribe to the popular theory that the mother impulse is so strong in every child that she must have some object upon which to lavish her childish affection, and that the most natural object is a doll built on somewhat the same lines as the baby brother or sister or some of the "grown ups" of the family.

The gathered opinions of various early and classic writers point to the probability that the doll, as the image of a human or superhuman creature, had an ecclesiastical origin and was used in the ceremonies of the religion which preceded Brahmanism.

Later with the religion it was carried to China and Egypt and from thence made its way to all the other countries of the globe. So much for theory.

That dolls were common in the time of Moses is certain, for we read that in those sarcophagi, which are frequently exhumed in Egypt, there have been found beside the poor little baby mummies pathetically comical little imitations of themselves placed there by loving mothers, within reach of the cold little baby fingers.

In "Ave Roma Immortalis," Marion Crawford speaks of children's dolls of centuries ago, "made of rags and stuffed with the waste from their mothers' spindles and looms." He also tells of effigies of bullrushes, which the pontiffs and vestals came to throw into the Tiber from the Sublician bridge on the Ides of May.

In the museums at Naples and Rome there are numbers of terra-cotja dolls that were found in the ruins of Pompeii; pathetic little remains of happy childhood.

When Herculaneum was being excavated, there was found the figure of a little girl with a doll clasped tightly in her arms, — not even death could divide the two.

The presence of dolls in the graves of children is accounted for by the fact that it was an ancient custom to bury a child's toys with it in the expectation that the spirit forms of the inanimate things would rise with the child and amuse it in the spirit world as they had done in this.

Early writers tell us that a custom among the pagans required children to make votive offerings of their toys and playthings to the gods in the temples, when they had reached a certain age. This custom still obtains in certain parts of the Orient.

The oldest dolls in the world are in the British Museum. They were found in the tombs of Egyptian children and some among them are more than 4,000 years old.

Queer little manikins they are but they command immense respect as being the veritable dollbabies which the little brown-skinned children of Pharaoh's land loved and cuddled and put to sleep centuries before the Christ child was born.

The collection is labeled "Early Egyptian Dolls," with dates ranging from 1,000 to 4,400 years b. c. There is a great variety of them, as to material, form and decorations. Clothes evidently were thought superfluous or the material of which they were made has vanished, for there, is nothing that might even by a vivid imagination be thought to represent clothing. These small images are made of ivory, clay, wood and bronze.

The dolls in one group have curious heads of clay to which strings of colored beads have been attached either to represent hair or perhaps the face veil, which is still worn by many Eastern women, though in these days the beads are interspersed with coin which represents the woman's dower or fortune. They have neither feet nor legs which peculiarity is probably accounted for by the fact that at that time the extremities of babies were swathed about with yards of cloth and it was thought hardly worth while to carve feet and legs that would never be in evidence. The long flat body of one of this group is marked off in squares like a checkerboard, possibly having been used for a game of some sort. This particular group dates from 1000 b. c.

In another group there is one which somewhat resembles our modern dolls, it being fairly well shaped down to the knees. The arms are grotesquely long like the elongated ones of Japanese monkeys. The body is crudely carved of wood to represent a Nubian woman, and the doll was without doubt the beloved toy of an Egyptian child a century or more before Christ was born.

Another group consists of a terra-cotta man with a duck's head ; an oriental Queen gorgeously dressed in a gilded crown only — the figure is made of bronze and has jointed arms and legs. Another figure in the group has a tiny babe in her arms.

In a museum in Berlin there is a wooden Egyptian doll with movable joints which is probably of the same period as the collection in the British Museum. There is also a fine collection of early Egyptian dolls in the Louvre, Paris, and another in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

According to Wilkinson, the children of the ancient Egyptians amused themselves with painted dolls whose hands and legs, moving on pins, were made to assume various positions by means of strings, like the modern puppets. Many of these were very crudely formed, without legs or with an imperfect representation of a single arm or leg on one side. Some had strings of beads hanging from the doubtful place of the head and others wore curious imitations of wigs.

A few exhibited a nearer approach to the human figure and some made with considerable attention to proportion were small models of the children themselves. They were colored in the most absurd manner; the more shapeless had usually the most gaudy appearance as being thought most likely to catch the eye of the infant. The show of reality was deemed more suited to the taste of an older child, and the nearer their resemblance to human objects the less they partook of artificial ornament.

Sometimes the doll was only part of a toy; for instance, a man washing clothes or kneading dough would be represented by a doll, the necessary movements indicative of his employment being imitated by the pulling of strings. Groups of soldiers were made to march in the same fashion. A crocodile doll that opened and shut its mouth with great realism was a favorite with most children in those days.

In Notes and Queries of April 21, 1906, there was the following query from an English gentleman :

"I have read somewhere, I cannot tell where, that children of the Comoro Islands use headless dolls, the reproduction of human features being forbidden by Mohammedan religion. Can any one kindly confirm or deny the above?"

In answer to the above nothing can be more conclusive than the following notes by Gustave Schlegel of the University of Leyden:

" Among the ancient Egyptians we find children's games developed in exactly the same way as to-day among our children. To them were known the running games, ball tossing and the doll. We have found wooden dolls that were not inferior to ours, and which were certainly dressed by the little Egyptian maid as to-day our girls dress their little manikins.

"There were also movable dolls, whose hands and feet could be pulled with strings; others there were made of painted wood which showed only indicationally the human form and had strings of pearls instead of hair.

"The children of the old world were supplied with dolls, although the plainer mode of dressing at that time furnished the little ladies less occupation than do our fashionable dolls of to-day. There are in the museums rude and rough dolls of wood and clay beside finer ones of wax and ivory.

"In the Vatican Museum, among the Roman remains found in the catacombs, are found ivory dolls with movable limbs. When we see the dolls thus spread every where amongst the children of past ages, the conclusion may seem reasonable that the dolls with which all children of cultivated European nations play, may be considered a direct offering from them.

"The doll is the first and most natural toy of the child, the girls especially, who in impulse of imitation, playing mother, converts any handy, suitable object to a doll. So effectual is this, the laws of Islam suffer therefrom.

"The Koran forbids bodily representation, but the Mohammedan child for that reason does not lose its doll. Aischa, the prophet Mohammed's nine-year-old wife, romped around with her doll in his harem, and the holy man himself was accustomed to play with them.

"A good authority on the Orient informs us that the Mohammedan woman in Bagdad sees a specter in every doll which might unexpectedly become active and do harm to her children. Dolls are therefore not given to the children as toys — but the little girls obeying the voice of Nature, nurse and play with pieces of wood and pillows instead of with the manufactured toys."

It would be wearying should I here mass the evidence and show how everywhere the doll is at home; a few illustrations will suffice:

With the children of the Arctic races, the doll plays an important part. It is present with all Siberians as a little fur monstrosity, and Wirdenskiol praises the good work of the dolls among the Tscuktchen. The Alaskan dolls are similar and made by women; the dress and exterior in imitation of adults. This applies to Indians.

Adrien Jacobsen speaks of "numerous dolls

1. Congo iron dolls 2. Zuni Indian bead doll 3. Dolls from the Madeira Islands 4. Eskimo dolls, carved from walrus tusks among the Eskimos, cut out of bones and mammoth teeth and dressed in furs. All the Northern people have dolls for their children as far as East Greenland and there they are found in the graves of extinct races.

"As with us it happens that we lay into the coffin the doll of a beloved child, so have Reiss and Slubel designated as dolls small originally dressed clay figures in old Peruvian graves. Dolls worked out of clay are also found amongst the Sakalaven of Madagascar."

Catlin tells us that "Indian mothers fill the cradle of the dead child with feathers arranged in the form of the child, and carry this substitute about with them; speak with it and treat it as a child.

"The O jib ways on the northern sea call these dolls Kitemagissiwin, which means unlucky doll, because through them the dead one is represented. Kohl says that the long fast-tied-together packages of the hair of the dead child contain its toys, clothes and amulets. This doll everywhere takes the place of the dead child; the sorrowing mother carries it around with her for a year; sets it in the wooden cradle at her side by the fire, and takes it with her on long journeys.

"The idea which is fixed in her mind is that the deceased child is still too small to find its way to Paradise, but through the persistent carrying of the substituted imitation the mother believes herself to help the soul along. Therefore she carries it until she fancies the soul of the little loved one has grown enough to find its own way.

" In Africa we find a similar custom. The Fingo doll plays in the Orange Free State an important role with the natives. Every Fingo maid receives upon maturity a doll which she retains until she becomes a mother. Then her mother gives her a new doll which she carefully conserves until she has a second child, and so forth. These dolls are held as sacred and the owner never voluntarily parts with them. Casalis reports a similar custom among the Basutos."

Chapter II Etymology Of The Doll

THE word doll was not found in common use in our language until the middle of the eighteenth century. Its first appearance so far as I can discover, was according to an English writer in the B. E. Dictionary, in 1700. Later it was found in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1751, where it is recorded that several dolls with different dresses, made in St. James Street, have been sent to the Czarina to show the manner of dressing at present in fashion among English ladies.

M. d'Allemange, in his "Historie des Jouets," tells us that long before Caesar astonished the world with his victories, Roman children played with dolls which had the jointed bodies and the classic heads we are wont to see on the statues in the museums and which look very queer to the child of the twentieth century; but they only show that then, as now, the doll was the expression of the people.

An ancient writer declares that doll is a corruption of dole, Saxon dol — a share distributed — and cites as evidence of the truth of his statement the fact that a lady of Duxfurd left a sum of money to be given away annually in the parish — to be called Doll-money; but the writer is mistaken; it is dole-money.

An ecclesiastical writer says that the origin of the doll and its name may be more than guessed at from the sermons of Roger Edgeworth, one of the first three prebendaries of the outrages of the Reformation. He says that the images were taken from the churches and given to the children as pretty idols or dolls, but this statement has been successfully controverted.

A writer in Notes and Queries says that nearly a thousand years ago the old name for maid-servant was "doul," which used also to mean "a doll," "danice," "duckie," and he thinks doll may be a corruption of this word. Dryden translates pupae in "Perseus' ' into baby-toys and in a note says that those baby-toys were little babies or "puppets," whence says Richardson, it seems that the name of doll was not in general use at that time. Another writer in a vague way says: "Centuries ago when saint's names were much in vogue for children, St. Dorothea was the most popular and her name the best and luckiest that could be given to

ETYMOLOGY OF THE DOLL

a little girl. The nickname was Dolly or Doll, and from giving babies the nickname, it was an easy step to pass it on to the little images of which they were so fond."

The following is the French version of the origin of the word poupee, the common name for doll. Pursellb Grivaldi, a clever Italian, conceived the idea, or perhaps carried out one he had received from the Orient, of making wax figures and dressing them in the costumes of emperors, empresses and other famous folk.

He arranged sixty or seventy of these and carried them to Paris, where he advertised them as a show of puppets — or a puppet play. It was something new and all Paris flocked to see the novelty. Queen Isabella, consort of poor mad King Charles VI., saw at once that the exhibition would please her distraught husband, and bade the Italian bring the puppets to Court where they became very popular with the courtiers.

Curiously enough the King took a great fancy to one representing Poppaea, the beautiful but wicked consort of Nero, and he persisted in having her erratic career and tragic death rehearsed to him until he became familiar with it and insisted upon keeping the wax Poppsea.

The fad for the figures waned when Charles died, and the whole collection was turned over to the children, who have since had a monopoly of them.

This writer claims that the French poupee and the German puppe are different forms of the word Poppsea, but he has hardly gone far enough back in his researches, for the Latin word for doll is "pupa, a girl, damsel, a puppet or baby"; as the Latin dictionary puts it, "such as girls played with while little, and being grown gave to Venus."

A little observation will convince any one that dolls appeal to a very large portion of the general public; if not for themselves individually, for the children of their family or those of others. Dolls are universal gifts at Christmas and that small girl who does not receive one is poor indeed.

A few years ago there was published in the daily papers an appeal to mothers to send " ten-inch dolls to gladden the half -orphaned hearts" of the babies of New York asylums. The response was so generous that dolls came in a perfect avalanche, which one of the reporters acknowledged in the following verses:

"The charge then burst open the door; And with mighty uproar, Came flushing and pushing, And rushing and crushing, And courtesying and bending, A train never ending.

Some gliding, some sliding, Some hurrying, some scurrying,

ETYMOLOGY OF THE DOLL

Some dancing, some jumping, Some thumping, some bumping; Dolls from the south of us, Dolls from the west of us, Dolls from the east of us, Swelling the throng."

"Some dolls could talk and some could walk, While some were dressed as brides, With sable coats and Irish lace, And diamond rings besides.

Some old-time plaster. paris dolls, And waxen dolls were there, And china dolls like grandma used, With painted china hair."

A well-known writer who regrets the passing of the old-fashioned doll with the disappearance of the old-fashioned child, gives vent to the following :

"A modern little girl not only does not make her doll's clothes, but she actually puts out her washing. She knows nothing of the delight of the doll's laundry day, with the drying lines stretched across the inside of the nursery fender, and the loan of the iron with which nurse gets up her caps. The modern little girl demands the services of a maid for her doll. How different the old-fashioned little girl. She slept with her doll. She shared her meals with dolly; she sat on her doll in order to keep her safe and have her handy, as Dickens describes the selfish old man at the seaside readingroom sitting on one popular newspaper while he reads another.

"The old-fashioned little girl and her gutta-percha doll were full of fun and — flexible, 'b-r-r-rrumpety dumpety dump dump dump.'

"The doll of the modern little girl makes me heartsick. She looks at you with such shy blue eyes, eyes with sweeping lashes distractingly real, and such genuine hair. It has Marcel waves. And the face is so intellectual, so different from the happy expression of the good old gutta-percha doll. And yet dolls and soldiers and other things about a room may bring very sad memories."

Chapter III Some Historic Dolls And Others

OLD dolls are among the things that are taking on new values in this day and generation. Battered and bruised almost beyond recognition, various dolls that were once fondled affectionately, loved beyond their deserts, have been brought from that limbo to which are relegated forgotten and disused things and restored to as much of their pristine beauty as possible.

They are respected and revered for their great age like women who have reached that period of life when they prefer to add a few years to their age rather than to subtract them as they did when younger.

That queens were not above playing with dolls, even when they were quite grown, we have abundant evidence.

"Mary Stuart brought with her to Scotland from Paris lovely French dolls, which she set apart for ornament rather than use, but her chief delight was in the dolls she and her Marys had made and dressed." The beautiful queen was devoted to her family of dolls, not only during her childhood in France, but later, when she went, a young and lovely widow, to Scotland. She is reported to have spent much time with her dolls, perhaps to distract her mind from the machinations of her nobles who wished to rule Scotland in her stead. When she had leisure she would gather her Marys together and set them to work with her making rag dolls, and little beds and bedding fashioned like her own. Queen Mary took upon herself the making of the small sheets and bolster covers for the beds, and while they sewed they would discourse lovingly of France and the pleasant life they had left behind them.

Queen Elizabeth had a great passion for dolls in her youth, and among the collection she left was a very curious specimen of the doll-maker's art, composed entirely of the bark of trees, so artistically pieced together that only a close inspection revealed the fact that the whole was not carved out of one solid piece of mahogany. This doll, which was reputed to have been in existence more than two centuries previous to coming into the young princess' nursery, was clothed in such a variety of beautiful garments that her juvenile highness always had the assistance of a maid to dress and undress her favorite plaything.

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Another strange doll with which the Queen's childhood was associated was one from Spain. It was almost life-size, and dressed in clothes said to have been made by the highest ladies of the land, although, as the author of " Things Quaint and Curious" remarks, "the stitching of the various garments was not above reproach, a blemish, however, which was fully recompensed by the magnificence of the cloth used."

A wonderland doll was possessed by the Duchess of Kinloch, who lived prior to the Reformation. It was made of the wood of the fir tree, and so ingeniously constructed that by the mere pressing jV" of either of its eyes it would open its mouth, yawn, laugh, and make an expression as if in pain. Not only would it do all this, but it could be made to move its legs, as if walking at a rapid rate. The hair used was human, and once adorned the head of a wealthy and titled lady, who lost her life for the sake of her religion.

French as well as English queens were fond of dolls, even after they had grown up. In the year 1493, Anna of Brittany sent to Queen Isabella of Castile, who was forty-three years old, a large poupee, probably for the purpose of showing her the fine fashions that were in vogue at the Court of France.

The record of some extremely costly dolls that were manufactured in the seventeenth century has come down to us intact. Louis d'Epernon, who gave up a bishopric in order to become a soldier, spent several hundred dollars on a doll for little Mile, de Bourbon, who later acquired distinction as the Duchesse de Longueville. We have a full description of this costly doll, and it is gratifying to learn that the kind-hearted giver obtained for his money, in addition to the doll, a complete sleeping apartment for the little lady, in which were a bed, furniture, several handsome gowns and all necessary underwear. One wonders whether the Duchess of Orleans fared as well as this when in 1722, she gave several thousand dollars for a superb doll, which she presented to the little Queen.

In the art of manufacturing and dressing dolls, the French excelled at that time, and more than one chronicler assures us that they were accustomed to send several of their handsomest and best dressed dolls to foreign countries in order that the people there might clearly see the superiority of French fashions.

According to the newspapers, the oldest doll in America lives in Montgomery County, Maryland.

She was brought to this country by William Penn, in 1699. His daughter, Letitia, selected the doll as a gift for a little Miss Rankin of Philadelphia. The children of the Quakers of those days took good care of their playthings, and although the doll was the cherished companion of several generations of little Quakeresses, she is still in good condition, wearing the grand court dress in which she came to this country.

Polly Sumner is another doll to be admired and respected for her great age; she was born in England and came to this country in 1773, and has nearly a century and a quarter to her credit. She was placed for sale in a Boston shop and was bought by pretty Polly Sumner who was then a bride. She was splendidly arrayed in an English court dress of the period, and wore a gown of rich brocade over a large hoop, had pearl beads around her neck and on her head was set a jaunty cap with curling ostrich feathers. She is made of good English oak, is still sound in every joint and likely to last for a long time.

After having been lost to sight for a generation or two, she was brought out and dressed in Quaker garb, and later found a place in the old Church Museum. She is now owned by Mrs. Mary Langley, who prizes her very highly.

Another old doll is the property of Mrs. Otis H. Brown of 86 Oak Street, South Weymouth, Mass. She bears the name of Mehitable Hodges, and is known to be 184 years old. She was brought from France to Salem in 1724, by Captain Gamaliel

Hodges, for his little daughter. Mrs. Brown is a descendant of Captain Hodges and inherited the doll.

The doll is arrayed in her original costume of pink silk, fashioned after the style of Louis XIV., and is perfect in every detail, the silk even retaining its color after a lapse of nearly two centuries.

Mehitable Hodges has traveled a good deal and has been on exhibition and taken first prize at doll shows, besides many church fairs and charity exhibits in New England. This doll was exhibited to the public for the last time at a recent doll show in South Weymouth, and is now safely cased and blanketed and shown only to visitors at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Brown.

During the war between the North and South, in the United States, many a precious article was conveyed through the lines inside a doll's body. Not even the soldier on guard had the heart to deprive a child of its most valued and apparently harmless toy, by confiscating a doll, but presently the trick was discovered and no more dolls were allowed to pass through the lines. Quinine, morphine and other drugs as well as war dispatches were conveyed in this manner and the families to whom these dolls were sent treasured them beyond belief. A Mississippi family has a small colony of dolls which brought cotton seed from Mexico at that time, and the whole Natchez district is still growing cotton from that seed.

Another doll not so old but one that has historic interest, is owned by Mrs. William Wallace of Morristown, N. J. It was once the property of Hannah Marcelles, to whom General Lafayette gave it in exchange for a kiss. It is a flat-faced little baby with abnormally red cheeks and a sharp nose. It wears a silk gown and a Napoleon hat; across its breast are the figures 1797.