“And that definitely applies to these dolls as well, which were made from scraps of material and cast-off buttons.”
“It’s a very old and popular saying in Black culture, ‘ making a way out of no way,’” says Jean-Louis. Many of the earliest dolls featured in the show were created by enslaved or formerly enslaved Black women who labored under impossible conditions to create art for their children or the white children under their care. Dated to between roughly 18, the toys follow a long arc of Black history, from slavery to the Reconstruction and Jim Crow to the beginnings of the civil rights movement.
Highlights of the exhibition include more than 100 handmade Black cloth dolls on loan from the collection of Deborah Neff. Patton, Indianapolis, Indiana / Deborah Neff Collection Mother and father are dressed in fine clothes and positioned around the fireplace, while their young Black child plays with a white doll in the foreground. This photograph by James Patton circa 1915 captures many ideals of Black middle class life in the early 20th century. “These objects are a mirror to what was going on in society at the time,” Jean-Louis tells Smithsonian magazine. Viewed through a historical lens, the dolls reveal complex stories about childhood, love, resilience, racism and the legacy of slavery in American history. Hofer, the show traces the history of Black dolls through more than 200 objects, including handmade and commercially produced dolls, textiles, games, sewing tools, and photographs, according to a statement. Co-curated by Jean-Louis and museum president Margaret K. Museumgoers will soon have the chance to see rare examples of these cherished playthings in “ Black Dolls,” an exhibition on view at NYHS from February 25 to June 5. Through these toys, children rehearsed their future domestic roles, imagined new lives and learned the basics of the era’s racial politics. As Dominique Jean-Louis, a public historian at the New-York Historical Society (NYHS), explains, Black and white children growing up in the 19th century often played with handmade Black dolls sewn by their Black caregivers. Like all of American Girl’s historical accessories, Ida Bean was created in consultation with experts. New-York Historical Society, Gift of Nicole Wagner & Wagner family, 2019.32 / Photo by Glenn Castellano Pleasant Company/American Girl, Addy Walker doll and Ida Bean, ca. The character also had a doll of her own: Ida Bean, a tiny cotton figure stuffed with beads (designed to simulate the feel of beans) who sported gold earrings identical to the ones that Addy herself wore. Like her white peers, Addy Walker was accompanied by six books that told her detailed life story: A 9-year-old girl born into enslavement in North Carolina, she escapes to freedom with her mother toward the end of the Civil War and eventually settles in Philadelphia.Īddy’s doll-sized accessories included a pink-and-white dress, black lace-up boots, and a bonnet. Pleasant Company, the manufacturer behind the beloved American Girl line of fictional historical characters, debuted its first African American doll in 1993.
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