I wasn’t sure what I’d find when I drove to Washington recently for the convention of the United Federation of Doll Clubs. I knew what I’d be looking for, though.
Black dolls. Lots of them. All kinds of them. And I was hoping that I would not be disappointed.
I was also on the lookout for collectors for a series of posts I’m writing about black dolls and their collectors. I was not only looking for black folks who collected black dolls but anybody else – male or female – who also had a passion for them.
I found only a handful of vendors selling black dolls inside the vendors room at the convention – the only part of the event that was open to the public – but I saw an appreciable number of black dolls. Not as many as the antique white 19th-century bisque dolls that lined table after table, but enough black dolls to keep me engaged.
Elsewhere in DC, the National Doll Festival was also being held, but I wasn’t able to catch that one.
Most of the black dolls at the doll-clubs convention were made by 19th-century German and French manufacturers whose names I was familiar with, while I was introduced to others for the first time. One was Dewees Cochran, an American doll artist from the early part of the 20th century. One of her black dolls had its name (Lindy Lou) and Cochran’s own name written in her hand, according to the seller, on a tag on the left arm. The seller had attached a note asking visitors not to handle the doll. So I didn’t.
I oohed and aahed my way through many of the other dolls, most of them quite lovely. I saw very few that were caricatures of African Americans.
Many of the earliest ones, it seemed, had the head molds of white dolls painted (or fired) jet black or light brown (some French dolls were identified as mulatto) or dark brown.
I also saw several early mechanical toy dolls and an American-made puppet/marionette named Lucifer made by the Effanbee (or F&B) doll company. Virginia Austin Curtis made the puppet for Effanbee to be sold in Marshall Fields. Several sites repeated that the first one was made without shoes, which the NAACP found disturbingly stereotypical, and the organization asked the doll company to put shoes on subsequent puppets – which it did.
Lucifer was part of Clippo the Clown’s Clippo Club that Curtis used in performances from the 1930s to 1950s. Curtis also created the head for Edgar Bergen’s Elmer Snerd, the sidekick of the famous Charlie McCarthy ventriloquist doll.
The display of black dolls at the convention gave testament to the notion that black dolls are both hard to find and hard on the purse. There weren’t as many of them made decades ago, so they are scarce and that lack of supply means boosted prices.
One doll-maker and collector told me about an unmarked porcelain black doll with a large head that he had bought for $3,400. He kept it in a drawer for three years and finally decided to sell it. He asked a friend – who was more an expert than him – to unload it during another convention. He went back to her booth 15 minutes later, he said, and the doll had been sold – for $6,400.
Below are some dolls that were for sale at the convention, their makers and some of their prices.
Meanwhile, here are the other blog posts in the series:
Barbara Whiteman and the Philadelphia Doll Museum
Memories of a special doll and a love for baby dolls
My chance meeting of a black doll collector
If you collect black dolls or know someone who does, please let me know. I’d love to write about them and their collection. If you have any doll memories, please share those, too.
- Dewees Cochran’s Lindy Lou (American) doll.
