Black cloth dolls are in demand

By JANET McCONNAUGHEY

Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS

Among porcelain antique dolls, whimsical Kewpies, Barbie dolls and even paper dolls, cloth dolls in the image of African-Americans drew special attention among more than 1,200 collectors in New Orleans for the annual convention of the United Federation of Doll Clubs.

The oldest of the black dolls on display was sewn about 1850, said curator Joyce Stamps of Framingham, Mass., who put together the exhibit at the federation’s request.

Because cloth is fragile, most surviving black cloth dolls date from about 1870 — during Reconstruction — and on. But records indicate hundreds were sold at bazaars before the Civil War to raise money for the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, textile historian Roben Campbell said.

Interest in black cloth dolls from the Victorian era and early 20th century has grown in the past decade, she said.

That’s because of a 2007 exhibit of dolls made from 1870 to 1930, from the personal collection of antiques dealer Pat Hatch of Harvard, Mass., Stamps said. Campbell curated that exhibit, and Stamps said she and other members of the Black/Gold Doll Club of New England helped with it.

“That was kind of the jumping-off point,” she said. Stamps’ exhibit at the convention ranged from antiques to contemporary dolls owned by Hatch, herself, and a half-dozen other collectors.

Some were topsy-turvy dolls dating from the turn of the last century. They have no legs but two heads, one white and one black; a two-sided skirt flips to show one or the other.

The story is that they were made by black women working for white families, and which head was shown would depend on the race of any adults in the room, said Stamps, who is African-American.

“The children, be they black or white, playing with them ... it was like they really weren’t supposed to be playing with each other,” she said. She created one of seven special exhibits at the convention last week.

Others included dolls depicting Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II from childhood to her diamond jubilee, as well as her great- grandmother Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee; the artwork of Susan Beatrice Pearse, who often painted little girls playing with dolls; Louisiana history in dolls; and friendship dolls sent from Japan to the United States in 1927.