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A History of Dolls and Teddy
Bears |
- Dolls have been a part of
humankind since prehistoric times. Used to depict
religious figures or used as playthings, early dolls
were probably made from primitive materials such as
clay, fur, or wood. No dolls have survived from
prehistoric times, although a fragment of an alabaster
doll with movable arms from the Babylonian period was
recovered.
Dolls constructed of flat pieces of
wood, painted with various designs and with "hair"
made of strings of clay or wooden beads, have often
been found in Egyptian graves dating back to 2000 BC.
Egyptian tombs of wealthy families have included
pottery dolls. Dolls placed in these graves leads some
to believe that they were cherished possessions.
Dolls were also buried in Greek and Roman
children's graves. Girls from Greece and Rome
dedicated their wooden dolls to goddesses after they
were too "grown-up" to play with dolls.
Most
ancient dolls that were found in children's tombs were
very simple creations, often made from such materials
as clay, rags, wood, or bone. Some of the more unique
dolls were made with ivory or wax. The main goal was
to make the doll as "lifelike" as possible. That ideal
lead to the creation of dolls with movable limbs and
removable garments, dating back to 600 B.C.
Following the era of the ancient dolls, Europe
became a major hub for doll production. These dolls
were primarily made of wood. Primitive wooden stump
dolls from 16th and 17th century England number less
than 30 today. The Grodnertal area of Germany produced
many peg wooden dolls, a type of doll that has very
simple peg joints and resembles a clothespin.
An
alternative to wood was developed in the 1800s.
Composition is a collective term for mixtures of
pulped wood or paper that were used to make doll heads
and bodies. These mixtures were molded under pressure,
creating a durable doll that could be mass produced.
Manufacturers closely guarded the recipes for their
mixtures, sometimes using strange ingredients like ash
or eggshells. Papier-mâché, a type of composition,
was one of the most popular mixtures.
In addition
to wooden dolls, wax dolls were popular in the 17th
and 18th centuries. Munich was a major manufacturing
center for wax dolls, but some of the most distinctive
wax dolls were created in England between 1850 and
1930. Wax modelers would model a doll head in wax or
clay, and then use plaster to create a mold from the
head. Then they would pour melted wax into the cast.
The wax for the head would be very thin, no more than
3 mm. One of the first dolls that portrayed a baby was
made in England from wax at the beginning of the 19th
century.
Porcelain became popular at the beginning
of the 19th century. Porcelain is made by firing
special clays in a kiln at more than 2372 degrees
Fahrenheit. Only a few clays can withstand firing at
such high temperatures. Porcelain is used generically
to refer to both china and bisque dolls. China is
glazed, whereas bisque is unglazed. Germany, France,
and Denmark started creating china heads for dolls in
the 1840s. China heads were replaced by heads made of
bisque in the 1860s. Bisque, which is fired twice with
color added to it after the first firing, looked more
like skin than china did.
The French "bebe" was
popular in the 1880s, and it has become a highly
sought after doll today. The bebe, first made in the
1850s, was unique from its predecessors because it
depicted a younger girl. Until then, most dolls were
representations of adults. Although the French dolls
were unrivaled in their artistry, German bisque dolls
became quite popular because they were not as
expensive. Kammer & Reinhardt introduced a bisque
character doll in the 1900s, starting a trend of
creating realistic dolls.
For centuries, rag dolls
were made by mothers for their children. Rag dolls
refer generically to dolls made of any fabric. Cloth
dolls refer to a subset of rag dolls made of linen or
cotton. Commercially produced rag dolls were first
introduced in the 1850s by English and American
manufacturers. Although not as sophisticated as dolls
made from other materials, rag dolls were well-loved,
often as a child's first toy.
Doll making did not
become an industry in the United States until after
the Civil War in the 1860s. Doll production was
concentrated in New England, with dolls made from a
variety of materials such as leather, rubber,
papier-mâché, and cloth. Celluloid was developed in
New Jersey in the late 1860s and was used to
manufacture dolls until the mid-1950s. German, French,
American, and Japanese factories churned out cheaply
produced celluloid dolls in mass quantities. However,
celluloid fell out of favor because of its extreme
flammability and propensity to fade in bright light.
After World War II, doll makers experimented with
plastics. Hard plastic dolls were manufactured in the
1940s. They resembled composition dolls, but they were
much more durable. Other materials used in doll
manufacturing included rubber, foam rubber, and vinyl in the
1950s and 1960s. Vinyl changed doll making,
allowing doll makers to root hair into the
head, rather than using wigs or painting the
hair. Although most dolls are now mass-manufactured using these
modern materials, many modern doll makers are using
the traditional materials of the past to make collectible
dolls.
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