Have you given a guess yet, as to the age of this precious little doll? That’s part of the history challenge that I issued at the start of this month. Click here to read about the challenge and to download the free PDF to join my doll history challenge.

In what year do you guess this doll was “born” into the world? And who do you suppose made her?

Well, let’s have a closer look at her sweet little face. It’s unusual how these features were made, but the facial features offer a clue into who made this doll and when she was made…

As you can see, her face is partly painted on (eyebrows, cheeks) and partly beaded onto buckskin. According to the DAR Museum website, where she is housed, this Native American doll was alleged “by donor to have been made by the Sioux Indian girls at the Baptist Mission, Lodge Grass, Montana in the early 1900s and given to their missionary, Miss Augusta Curtis” [1]. Well, that gives us a pretty good estimate of this doll’s birthday.

The statement that accompanies this doll on the DAR Museum website makes it sound like not one, but many girls helped to create this doll, and that these girls were of Sioux Tribal heritage. But the word “alleged” (which is in the original DAR Museum statement) makes me wonder if the donor of this doll was a reliable source.

I looked up “Baptist Mission, Lodge Grass, Montana” on Google and found this article, which claims that primarily members of the Crow Nation were educated there. “In the early 1900s, the Crow people were adapting to reservation life, including the federal educational mandates that often meant Indian children attended faraway boarding schools. To keep their children at home, Lodge Grass–area tribal leaders invited the American Baptist Home Missionary Society (ABHMS) to start a day school at Lodge Grass…. Tribal members [attended] the dedication of the school built in 1904 as a result of their request.” So something is not quite right with the story behind this beautiful doll.

First, the doll would likely have been made after the school was built in 1904. Secondly, the Sioux people and the Crows are two different tribes. Could the donor of this doll have been misinformed about who made it and when? Perhaps.

In that article, the word “sewing” appears a whopping 9 times because it seems to have been a big part of the education going on at the Lodge Grass Mission and school. As part of a new federal mandate, the Office of Indian Affairs required the Baptist missionaries to include in the curriculum, “a heavy emphasis on industrial education (agriculture, blacksmithing, and carpentry for boys; sewing, cooking, and housekeeping for girls).” In fact, later in the article, it says that a whole weekday was dedicated to sewing.

Therefore, it does seem quite possible, that this doll was, in fact, made at Lodge Grass, but not by Sioux people, but more likely by members of the Crow Nation. No wonder the folks at the DAR Museum used the word “alleged” in their careful description of this doll.

It should be noted, though, that the dress this little doll wears, with its array of seashells as bead decorations, does look like some of the dresses that Sioux women wore. But Crow women also wore dresses with similar embellishments. The story behind the doll seems to unravel even more of a mystery, the more I delve into it.

I’m seriously thinking about writing to someone at the Montana Historical Society, the Crow Nation, or the Fort Peck Tribes (Sioux Nation, Montana), to see if I can learn more about this doll and its history. I may have to do a “Part 2” on the mystery behind this precious Native American doll with a sweet little beaded face. I’m certain she was made by a Native American person or persons, but where she was made and by whom remains more mysterious than ever!

If you are familiar with the plains Indian nations, their traditional dresses, and/or the history of Lodge Grass and it’s Baptist Mission, please feel free to add comments about what you do know. For everyone else, please leave your thoughts in the comments section.

And please read through the article, “Changing Lives,” where I got some of my key information for this blog post. The photos in that article are fascinating, casting a light on what was happening at the Lodge Grass Mission, including facts about sewing circles and photos of Native women sewing.

Be sure to look at the photo on page 14. The little girl sitting directly in front of the organ is holding some sort of object. Could it be a doll? What are your thoughts?

Maybe I missed something when I read through the article. Maybe you can help me find bits and pieces that help us re-discover the history behind today’s beautiful Native American doll.

Today’s images and much of the information provided come from the DAR Museum online. Please click on the links provided to learn more about the DAR Museum. The address of the museum is 1776 D Street NW Washington, DC 20006, so if you plan to visit our nation’s capital, you might think about going to see the DAR Museum in person.

I’m a museum liaison for my local (Twin Falls, Idaho) chapter of the DAR, which means that I sometimes do museum research for our local club.

The letters, DAR, stand for Daughters of the American Revolution. What does this mean? It means I have an ancestor who was in the American Revolutionary War. I’m very proud of the fact that my ancestor served in the Revolution for American Independence from Great Britain, and as such, helped establish the United States of America as an independent nation.

The DAR is a club that offers its members an opportunity to serve our nation by doing organized volunteer work. In particular, this year I have been sewing drawstring bags for a public school to use as storage in one of the teachers’ classrooms. Last year I made doll clothes to give as Christmas presents to a.) the families of United States military service members and b.) a homeless shelter in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Although the doll clothes I made for these purposes was featured in some of my articles here on ChellyWood.com, the volunteer work I do for the DAR is separate from the work I do to maintain this website. They are not affiliated with one another in any way. ChellyWood LLC is recognized by the state of Idaho as a for-profit business, whereas the DAR is a nonprofit organization.

Some members of the DAR serve as volunteers at local voting locations, soup kitchens, food banks and so much more. If you’d like to contact your local DAR to request volunteers to act in service capacities in your neighborhood, or if you’d like to learn whether or not you could qualify to join the DAR (you must do genealogy research to find out whether or not you are a descendent of a person who served in the American Revolutionary War), feel free to contact members of the Daughters of the American Revolution on their website, by using one of the links I’ve provided here.

REFERENCES:

Please note: images were used, with permission, and they come from the DAR Museum website. Click on the link provided to visit the DAR Museum website for yourself, to see a higher-resolution image and to learn more details about each of the dolls featured.

1. Artist unknown. “Doll.” [Medium: leather, cotton, shell, glass]. 1900. DAR Museum, Washington DC, Accessed 10 August 2024. Associated image is in the public domain.
2. Matthews, Becky (article author). “Changing Lives.” [Medium: Teracotta]. 2011. Montana Women’s History. MontanaWomensHistory.org. 2011 Web. Accessed 10 August 2024. https://montanawomenshistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Matthews-Becky-Chaging-Lives.pdf