This little wooden doll is wearing a lovely long dress trimmed in ribbons and lace. But just have a look at the bottom of the dress. Do you see how that spotted burgundy fabric on the underside of the dress is a different fabric from the outer skirting of the dress?

This is a perfect example of how lining a doll’s garment gives it longevity!

Today’s blog post is part of a history challenge! Click here to read about the challenge and download the free PDF to join the history challenge.

As many of you have pointed out, I often line my doll clothes, and my reasoning behind this is all about the durability of a lined garment.

But how old is the lovely wooden lady, which by the way, is  yet another doll in the wonderful collection at the DAR Museum in Washington DC? How old did you guess she was?

The DAR Museum dates her as follows: “Early 19th century” (1). It also states that she was likely made in England and imported to the United States.

However, if you look closely at the tiny dots that have been painted over her eyes as eyebrows, I think we can date her to a much more accurate date of 1800 to 1820. How did I come up with that?

I cross-referenced English wooden doll makers of the 19th century and found these lovely ladies:

I don’t know if you can tell, but it’s possible to zoom in a bit on the PDF about these dolls, and I believe I can see similar little dots forming the eyebrows above these dolls’ eyes. So I’m going to hypothesize that it’s likely these dolls (which are wearing Cree traditional dress) were — at least in their original wooden jointed body form — made by the same doll manufacturer that created our little wooden early American doll.

The PDF is full of interesting facts about the two Cree dolls. It states: “Both of the dolls are typical 18th century English wooden jointed dolls, circa 1790 to 1820. The dolls were made on a lathe, the wood was covered with gesso and painted and a human hair wig was nailed onto the head. The hands with fingers carved like a fork, the glass eyes and the tiny dots painted around the eyes to represent eyelashes are typical of dolls made in this period” (2). Let’s have another look at our early American doll from the DAR Museum and compare…

She also has the little dots representative of eyebrows or lashes and what looks like human hair. In fact, the DAR Museum article which accompanies her says the following about her: “Wooden doll with painted body, porcelain or glass blue eyes, stuffed cloth arms and legs, jointed wooden upper legs.” It’s possible this doll also came with wooden arms and hands originally but when the doll’s dress was made, they may have replaced the arms and hands with cloth ones.

So for our history challenge, I’m going to more specifically date her between 1790 and 1820, to match the date given by the Southwark Heritage Center for very similar dolls, imported from England to America by the Hudson’s Bay Company.

In fact, very detailed records seem to have been found to support this hypothesis: “Orders of wooden dolls from a toy supplier in London appear in the Hudson Bay Company’s records, along with orders of sewing materials, silk sewing threads, scissors and ribbons which could be used to dress dolls. The carefully kept records help to pinpoint the period 1800- 1820 as the time when the dolls would have been brought to Canada…”

Did you read that? Sewing supplies were ordered too! When I read that in the PDF provided by the Southwark Heritage Center, I was sold on this date of 1790 to 1820. And if you’re curious, there’s a whole story around the Southwark dolls too! Be sure to visit their website, see the dolls in their bold colors, and read the PDF!

Some of 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.

The Southwark Heritage Centre provided images of the Cree dolls. Their address is Southwark Heritage Centre and Walworth Library, 147 Walworth Road, London SE17 1FZ.

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, over the summer, I sewed 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. Click on the links provided to visit the museum websites for yourself, to see a higher-resolution image and to learn more details about each of the dolls featured.

1. Artist unknown. “Doll.” [Medium: wood]. Early 19th Century. DAR Museum, Washington DC, Accessed 28 September 2024. Associated image is in the public domain.
2. Artist unknown. “Doll.” [Medium: leather, wood]. 1800 to 1820. Southwark Heritage Centre, London, England, Accessed 28 Sept. 2024. Associated image is used with permission.
3. “Become a Member.” National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR), 24 July 2024. Web. 2024.