# 3151 - 1997 32c Classic American Dolls

US #3151
1997 Classic American Dolls

• The first time photographs were used instead of paintings or drawings for a large US set with different stamp designs.
• Pictures 15 different American dolls that made their mark on popular culture over the years

Stamp Category:  Commemorative
Value:  32¢, First Class Mail Rate
First Day of Issue:  July 28, 1997
First Day City:  Anaheim, California
Quantity Issued:  105,000,000
Printed by:  Printed for Ashton Potter (USA) Ltd. by Sterling Sommer of Tonawanda, New York
Printing Method:  Offset
Format:  Panes of 15 (Vertical, 5 across, 3 down)
Perforations:  10.9 by 11.1
Tagging:  Large tagging block over all 20 stamps, covering the stamps to the edges

Why the stamp was issued:  The USPS said the stamps were to commemorate American dolls that “reflect the tradition, heritage, culture, and artistic style from various geographical regions of this country.”

About the stamp design:  Designs picture photographs by Sally Andersen-Bruce.  Each doll or pair of dolls is shown in front of a blue paper background, tying the stamp designs together.

Special design details:  The names of each doll are printed in small type below the bottom frameline of each stamp, across from the 1997 year date.  They’re also listed in the horizontal selvage at the bottom of the pane.

First Day City:  The First Day of Issue Ceremony was held during the annual membership meeting of the United Federation of Doll Clubs at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers Hotel in Anaheim, California.

History the stamp represents:

“Alabama Baby” & Martha Chase
Advertised as “The Alabama Indestructible Doll,” the Alabama Baby, as it came to be called, had its beginnings when Ella Smith repaired a bisque doll for a neighbor’s child and realized the need for a doll that was unbreakable.  Eventually, a factory worker claimed a delivery truck ran over one of her cloth dolls and never even cracked the paint.

Made with soft cloth bodies, the dolls had stiffened fabric heads with molded and painted features.  Early Alabama Babies were originally marked on the stomach with the firm’s name and a date or number.  And since they were stuffed from the top of their heads, the dolls can be easily distinguished by their stitched circular crowns.  Ella Smith’s dolls were not only durable, but also extremely popular.  In one year alone, her small factory in Roanoke, Alabama, reportedly produced as many as 8,000 dolls.  Not content with her initial success, she continually sought to improve her dolls, applying for five patents starting in 1905.

Black Alabama Babies, such as the one shown on this stamp, are extremely rare and valuable.  Black models of dolls were occasionally produced for black children, but white children also owned and loved the dolls.  The little boy on the front poses for a 1920s photograph with his black composition doll.

“The Columbian Doll”
Designed by Emma Adams and outfitted by her sister Marietta Adams Ruttan, the Columbian dolls were rather simple cloth figures with charming hand-painted features.  Dressed in cotton dresses, bonnets, or caps, and hand-sewn kidskin slippers or booties, the dolls were subsequently named for the Columbian Exposition – the Chicago World’s Fair – where they were first exhibited in 1893.

Until her death in 1900, Emma Adams painted each doll’s face with considerable finesse.  After she passed away, the work was done by less skillful commercial artists, but even so, all Columbian dolls are very much in demand.  First produced in 1891, the dolls continued to be made until 1910.

In 1902, one of the dolls, named “Miss Columbia,” traveled around the world as an ambassador of goodwill to benefit children’s charities.  Following her trip, she was presented to President William Howard Taft, and now resides in the Wenham Museum in Massachusetts.

The Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art in Bellevue, Washington owns a collection of cloth doll parts and tools used to assemble the Columbian dolls.

Johnny Gruelle’s “Raggedy Ann”
Without a doubt, Raggedy Ann is one of the most beloved dolls of all time.  A simple cloth doll with bright eyes and smiling mouth, she is impossible not to hug – and perhaps this accounts for the reason sales of the dolls have been astronomical.

The original Raggedy Ann was patented by Johnny Gruelle, a political cartoonist, in 1915.  According to stories, Gruelle took a long-forgotten doll, which he found in his mother’s attic, painted a new face over the faded one, and gave the doll to his daughter Marcella.  Inspired by his daughter’s devotion to the doll, he acquired a patent to create Raggedy Ann (whose name was formed from two popular characters of the day – The Raggedy Man and Little Orphan Annie) commercially.

Originally, the dolls were made in the corner of a friend’s shirt factor by Gruelle’s family.  In 1918, he began a series of stories about Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy’s adventures.  So popular were the stories that demand skyrocketed, and before long the dolls were being mass-produced.

In 1978, one of the original Raggedy Ann dolls made a notable trip to Indianapolis, Gruelle’s birthplace, where she received a key to the city from the mayor.

Martha Chase
Inspired by a beloved Izannah Walker doll she had as a child, Martha Jenks Chase devised a complicated method for manufacturing washable cloth dolls which were virtually unbreakable.  The heads were made by stretching a stockinet over a mask with raised features, stiffening the material with glue or paste, and then painting the features with oils.  As a final step, a waterproof coating was applied.

Both boy and girl dolls had molded, painted hair and features.  Chase dolls produced during the firm’s early years have sateen torsos, while dolls made later have a rough stockinet body coated with the waterproof finish.  The distinctive Chase trademark can be found on the upper leg or under the arm.

From 1890 until 1925, the year of Ms. Chase’s death, the dolls were made by hand in a small factor, called The Doll House, behind her home in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.  Durable and lovable, the dolls became known around the world, and were shipped to such countries as Sweden, India, China, and Australia.

One such example of a Martha Chase doll was the “Hospital Doll.”  Life-sized and weighted like a real baby, the doll was often used by hospitals to teach new mothers how to care for their newborn infants.

“American Child”
Created by Dewees Cochran, the American Child dolls were, and still are, subtly distinctive from other dolls.  A painter and sculptor, Ella Dewees Cochran began crafting dolls after the 1929 stock market crash – a time when people were investing in neither paintings nor sculpture.  Her first dolls, dubbed “Topsy” and “Turvey,” were long-legged black cloth characters which she sold to Saks Fifth Avenue and FAO Schwarz for Christmas.  Given the advice that “whimsy was out and realism was in,” she developer her portrait dolls.

Designed to be played with as well as treasured by collectors, her dolls were immediately popular.  In 1936, Cochran signed a contract with Effanbee to make the American Children series, based on six basic types of faces in American children.  The dolls were made of a wood pulp and glue called “composition.”  She also introduced her own Look-Alike line of dolls (made of a latex material) – designed to look like their owners.

The dolls brought Cochran fame.  Her innovative methods caused her to be recognized in national newspapers and magazines, as well as on radio programs.  In 1939, she appeared on the cover of Life magazine.  Experimenting with and refining her techniques, she continued creating her dolls until 1980.

“Baby Coos”
Featured at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851, early baby dolls had cloth bodies that contained a squeak box to mimic crying.  As technology changed the world in the years that followed, toymakers were eager to use these new inventions.  Much time and effort went into developing unique “gimmicks,” that would catch the fancy of young consumers.

Developed in 1948 by the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company, Baby Coos was a glorified version of earlier baby dolls.  Life-sized, it had a stuffed “magic skin” body (a special latex which felt like real skin), jointed arms, and sleep eyes.  Inside the doll’s body, a reed-like arrangement, much like that found on a clarinet, allowed it to “sob” if patted too hard, “cry” when spanked, “squeal” when pinched, and “coo” when hugged.

A similar classic “look” characterizes baby dolls of this era, causing confusion for collectors and researchers alike.  In fact, some collectors believe the doll on the 1997 postage stamp is actually “Plassie,” a similar Ideal doll.  The patent number in the mark of the stamp doll is the same one which identifies “Plassie.”

Plains Indian
Victor Hugo, the 19^th-century French writer, once remarked, “In the same way birds make a nest of anyting, children make a doll of no matter what.”  Such is true of the dolls crafted by the early Native American tribes.  The first dolls made by the Sioux and other Plains Indians began as simple shapes cut from rawhide and stuffed with buffalo fur.

The doll’s dress was made from tanned deerskin and decorated with glass beads to resemble those worn by that tribe.  Occasionally, a child might attach some of her own long hair to the doll.  Through time, as traded goods such as beads, fabric, and other sewing notions became available, the dolls grew more elaborate.  Sewn with painstaking detail, these playthings also helped a young girl learn how to make household objects.  During the late 1800s, Plains Indians began making the beaded buckskin dolls to sell to tourists.  Usually purchased as toys for non-Indian children, these souvenirs eventually became collector’s items.

Izannah Walker
Possibly made as early as 1855, Izannah Walker’s cloth dolls are considered by many to be the first notable American dolls.  Resembling the primitive folk art portraits of 19^th-century children, the simple beauty of her dolls has endeared them to collectors, and has caused their value to rise dramatically.

Ms. Walker first registered a patent for her dolls in 1873.  According to family tradition, she struggled to perfect her work, wrestling with the problem of how to apply a resistant surface to the stockinet heads, arms, and legs that wouldn’t crack and peel.  In relating the story, her grandniece said, “With this problem on her mind, Aunt Izannah suddenly sat up in bed one night to hear a voice say, ‘use paste.’”

Her complicated process involved layering and pressing cloth treated with paste in a two-part mold.  The two halves were then stuffed, sewed, and glued together around a central wooden dowel.  Hands and feet, with individually sewn fingers and toes were added, and the completed doll was painted with oils.

Hand painted, each doll had its own unique character; however, their distinctive features gave them a strikingly similar look.

“Babyland Rag”
E.I. Horsman Co. began manufacturing its Baby Land Rag Dolls as early as 1893.  Simple in design, the earliest dolls had hand-painted  faces and removable clothing.  Starting in 1907, the dolls were produced with lithographed “life Like” faces – a result of technological advances in the printing industry.  However, the hand-painted dolls were created simultaneously until 1912.

By 1908, the line included thirty-four models with lithographed features which were sold under names such as Baby Land Rag, Baby Land Fancy, and Baby Land Beauty.  Character dolls, such as Buster Brown, Red Riding Hood, and Dinah (like the one pictured on the stamp), were also produced.  Advertised by well-known stores such as R.H. Macy and Gimbel Bros., the popular dolls were available in four sizes ranging from 12” to 30”, and cost from 24¢ to $4.51.  According to the manufacturer, their faces could all be safely washed with soap and water.  Produced until 1928, the name was changed to the more familiar spelling, Babyland Rag, in 1920.

“Scootles”
In l909, American illustrator Rose O’Neill published a drawing of a character with large round eyes, a pug nose, and a curved line mouth.  Modeled after her baby brother, she named the impish character “Kewpie” – short for cupid.  By 1913, George Borgfeldt & Company had begun producing Kewpie dolls.  Adorable and appealing, the dolls were immensely popular, and millions of Kewpies were made of a variety of materials.

Another Rose O’Neill creation, Scootles first appeared as a drawing in the Ladies Home Journal in April 1925.  Like its cousin Kewpie, Scootles had an upturned nose, a closed smiling mouth, and round eyes, which glanced mischievously sideways.  Rather than the trademark blond tuft of hair though, Scootles sported blond curls.  Hoping to recapture the popularity of the Kewpie, George Borgfeldt & Company secured rights to produce a Scootles doll, which was designed by Joseph Kallus (who also did the model for the Kewpie doll).  Although strikingly similar, Scootles never reached the same degree of popularity as Kewpies.

Ludwig Greiner
Listed as a “Toy Man” as early as 1840 in a Philadelphia directory, German-born Ludwig Greiner received the first-known American doll patent for manufacturing his paper-mâché – a substance referred to as “composition.”  The original formula called for Spanish whiting (a gesso-like substance), white paper, rye flour, and glue.  This was then pressed into a mold and the finished head was painted.

In his patent application, Greiner stated that the finished dolls’ heads were “painted with oiled paint so that children may not suck off the paint.”  And although he advertised his product as “Greiner Everlasting Doll Heads,” the paint on the noses and chins frequently wore off from washing and handling.  Even so, Greiner dolls are in great demand today.

Strongly influenced by the German china-head figures, Greiner’s dolls featured solemn faces and wavy molded hair.  Early dolls have black hair; many made after 1872 are blond.  Displayed on the front are several other period dolls from the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art, whose collection also includes an 1858 Greiner.

“Betsy McCall”
Betsy McCall debuted on the cover of McCall’s Magazine in May of 1951.  She was born as a paper doll with cut-out clothes.  Initially, Betsy advertised patterns for McCall’s and modeled children’s clothing designs from independent companies.  Her popularity exceeded her original purpose and Betsy McCall became a household name.

From her introduction as a paper doll, through present day, Betsy McCall has graced the pages of McCall’s Magazine.  Mothers and daughters shared the fun of reading the adventures of Betsy and her family – cousins Barbara, Linda, Sandy, and her dog Nosey – and cutting out their paper clothes.  Betsy McCall’s life paralleled the lives of the children she appealed to – attending school for the first time, experiencing the excitement of Christmas, hosting a tea party.

In September of 1952, Betsy jumped from the pages of the magazine into the hands of her loyal fans as a 14” doll manufactured by Ideal Toy Company.  For the next 35 years, various doll manufacturers produced many versions of the Betsy McCall doll.  In 1996, Robert Tonner, an award-winning doll artist, reintroduced Betsy into the market as a high-quality vinyl doll made especially for collectors.

“Skippy”
A popular character, Skippy originated with the comic strip by Percy Crosby.  Each week, millions of children and parents followed his antics and adventures in leading newspapers and magazines throughout the country.  In 1928, Effanbee secured the exclusive rights to produce a doll based on the delightful character.  The following year an advertisement appeared in Playthings for “…The Famous Mischievous Skippy.”  When the movie “Skippy,” starring Jackie Cooper, was introduced in 1931, the doll gained even more popularity.  During World War II, even the toy industry was affected, and Skippy appeared in various military uniforms in an effort to rouse support from the youngest of patriots.

Raggy Doodle was another WWII-era doll.  Dedicated to the Armed Forces of the United States, he was designed not only to entertain, but also “…to present war-time blackouts and general safety precautions in such a manner as to remove the more terrifying elements of these subjects from the minds of little children.”  It was also hoped that this delightful doll would teach the youngest Americans to “look up to their gallant armed defenders with confidence, with pride, and with love.”

“Maggie Mix-up”
During the 1950s, children fell in love with the child fashion doll.  Small – typically seven and a half inches tall, and made of a new material – plastic, the dolls were created by companies including Madame Alexander and Vogue.  Vogue’s “Ginny,” was like Alexander’s “Maggie Mix-up,” one of the most popular play dolls.

The new dolls were virtually indestructible, portable, affordable, and fully accessorized.  From ballgowns to school dresses with jewelry, shoes, hats, and purses to match – they had it all.  Many examples survive decades later, due to the excellent craftsmanship of this golden age of American doll making.  They evoke a multitude of fond childhood memories as dear and silent confidantes who never told a secret, got angry, or betrayed the friendship of their little owners.

Maggie Mix-up was one of the line of “Alexanderkins” made by Madame Alexander, a prominent American doll maker.  Made only in 1960 and 1961, she is somewhat difficult for collectors to find.  With sweet, freckled little girl features, she was a classic American doll from the era.

Albert Schoenhut
In 1911, Albert Schoenhut, a German-born Philadelphia toymaker, patented his “All-Wood Perfection Art Doll.”  Made entirely of wood and fully jointed with steel springs, the dolls could hold virtually any lifelike pose.  In 1919, he introduced the “walkable” doll which featured legs that swung from the hip in a walking motion.  A. Schoenhut & Company was also one of the many companies to produce interchangeable heads and bodies – a practice which greatly increased the variety of its dolls.

Often promoted for their realism, Schoenhut’s dolls were well-known for their expressive features.  In fact, one advertisement claimed tha thte doll’s head was “artistically modeled in real character style, more natural and lifelike than anything ever attempted.”  Most of the dolls represented babies or children, and were commonly produced with Germanic features which reflected the heritage of their maker.

The photo on the front features a fully dressed Schoenhut girl along with a cross section sample which was generally displayed in stores or used by traveling salesmen.  The carved bonnet doll featured on the stamp is one of the earliest Schoenhut dolls and is much rarer than other models.