History of Dolls: What Dolls Mean to Us

If a child doesn't have a doll, he/she will make one. In fact, dolls are quite possibly the first plaything invented in the very early stages of man's pre-history. The most primitive arrangement of sticks tied together with grass fibers could become an imaginary playmate to allow a child to feel a little less alone in a hostile environment. And still can.

An early measure of wealth or status among small children is how many dolls one has or how fine one's best - or only - doll is. I remember four of the dolls in the photo below more vividly than I do my first serious boy friend. The fact that my mother made them for me proved beyond any question that I was loved. Crocheting that Humpty Dumpty took some serious time. (He was maroon and cream.)

Playing with a doll is a lot more serious business than most adults realize or care to remember. You can use a doll to replay something that happened to you, whether it's something you need to resolve or something so wonderful you want to relive it. Or you can play out an imaginary future to see how it feels. Much doll playing is based on a child's observation of adult behavior and serves as rehearsal for grownup activities. Perhaps best of all, you can absolutely trust a doll to keep your deepest secrets.

We cannot entirely dismiss dolls as mere playthings, to be supplanted by the next must-have toy advertised on television. My Oxford University Press Dictionary defines doll as, "a small model of a human figure, used as a child's toy." A more inclusive definition would drop the second phrase. Small models of a human figure have served other uses throughout history. Among the earliest known artifacts of human life, now called fertility amulets, were small female figures with exaggerated child-bearing and rearing aspects. Kachina dolls www.historykachinadoll.comare well-known expressions of the doll's more recent spiritual functions.

In cultures where even a physician may not touch or look upon the body of a woman not his own wife, a woman had to point to where she hurt on a little figurine. Practitioners of the black arts used dolls for quite an opposite effect. For over 500 years, fashion dolls dressed in exact replicas of the latest fashions were sent abroad from France so that fashionable ladies elsewhere could keep up. American ladies practically waited on the docks for the arrival of such dolls. Puppets, marionettes, mannequins, and crash dummies are all technically dolls.

Dolls can even be art objects. Thousands of very serious doll artists in every country around the globe hand craft dolls in a staggering variety of media and styles and sizes. The nearest thing to a common denominator is that all art dolls are meant for display, not to be played with. Art dolls are usually "one of a kind" (OOAK) or made in small limited editions, just like their more respectable counterpart, sculpture. When sculptors inlay jewels and other objects or paint their figures, they tread dangerously close to art doll territory.

Like anything else, both art dolls and play dolls are avidly treasured by adult collectors. Magazines and vendors, clubs and conventions, have sprung up to service the phenomenon. Collectors usually specialize in a one classification like OOAK art dolls or antique bisque dolls or nineteenth century slave dolls. Many collect one particular brand like Ashton Drake or Barbie.

Still, sometimes a doll is just a doll.

The author is president of the Texas Association of Original Doll Artists, with links to member artists' pages and a member of the Dollmakers' Internet Community.

Suggested terms to Google for more information about dolls:
art doll magazines
doll history
doll therapy