Doll Show Haul!

  Whoo Hoo! Sunday was doll show day! I almost didn't go because our one dependable vehicle situation meant that I would have to wait until time to take Ken to work at 10Am, to drive the nearly two hours to arrive about 12, at  a doll show that opened at 10,and had already let Early Birders in at 9. (I hate the idea of Early Birds. It's not fair and it's stupid.) It hardly seemed worth it. I was fuming, because it's been so long since I was able to go to a doll show,and this one was just going to slip through my fingers. In the end I decided to go anyway,because otherwise I was just going to simmer all day and be in a foul mood when Ken got home, feeling I'd been short changed.
  So I went. The last doll show I went to had lots of beautiful stuff,but almost NOTHING I could afford. I picked up a few really cheap fixer uppers,and a beautiful bargain Sample Skipper. But this doll show had all kinds of affordable goodies that were.amazingly,still there at noon and even later,since I was still finding things at 2:15,when I left.
  It wasn't a huge show,but there were all kinds of interesting things. 

Like these interesting,but expensive kids.

There were many beautiful antique dolls.

These Effanbee Patsy or Patsy type dolls.

This 'Grumpy' doll and his more pleasant friend.

This beautiful Shirley Temple,who wasn't a bad price,but was still out of my range. She was one of the first things I came across.

This was Shirley's neighbour.

This lovely and expensive lady and her cute,and more affordable friend.

These cute Ginnys.

But,yuck! These cats were made of real hair!

There were also a good amount of vintage Barbies, a Tammy or two,a few Penny Brite dolls,Crissy and Family,and a Tiny Chatty Brother,(You can see my childhood Tiny Chatty Brother HERE.), who was in a case and only $15! I even spotted two or three Deluxe Reading Dream Kitchens in box. (You can see mine HERE.) I considered this bendy Furga Vittoria at only $15.

I also was fond of this very affordable guy. The seller offered him to me for $24.

The seller had him marked as a 1920's doll by Madam Hendren. I didn't think he looked very 1920's. She also said she thought these were his original clothes, but looking on the internet now I see that the clothes belong to Madam Hendren's Sonny/Sunny Boy,but this guy isn't him.
  I liked this girl.
 

But I still had half the room to go,so I was reserving my funds until I had seen more. I really loved these Baps dolls,especially the little girl.

But the kids were $28 each. Just as well. It would have been a shame to break up the family!

You can see my only Baps doll,which was a rescue at the last doll show I went to,HERE.
This girl was nice, but what I really liked was her coat!

There was this great looking Alice marionette.

I was disappointed she was only plastic though,and too expensive for me.
  I made a note to maybe go back for this amazing Nora Wellings girl with glass eyes.

She was an amazing $15,but I was still trying not to spend too much money. I made note of this girl too. She was $10.

 I liked these HEbee SHEbee dolls,and I had been wanting one, but they were about $60.

I considered this doll. She was slightly smaller than a Pepper or Penny Brite,but could definitely live in their world.

In the end most of the dolls I bought were $1,$2,or $5. The most expensive were $18 and $10. Here's the haul.

The first thing I bought was this girl.

She was from the same booth as the Shirley I showed you above.

She was $5! She doesn't have any cracks on her head. She has a little damage to her fingers,but I can live with that. Her clothes are original,except her socks, and possibly her shoes. They are old though. I'm going to wash her dress and bonnet.She has a compo head/chest plate and arms, and her body and legs are stuffed cloth.
   I also went back for this girl.
 

She has a pressed cloth face like a boudoir doll,a stuffed cloth body, and ceramic arms and legs.Her hair needs some touch up. I'm not sure I can fix it,but she's pretty. I got her for $5,not 10. If she had been 10 I would have wavered more between her and the Nora Wellings,which I did not get. She's 'the one that got away',and I am now wishing I had bought her! I was trying to return home with some money though,and she would have pretty much cleaned me out.
  These 'twins' were from the same lady who had the Nora Wellings.

They're hard plastic and were only a dollar apiece. I couldn't break them up. I think they'll make for nice pictures in the Spring. So the prices on some things were pretty good. The seller was clearing out a lot of stuff before moving. That's why the twins were $1 each and the Nora Wellings was so cheap. She had a basket full of dolls for $2 each. I got three of the $2 dolls. One was this Polish artist doll.

I'm not sure about her. I like her, but in a way, I don't. Hmm.
She has her tag.

She was originally an expensive handmade doll.

Her shoes are made to look like the toes are coming apart and are signed on the sole.

   Besides this Polish girl she sold me these $2 dolls.

The boy does have arms. The coat is over his shoulders and his arms aren't in the sleeves.

And if these prices weren't good enough,I replaced a childhood Happy Herman doll for $1.

 He's a little sun faded,but that's ok.
Also $1 was this little ceramic girl.

I have some ceramic figures from when I was a kid that look similar to her. By the way,please excuse her somewhat unfortunately placed shirt polka dots.
And these two dolls were 25 CENTS each!

I have a whole group of these dolls from different countries. This is an older one.

This guy reminds me of a really old cartoon.

If 25 cents isn't cheap enough for you, I got these mittens for free.

At another table, I got this beautiful Todd for $4.

His arms and leg wires are shot, but he has great colour. I can always put the head on another body.
The little guy below Todd was so cute I had to get it to hang out with my other similar dolls. You can see him in the above picture of the twins too.
  I did go back and buy the little German girl.

She was $4. Her shirt and skirt are two separate pieces,and her shoes and socks are painted on. She also has cloth undies.
  She was at the same table with the Alice marionette and the HEbee SHEbee dolls. When I went back for her I noticed that there were also smaller HEbee SHEbee dolls,in box, for only $10. So I caved.

 

These were about 6 inches tall. This is a birthday one.
  One seller sold me this dress and hat combo for $2.

And there's that little knitted guy again. He's an 'amigurumi'.

 That's not bad, but she also sold me my most expensive buy of the day, this Horsman Dimples for $18.

That's pretty cheap for a Dimples. It's because he's been redone,and his lips aren't done very well. I figure I can touch them up though. Otherwise he's such a cute little...ok,BiG guy.

...even if he does somewhat resemble Curly Howard.

  While I was out taking these pictures on Sunday,I noticed my daffodils are coming up.

  I took the pictures as soon as I got home on Sunday,because it was fairly warm, and the forecast predicted rain or snow for the rest of the week. This post should have been up Monday at the latest, but Blogger keeps crashing! So, finally!

'The Doll Test'

  I have been reminded that it is Black History Month,and also about a study,which I remember reading about, that is quite disturbing and sad. That is, the results are sad. 
  Dr. Kenneth Clark,(not to be confused with British art historian and TV personality, Sir Kenneth Clark.),and his wife Mamie Phipps Clark, were African American psychologists. (Mamie was the first black woman to receive a doctorate of psychology degree from Columbia University.) In the 1940's they developed a series of tests,called 'the doll tests',based on Mamie’s Howard University master’s thesis,'The Development of Consciousness of Self in Negro Preschool Children'. 

Mamie being awarded the American Association of University Women's Achievement Award by Elizabeth Michaels, in 1973. The award is described on the AAUW website as, "presented to an individual whose record of achievement in any scholarly or professional field spans 20 or more years. Through this award, AAUW publicly recognizes the highest standards of service in the public and private sectors. The award underscores the significant accomplishments of those who advance the goals of AAUW". The AAUW's slogan is 'Empowering women since 1881".

  The tests were meant to study how segregation affected how African American children. perceived themselves.The idea was that racism and segregation made the children feel inferior and damaged their self-esteem and self-identity. Interviewed in the 1987-90 PBS documentary 'Eyes on the Prize', Dr. Kenneth Clark talked about the tests,explaining, “The Dolls Test was an attempt on the part of my wife and me to study the development of the sense of self-esteem in children. We worked with Negro children---I'll call Black children--- to see the extent to which their color, their sense of their own race and status, influenced their judgment about themselves, self-esteem." The tests involved the use of four dolls,identical except for colour. All the children involved were African Americans between the ages of 3 and 7. All the groups,except one, went to segregated schools.The kids were asked to give opinions of the dolls on several subjects,including which doll was“good” and which was “bad,”which doll they would like to play with,which doll looked looked “white,” and which doll looked “colored,” or “Negro,” which was 'nice' which was 'pretty',which was 'ugly' and which was 'bad',and which doll  looked most like themselves.

These are a couple of the actual dolls used in The Doll Tests. They now reside at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. They were donated by the Clarks' daughter, Kate Clark Harris. (There is also one at the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site in Kansas.) These dolls,Effanbee's 1964 Twinkie, are from a later study by the Clark's. The original darker baby had to be painted brown,since the Clarks couldn't find an actual brown skinned baby doll.

  The three year olds preferred the dark and light skinned dolls equally. But by the age of seven,76% of the kids preferred the Caucasian doll. Most of the children judged the Caucasian doll to have the more positive characteristics. In Arkansas one boy,when asked which doll resembled him, smiled, pointed to the brown doll and said,"That's a N----r. I'm a N----r.".  When faced with the same question,children in the Massachusetts Doll Tests refused to answer, or cried and ran out of the room. Dr. Clark wasn't sure which was more disturbing. In fact,the Clark's were so disturbed by the results of the tests that they didn't publish their findings for quite a while after the conclusion of the tests.

Dr. Kenneth Clark with a child during The Doll Tests.

  Some time after the tests were finished the NAACP heard of the Clark's work. The Clarks were asked to do more tests,and testify, to help in a class action case that would later become Brown Vs. the Board of Education, the case that resulted in the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that ruled segregation was unconstitutional,stating that, "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." Dr. Kenneth Clark was understandably afraid during the testing. One NAACP member was actually threatened while with Dr. Clark. Dr. Clark thought the work was important enough to continue though because, “These children saw themselves as inferior and they accepted the inferiority as part of reality.”
   In it's ruling the Supreme Court stated, “To separate Black children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.”
  Similar tests to The Doll Test have been repeated over the years,most notably in 2006, 2009, and  2010. In 2010 CNN hired Margaret Beale Spencer to perform a similar test. Spencer used a questionnaire to test 133 kids  with different racial and income backgrounds. Her tests also included Caucasian children. The tests used cartoon children and a color bar of skin tones. Her results were somewhat different from the Clarks'. The African American kids had more positive reactions to the brown skinned dolls. The Caucasian kids were very biased toward the white dolls. Said Dr. Welansa Asrat,a specialist in cross-cultural psychiatry, “The black kids’ self-perception has improved since the 1940s, while the white kids’ remained invested in the stereotypes.”
  How do I end this post? That last sentence is pretty depressing. When will people realize that we are all just humans? The last few years have been discouraging,with blatant racism rearing it's ugly head again. The world had made strides in the right direction,but it has slipped back down an ugly slope. Let's hope this new decade will be different.
***For more on the dolls used in the tests,and for more on the study,please see Debbie Behan Garrett's excellent  post on the Black Doll Collecting blog HERE.***

Competition Results

  Well I am very disappointed. ONE entry to win the Snapstar doll? Really? Did nobody like the prize,or was there just no one besides Dorothy who wanted to do the research to answer the questions? Dorothy was our ONLY entrant, so Dorothy,as I have informed you by email,you won! Why can't I find a contest where I'm the only entrant? Then maybe I could win something! 
  I was considering another competition for May, when I have my blogaversary. Now I figure there's not much point. Sorry Ken, for buying that prize I'm not going to use.

Frances Glessner Lee and her Amazing Mini Murder Scenes

    ***I recently posted a link to an article about Frances Glessner Lee on this blog's Facebook page. What follows here is NOT that article, but an article of my own, based on various sources, thus the information here may not be the same as what's contained in the Facebook link's article.*** 
  Ever heard of Frances Glessner Lee? She's famous for her work in miniatures...but  not in the way you'd think.
  Frances Glessner Lee was born in 1878. Her father was a co-founder of International Harvester. The family lived comfortably,with her father collecting fine furniture and even authoring a book on the subject. While Frances' brother was sent to Harvard, Frances was not allowed to attend college. Her father thought a lady should stay home and have lady like pass times, like needlework. Frances, however,was interested in forensics, which was in it's infancy at the time.
 

A very young Frances Glessner Lee.

  Francis became friends with her brother's college roommate,George Burgess Magrath,a Harvard medical student. They shared an interest in death investigation.She probably became interested in investigation and crime through the Sherlock Holmes stories she enjoyed, which were also her father's favourites. She was interested in a career in crime investigation, but her father forbid it. Instead,in 1898 Francis married Blewette Harrison Lee, a legal scholar and attorney she barely knew. They were married for sixteen years and had three children. During that time Francis left him twice. They divorced in 1914. Her father was so ashamed of her that he sent Francis and her children far from him,to Santa Barbara, California.
  After her father's death in 1936 Francis was finally free to pursue her interests in crime. She also inherited the family fortune,as her brother had died in 1929. She wasted no time in endowing the Harvard Department of Legal Medicine,the first university department of legal medicine in the country,  and the Harvard Associates in Police Science,which has a division named after Francis, called the Frances Glessner Lee Homicide School. Her friend George had become the chief medical examiner in Boston in the meantime, and he and Francis had worked together to change the requirements for the job of coroner. At the time coroners needed no medical credentials. After George and Francis successfully lobbied for change, people seeking the job of coroner were required to be medical professionals.
  "But what does all this have to do with miniatures?", you ask. Well, in the 1940's Francis began to host week long homicide investigation seminars. Investigators and detectives who attended these seminars were invited to solve a crime from a miniature crime scene Francis had created in 1/12 scale.
 

Frances called her miniature scenes "Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death",(Inspired by the phrase "Convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell". I wonder if the famous miniatures magazine Nutshell News would have chosen a different name if they had known about Francis and her murder scenes!) 

Frances at work on one of her Nutshell studies.

The Nutshell Studies were all based on actual crime scenes. 

  The largest of the tiny murder scenes had three rooms. They each cost Francis between $3000 to $4500 to make, (I'm not sure why.),were fully wallpapered and furnished,and extremely detailed...
 

 ... containing working lights and doors,working mousetraps,and the little corpses were appropriately bloodied, bloated,or discoloured. 

Francis even made sure the figures all wore underwear under their clothes, and she went so far as to crochet a teensy teddy bear and knit their minuscule stockings herself. 

Suicide by gas...or was it?

The attendees of the seminars were given 90 minutes to study the scene and try to solve the crime.

   In all Francis created 20 Nutshell Studies. Nineteen of them have survived the years. (Some sources say 18,but a nineteenth was discovered in the early 2000's,at Francis' former home.) When the Harvard department Francis founded was dissolved in 1967, the dioramas went to the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner,where they are still used to train students of forensic investigation.
   In her day Francis was friends with  Erle Stanley Gardner, the creator of “Perry Mason”. Gardner dedicated the Mason mystery,“The Case of the Dubious Bridegroom” to her,and called Francis, “One of the few women who ever kept Perry Mason guessing.” Francis is now known as the ' Godmother of modern forensics'. In 1943 she was made an honorary police captain in the New Hampshire Sate Police. With the honour Francis became the first woman to join the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Some articles state that Francis was an actual Police Chief. but it was an honorary position,and not her actual job, as I read in one article on the Nutshells. Still, not bad for a woman in 1943.
  At the age of 73 Francis wrote,“This has been a lonely and rather terrifying life I have lived.”. Francis died in 1962 at the age of 83.
  There's a good article about Frances and her work,including the restoration and preservation of the Nutshells which you can read HERE. You can watch a report on, and video 'tour' of Francis' work HERE. There's also a lot of close up images of the various dioramas in the video you can watch HERE. Please note that in that second video, all the images of moving smoke, flame, and bugs, and the name of the Youtube channel,'Obsolete Oddity', were added by the channel posting it to Youtube,and are not part of the actual dioramas.