rag/cloth doll history: Cloth Doll Creations UK

South Devon, UK

Articles	Biography	Books Recommended Reading	PATTERNS	Cloth Doll Making SUPPLIES	Classes
Clubs	Doll Swaps/ Round Robins	Cloth Figure Quarterly Magazine	Gallery	Care of Cloth Dolls	Suppliers
Making Tips	Doll Museums/ Hospitals	History printable PDF file	Safety of Cloth Dolls	Types of Cloth Doll	Exhibitions/ Workshops
Main Menu	TEXTILE FIGURE FORUM UK	Homepage	Celebrity Rag Dolls	VINTAGE CLOTH DOLLS	Contact & Guestbook

'HISTORY is to society what memory is to the individual'.
By researching the history of cloth dolls, one gains valuable insight into how and why the different styles and varieties emerged.

INTRODUCTION

Rag/Cloth Dolls forever hold a strong affection in our hearts and minds having been created & recreated many times over the centuries.

The fact that they were unbreakable and inexpensive resulted in them getting more wear and tear than other more costly toys which would have been handled with more care and respect and thus there are fewer examples of antique rag dolls in museums and homes today.

Those that do survive reflect the fashions and culture of the times. Traditionally dolls and particularly cloth dolls have been a way of passing cultural norms on to children.

Sorry,
I am not an expert on antique dolls and therefore cannot value or date them for you.

Over the years, cloth dolls were stuffed with straw, sawdust, leaves, feathers, fabric scraps, left-over thread and yarn, cotton batting, wood-wool, Kapok, foam chips and nylon stockings and more recently Polyester filling.

Doll clothing was made from fabric scraps left over from the family sewing basket. The clothes would have reflected the clothes of people during the time the dolls were made, including underwear, petticoats, long dress, pinafore, apron and bonnet. Doll shoes and stockings might have been sewn or painted on.

Facial features were embroidered or painted with ink or stained with natural dyes: berries, flowers, leaves, tea. In some cases, e.g. primitive dolls, the dolls might have no face or perhaps given eyes only. Early dolls were often made from all sorts of materials, such as animal skin, corn husks, cotton fabric and other soft materials.

Despite being of a perishable nature, some examples of cloth/linen dolls, which can be traced right back to ROMAN, EARLY GREEK and EARLY CHRISTIAN times survive in museum collections today. The British Museum has a Roman rag doll, found in a child's grave dating back to 300 B.C.

Other early finds include 1st Century Peruvian dolls made from woven materials and 6th Century Coptic dolls made from brightly coloured wools. They were not always used as toys, but also as religious or fertility symbols.

Linen doll, made in Egypt and filled with rags
and papyrus (Roman, 1st-5th century AD)
Picture courtesy of BRITISH MUSEUM

The pattern/design of the early cloth doll was quite basic, usually consisting of two identically shaped outline body pieces.

Sometimes, arms and legs were added to a head/body torso. Today this simple type of doll is called a 'Pancake Doll', which describes the flat construction.
(See Making Tips in above menu)

Between the DARK and MIDDLE AGES, there are no examples of cloth dolls, since wooden toys and puppets predominate, children worked as soon as they were able, many families struggled for daily existence with a few meager belongings and Christianity denounced the practice of making graven images at this time.

Indeed, cultures such as the Amish
in America, also adopted this view of denouncing the practice of making graven images.

See also Types of Cloth Doll (above menu)

During the SEVENTEENTH and EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES, a wave of people emigrating across the Atlantic swept from Europe to America. Successive groups of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, Scots, Irish, Dutch, Swedes and many others attempted to transplant their habits and traditions to the new world.

Inevitably, however, forces such as the geographic conditions peculiar to America, the interaction of the varied national groups on one another, caused significant changes, creating a character that was distinctly American.

Cloth dolls made by these COLONIAL AMERICANS are mentioned in diaries, property lists and literature of the time. They must have been treasured items, indeed. Early Colonial dolls are also known as Primitives or Pioneer dolls.
In Europe during this time, rag dolls were made for doll houses, as playthings and as adornments for needle cases, made from rolled fabric with faces drawn on.

^
Back to top

In the 18th Century, the dominant figure in the textile industry in England was Richard Arkwright (1732-92) from Preston, who changed the cotton industry completely with the help of a brilliant inventor Thomas Highs (1718-1803), by introducing a machine for cotton spinning together with new mills and factories to replace the old cottage industry involving working at home by hand. Cloth would have been regarded as a cherished commodity due to the long hours invested in its manufacture. Even the smallest scraps or material were diligently saved and reused.

There had already been the invention of the Flying Shuttle in 1733 by John Kay (1704-c1780) from Bury, and the Spinning Jenny by James Hargreaves (c1720-1778). In 1765, Massachusetts, USA, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin to harvest the cotton crop, and tremendously increased cotton production in the Deep South, helping to revive a badly lagging economy. Suddenly cotton began to rival the tobacco industry's profits.

The AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, however, coincided with the after-effects of this period of over-production in the late 1850s. Consequently, exported supplies of raw cotton from the southern states of the USA to England slowed down considerably. This resulted in mass unemployment, poverty and starvation in the north of England, affecting many towns within Lancashire including Preston and Burnley. This British Cotton Famine, or Cotton Panic, was one of the bleakest periods in the history of the Lancashire Cotton Industry and lasted four years.

The knock-on effect of this poverty and unemployment was that the mill-owners were unable to sell all the cloth they had made and began stockpiling it, until eventually, one by one, the Lancashire mills began to close down.

This may explain, in part, why the craft of cloth doll making became more popular in American, North America and Australia than in Great Britain.

^ Back to top
Famous cloth doll makers throughout history also include Izannah Walker, (1840s) who made cloth dolls with a primitive, folk arts look. Izannah Walker patented her dolls in 1873 and these dolls are very much in demand by collectors. In Europe the cloth doll was being produced by the Lenci Doll company. Steiff and Lenci, began to experiment with stockinet and felt which was hot-pressed over a mould.		In the early 1920's Norah Wellings (Chad Valley designer) used velvet for her souvenir and commercial character dolls.
^ Back to top
	As a result of the invention of the sewing machine and magazine pattern printing, home made rag dolls gained greater popularity in the NINETEENTH CENTURY. From about the 1850's, commercially produced rag dolls where the dolls were printed on cloth or had their features hand painted in oils became popular. Flat panel/printed dolls were first sold in sheet form in the EARLY 2OTH CENTURY and were of the outline/pancake style. Examples can be seen at Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, London (see Doll Museums)	Doll bought from Bethnal Green Museum 1968 as a flat printed piece of cloth, cut out, sewn and filled with foam chips!
^ Back to top
	Freelance artist, Johnny Gruelle created a distinctive, whimsical design for a doll named 'Raggedy Ann', which he patented and trademarked in 1915. He achieved fame from illustrating children's books and in particular as the creator of Raggedy Ann and Andy, eventually becoming known as "The Raggedy Ann Man." By the time of his death in 1938, his Raggedy characters, dolls and books were known throughout the world.
^ Back to top
In Germany, about 1937, doll maker Kathe Kruse began producing cloth dolls with papier-mâché heads that were covered with stockinette cloth. Although Kathe Kruse dolls are no longer made this way, she is also known for creating what is known as the Waldorf Doll, a simple, soft, huggable hand made doll with a characteristic head shape.		Other dolls were marketed during this time as 'Scavini Dolls' after their creator, Elena Scavini (Turin, Italy), who began making cloth dolls with her brother to supplement their income during the war. They found that wool felt could be molded under pressure and was readily available even during the war. In 1937, the Garella family succeeded the Scavinis in running the company and still control it today.
^ Back to top
Many children's dolls and toys were home-made, during the 1940'S WAR TIME PERIOD, when resources were limited and materials scarce, because they could be made cheaply and simply with little skill or equipment. *The wartime and post war ethos was very much one of make do and mend.* Man made fabrics, such as nylon and polyester, were introduced during the POST WAR PERIOD and in 1955, quick drying polyester filling became available.	Maker of this fabulous cloth doll is UNKNOWN Picture courtesy of Ponytail icon.	To make something that could be useful, but which ultimately has developed into something decorative and creative, has always been part of the UK mindset. Interestingly, Modern traditional UK crafts and textile art has its roots in the wartime and post war ethos of practical, make do and mend such as weaving, knitting, crochet and patchwork & quilting. Since dolls were seen as a luxury during wartime, few dolls were made and the stigma that a doll is a toy/ plaything, has dogged the art/craft of cloth figure making for decades and still underpinned people's prejudices in the 20th Century. Attitudes are thankfully now changing.
^ Back to top
1960's television influenced cloth doll making with programmes such as
In the early 1970's *Martha Nelson of Louisville, KY created a style of doll using a German folk art known as needle modelling, later also known as soft sculpture or needle sculpture.* *Her style of doll was subsequently copyrighted by Xavier Roberts,* who called 'Little People', now commercially known as Cabbage Patch Kids, with vinyl heads, but still maintaining the soft sculptured body. (Both forms of the*As their popularity escalated Xavier Roberts created an elaborate fantasy world around these dolls, buying a redundant clinic that he called ‘Babyland General’ from which these dolls are still being adopted* by young and old 'parents', today. Cabbage Patch Kids are apparently still available).		There were many well known cloth doll designers of the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's including Jean Greenhowe, Judi Ward, Valerie Janitch, Gail Attwell, Betsy McCall, Sharon Welch, Ana Lakeland, Isla Gray, Anita Holmes, Joan Russell, Pamela Peake, Frances Barnes to name a few.
^ Back to top
Today cloth dolls are still created all over the world. The craft seems most popular in Canada, Australia and the US and the styles of cloth doll are remarkably diverse. The technique of needle sculpting and tailoring have taken the humble rag doll to new heights. Antonette Cely, Patti Medaris Culea, Barbara Willis and Susie Oroyan are just some of many well known cloth doll artists who inspire doll makers in the 20th and 21st Century	Made in 2006