One of the most characteristic examples of girls’ material culture, the idea of the doll as a small representation of a human and as a popular toy, unravels under closer scrutiny. Some doll-like figures have a functional existence that extends beyond play, such as the artist’s lay figure or the small mannequins sold along with miniature cutout patterns to teach girls the basic skills of home dressmaking in the 1930s and 1940s.
Dolls have also found a serious place in the educational curriculum. Dressing a doll circa 1900 frequently replaced the task of making a sewing sampler so that girls in rudimentary public schooling could learn sewing skills. Dolls from other countries or dressed in national costumes have often been employed in the schoolroom to encourage children's interest in different cultures. Such activities continue today often at an informal level or supplemented with picture books and other learning materials. However, this use of dolls was particularly widespread in the 1920s and 1930s, extending to collections of dolls housed in publicly run children's museums and in museum “education,” “community,” and “outreach” programs. In the era between the world wars the exchange of “friendship dolls” between North American and Japanese school children, at a time of heightened international tensions, serves to indicate the role of diplomatic agency that dolls were seen as filling at the level of everyday culture.
Many of these dolls were demoted from their cherished positions in classroom displays and were summarily and publicly “executed” when hostilities broke out. Functional dolls may be misread later in history as having been play dolls, and vice versa. Likewise, misreading across cultures may misidentify religious and ritual figures as toys. Even Christian figures from the Roman Catholic tradition before early modern times, with their elaborately sewn garments reflecting fashionable, courtly dress and accessories, can be mistaken by collectors and dealers for play dolls.
Although it is assumed that women will put aside dolls upon leaving their girlhood years, there are myriad male and female interactions with dolls, from work-based to leisure, from closeted secret activity to hobby to commercial enterprise. Buying and selling dolls at “doll fairs” and on the Internet is a significant business in North America and elsewhere. Dolls also overlap into the category of decorative figurines and statuettes for children and adults, especially the many types of non-jointed dolls and dolls with elaborate porcelain, resin, or plastic detailing. Academic literature that addresses issues related to the quality of childhood experiential and material culture and the appropriate role of capitalism in childhood, often ignores the irony and sophistication of adult reactions to and engagement with dolls and their extension downward into girlhood. Aside from their use in play narratives and activities, dolls can play many other roles in the material culture of girls' lives. Dolls can function as aspects of their room decor, housewares, accessories, and even jewelry.
In the latter context one may include the small figures on beaded chains and tassels popular for decorating mobile phones and also pens and pencils, South American worry dolls, and certain Mattel Liddle Kiddles of the 1960s, which could be worn as necklaces. There are eras when the preferred representational aspect of doll formats is decidedly naturalistic and other times, as in the 1960s and the present, when abstract and distorted doll formats appeal to buyers. A human identity for a doll is not necessarily a given. Since the early 1900s soft animal toys and teddy bears have shared many of the play and comfort functions of dolls. Hello Kitty, internationally famous, has a feline head but an essentially human body form and wears many different clothes and takes on a variety of looks. Similar cat and dog dolls were produced throughout the twentieth century, starting with porcelain versions, including those by Heubach.
The Five-in-One doll (1912) was dressed as a middle-class girl, with a girl's body and a set of interchangeable heads, including a molded celluloid cat head with glass eyes, made in Germany. Trolls and German Mecki Hedgehog dolls are other anthropomorphic dolls that have enjoyed great popularity in the last half-century. In recent years many toy horses, cats, and dogs marketed explicitly at girls have featured long nylon hair that allows for Barbie-style “hair play.” These animals are supplied with many accessories, including garments and hair ornaments, by their manufacturers, following the Mattel pattern of aggressively marketing a wide range of desirable add-ons without which the doll or doll play would not be complete. My Little Pony is a perennial example of this genre. These animal toys are closely related to modern dolls and doll products.
