Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1875-01-28
The Wax Doll Business.

A CORRESPONDENT of the New York
Herald, writing from Sonneberg, gives
the following account Of the way wax
dolls are made:
To make a real wax doll or one of
papieTmache is quite a long process.
First of all the limbs have to be made
The legs, either of pot or cotton, have to
be filled out with moss and sawdust, and
the same process is gone through with
the body and arms, the task being in
trusted to number of young women.
The head is moro difficult to make. First
comes the molding, from kind of Witty
brown paste, which when hard is almost
indestructible. The head is nodded in
two halves, the back and front, and then
the two parts are Joined together with
the same sort Of paste. The heads are
made by the thousand, of all shapes and
sizes, and left for the moment unpublished
and sickly-looking. Then these frame
pasteboard heads are carried to the wax
room, where they are passed through
some severe ordeals. The papier-mache
model heads are dipped into boiling wax,
and thus have the appearance Of real
wax dolls. But the genuine article, the
real dolls of wax, are made thus: The
boiling wax is poured into plaster mold :;
it adheres to the sides as it becomes cold,
and when the mold is taken apart there
is the beautiful wax head, but simply
shell, and of course very weak. The head
is cast complete, and only small open
ing is left in the crown of the head.
Then a workman takes the wax shell
and very carefully lines it throughout
with a kind of soft paste about the thick
ness Of cardboard, which soon hardens
and gives the head its strength and dura-
bility. After this process the head is
placed over hot furnace, the wax is per-
mitted to melt to very slight degree,
whereupOn tits busted with powder made
Of potato meal and alabaster, to give it
delicate flesh tint. In another room the
head is provided with pair of eyes, and
it is no easy thing for the workman to Sc
lect two exactly alike.
Sometimes, as the children know, dolls
squirt, and this proves that the work
man who puts them in was not very
careful in his work. Another very skill
full workman then receives the head, and
finishes off the front appearance of the
eyes, scooping off all the wax and affix
ing the lids in a charming manner.
Then eyelashes have to be affixed, and
then the little lady has to be provided
with teeth, which are put in by skill
full workman one by one. A still more
interesting study is the hair-dressing
room Of doll mandatory All the
dolls that come into this room are COM
plete as far as their heads: there they
are quite as bald as some old gentlemen
of eighty who don't wear wigs. The
hair for these heads is first worked on to
a mesh, which fits the dolls head so
nicely that one cannot tell but that it is
a natural growth. Then the rough head
of hair, with the doll, is sent to the fe-
male hairdresSers, who are armed with
combs and brushes and hot curling
tongs, have no small amount of good
taste, and would, | am sure, make ex-
cellent ladies' maids. The hair is made
up in the most beautiful manner, in imi-
tation of the very newest fashions, and
then when the doll is thus combed and
curled it is provided with a delicate
chemisette and placed, with hundred
or more companions, in a huge basket,
and transported either to the great store
rooms or TO the doll milliner, who pro
vides it with clothing and costumes fit
ting it to appear in the great world
This will only give you a faint idea of
how the wax dolls are made. | have
omitted many interesting parts of the
process, am sure, such as how the baby
dolls are made to open and shut their
eyes and to cry papa" and g mamma"
but am also sure that nearly all chill
dren have at one time or another looked
into these mysteries of doll life, and
description would be superf1uou