Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-02-04
FACTS ABOUT DOLLS.
CAUSE OF THE ORIGIN OF THE WAX
AND CHINA VARIETIES.
They Were First Used to show on
Models of Costly Dresses and In the
Seventeenth Century Were What
Fashion Papers Are Today.

Models of Costly Dresses and In the
seventeenth Century Were what
Fashion Papers Are Today.
The origin of the word doll is curl
Gus. Centuries ago, when saints names
were much in vogue for children, st.
Dorothea was the most popular, and
her name the best and luckiest that
could be given to a little girl. The
nickname was Dolly, or Doll, and from
giving babies the nickname it was an
easy step to pass it on to the little
images of which the babies were so
fond.
The word doll is not found in COM
mon use in our language until the
middle of the eighteenth century, and,
as far as can be discovered, first ap-
pears in The Gentleman's Magazine for
September, 1751, in the following:
Several dolls with different dresses,
made in st. James street, have been
sent to the czarina to show the manner
of dressing at present in fashion among
English ladies'"
Previous to this the word used to
describe the favorite plaything of all
girls in all countries and in all ages
was baby" which is to be found,
together with ''poppet," or ''puppet,"
in this sense in the works of most OF
the earlier writer's.
The wax and china doll originated
in the middle of the seventeenth CEN
fury. There were no fashion papers
as now, and in order to show what was
being worn on the continent dolls were
beautifully and extensively dressed
and sent to the various European coun-
tries, and from the model orders were
taken. The dolls, to show on their
costly garb, must be made of more
precious stuff than wood, so wax and
china and even ivory ones were made.
Thuringia is the land where most
dolls are born-puppetland as it is call
ed on this account. About 200 years
ago most of the dolls were made in
Flanders, and they were called not
dolls, but Flanders babies. There used
to be an old English couplet which ran
thus:
The children of Holland take pleasure in making
What the children of England take pleasure in
breaking.
At one European doll factory of the
present day 100000 dolls are produced
annually, some 500 men, women. and
children being employed. To make
one talking doll requires the joint labor
of 80 men. Dolls eyes are made in un-
derground rooms, into which the sun
light rarely peeps, and violet orbs are
the most difficult to color. There is
one town in Germany where three
fourths of all the dolls eyes in the
world are made. Only in the case OF
the most expensive dolls is real human
hair used.
In a doll factory are wood carvers,
headmakers, leg and arm makers, eye
makers, portrait artists, hairdreSSerS,
doll sewers and doll suffers; also
small army of fashionable dressmakers
and miIliners.
The Hindoo child is probably the
only doll-less child in the world. The
little Egyptians have their wooden
''Ushabti," the same in style as 1000
years ago. These were sometimes
made of porcelain. When child died,
its dolls were buried with it, in the ex-
pectation that their spirit forms would
rise and do service in another world.
The paradise of dolls is Japan. where
they are most deliberately and gor-
geously attired affairs. So are the dolls
of Kioto-"genroku," as they are call
ed. They are often valuable wood
carvings, enameled in colors or statu-
cites of great artistic merit.
One of the most interesting collec-
tions of dolls in this country is that
belonging to the bureau Of ethnology,
Washington. They are dolls of the Uni
Indians OF Arizona and are made from
the roots or subterranean branches of
the cottonwood tree, whitfield out with
knives. They are decorated bright red,
yellow, green and represent the gods Of
the tribe-the god of the snow. the god