Izannah Walker and Emeline B. Whipple, Rhode Island Doll Makers, 1880

       ©  Kathy Duncan, 2022

Research often involves a process that I call widening the net while also clamping down on the filter. In this case, the search was widened to include all states but clamped down to the time frame in which there might have been advertising for Izannah Walker's dolls - 1870 to 1888. Then I had to select keywords that might be productive. I've tried a variety of keywords that I think might be related to her dolls like "rag," "cloth," "patent," and "everlasting." These are all very "wide" or general terms. Then I look at every likely hit. It's a long process.

In this instance, I scraped the bottom of my keyword barrel with just the keywords: "Rhode Island doll." In this case, the keyword  "doll" is very wide because it's general. Adding "Rhode Island" tightens or narrows the search. The search could have been narrowed further by adding "Walker," but as you can see from the results, I would not have found this particular article that way. 

The result of my search is this 1880 article from the Cincinnati Daily, which is so exciting I can hardly see straight.

Let's parse this article. During this time period, articles were written about people's activities, but often no names were used. This is particularly true of articles about women and tradespeople. However, it could be that the writer did not know the women's names.

The women are identified as "two old maids" in "Rhode Island." Any unmarried woman past her mid-twenties would have been considered an old maid. The only two single women I know of who worked together to make dolls in Rhode Island during this time frame were Izannah Walker and Emeline B. Whipple. 

Dealers from "all parts of the country" were ordering them, including the "Southern States." This suggests that the dolls were sold in a wide market, not just in New England.

Then there is the added information that "various attempts" had been unsuccessfully made to "imitate these dolls." That is interesting.

Finally, there is the statement that the "Rhode Island makers control the market for their specialty." That certainly sounds like a reference to Izannah's business relationship with E.W. Billings, who was the agent for her work. 

This article from Cincinnati is the only one that came up in my search. Normally, an article like this would have been copied by several newspapers. I will need to repeat this search in other newspaper databases.