Izannah Walker and the Dolls of Rhode Island

 

After locating the article about "two old maids" in Rhode Island making dolls in the Cincinnati, Ohio, newspaper, I began a search to find other newspapers carrying the same article.

The one that I found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on 26 December 1880 raised a lot of questions and concerns:

The last two sentences certainly don't fit with anything we know about Izannah Walker. Her dolls were not talking dolls or dolls that could be given a bottle. Were there two other women in Rhode Island making innovative dolls that could talk and feed themselves? If so, my theory that this article had been about Izannah Walker and Emeline B.Whipple was out the window.

A link to the full newspaper page is here.

However, this clipping also had the additional information that the original article had been published in the Providence Journal. I needed to track it down. 

I found the full paragraph in the Providence Evening Bulletin of 11 December 1880, p. 2. This is the third paragraph in an article called "News and Business About Town." The first paragraph was about the local weather, the second was about the coffee market, and the third and final paragraph was about the manufacture and sale of toys. Besides the tear across the article and the poor ink quality, which is difficult for computer recognition programs to index, the writing style is not fluid. This reads as a long list with few transitions between items to signal a shift. The list begins with French and German dolls, followed by the American-made dolls of the Rhode Island "maidens," then talking dolls, then dolls that feed themselves, then dollhouses, Noah's Arks, and villages and railroad trains. When the Chicago Daily Tribune picked up and copied a small portion of the paragraph, it also picked up two additional items in the list - talking dolls and self-feeding dolls. That gives the false impression that the Rhode Island women were making talking and feeding dolls. 

Here is the paragraph, followed by my attempt to transcribe it.

"The manufacture and sale of toys appears to enlarge at every recurrence of the holidays. According to dealers, the giving of presents becomes more universal, and this season, since business has been good and employment abundant, there is an unusual number of buyers in the holiday market. No boy or girl can be properly brought up without the aid of toys. They would go wild, or their parents would, if there were no toyish [counterseting ?] influences. Toys take the place of nurses, and thus aid in domestic economy; provide intervals of quiet, and save distracted older minds from [?] destruction; lengthen lives and save to the nation an incalculable amount of worry. The variety and peculiarity of toys now provided for juvenile destruction are beyond all reckoning. Dolls, French and German born, are offered in any quantity and quality. They are twenty per cent cheaper than last year, because, it is said, that manufacturers abroad are in active competition. Few dolls are made in this country, but it should be known that two maiden women in Rhode Island make, and have made for years, a doll that is sought for by dealers in all parts of the country, orders coming from the Southern states. Various attempts have been made to imitate these dolls, but have been unsuccessful, and the Rhode Island makers control the market for their specialty. There have been dolls that spoke various tongues, but until this year no doll was taught to feed itself with a bottle. Toys include about everything from a [?] to a whole village. The object of toymakers seem to be to provide for the comfort of dolls, and houses fully furnished are provided, including equipage and all that goes to make a complete establishment. Noah's Ark in different sizes and with different-sized animals finds [novel?] favor with youngsters. They are made abroad; this country cannot produce an Noah's Ark. Railroad trains, menageries, warehouses with goods [?] and porter ready, stables filled with well-groomed horses, ferryboats on wheels, race courses and the horses running, are among the larger and more attractive toys. An entire village can be bought in which manufacturing is already established. A military camp is represented by [ten?] soldiers, with the whole line in dress parade, and an Indian campaign is represented by the same means. The supply of animals on wheels and attached to wagons is very large. Mechanical toys are found in the usual variety." 

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.