© Kathy Duncan, 2024
Recently, Michelle Brown found an advertisement in the Manufacturers and Farmers Journal that was placed by E. W. Billings in the 14 December 1874 issue. Michelle's find is extremely important because it definitively proves that the "Miss Walker" of the celebrated dolls stocked by Billings was, in fact, I.F. Walker. The advertisement further notes that dolls are available by the dozens or singly, so Izannah Walker was wholesaling her dolls. You can see this advertisement on Dixie Redmond's blog Izannah Walker Chronicles.
1875 brought a continuation of doll production for Izannah F. Walker. On the first of May 1875, E. W. Billings ran an announcement that he had received a shipment of dolls from Izannah. This is not out of the ordinary for a wholesaler since merchants would soon be planning orders for the holiday shopping season.
However, between May and December a major shift happened. On 13 December 1875, Billings announced that he had received a shipment of dolls "formerly made by Miss Walker."
Formerly?? Without any other context, this statement is impossible to interpret. Was someone else producing Izannah's dolls for her? Who? For how long? What was Izannah doing instead? Was she ill? Was she resting? Was she somewhere else? Travelling? Was she doing something else? Working on other inventions? Did she return to doll production? When?
We know that she did not sell her doll patent during her lifetime and that she it willed to her brother when she died. We also know that she was supplying dolls to the Billings firm in 1881. As of yet, we don't know what happened between 1875 and 1881.
