The National Negro Doll Company

Rev. Richard Henry Boyd and his family.

        American entrepreneur Richard Henry Boyd founded the National Negro Doll Company in 1911 "after he tried to purchase dolls for his children but could find none that were not gross caricatures of African Americans." His doll company is believed to have pioneered the marketing of black dolls for black children for the purpose of black pride. Boyd started selling black dolls imported from Europe in 1908, after experiencing difficulty finding suitable dolls for the children in his family. In 1911 his National Negro Doll Company began to manufacture dolls. He was quoted as contrasting his dolls with Negro dolls then produced by white-owned businesses, saying: "These dolls are not made of that disgraceful and humiliating type that we have grown accustomed to seeing Negro dolls made of. They represent the intelligent and refined Negro of the day, rather than the type of toy that is usually given to children and, as a rule, used as a scarecrow." The doll company was not profitable, and the company ceased operations around 1915.

• Tennessee Historical Society
• Black Dolls Tell a Story of Play - and Resistance - in America
• National Negro Doll Company - Video from vimeo

Advertisement for dolls from The
National Negro Doll Company, 1911.

The Newspaper Ad Below from 1911: "The Negro Dolls, which we are sending out, have no equal as fit toys for the children. When the children are happy, the home is happy. The very best attention will be given every order. Remember that the dolls are carefully packed and shipped immediately upon receipt of the order. We are asking patrons who send orders for dolls to carefully examine their package before taking it from the express or freight office. Special attention will be given individual orders. Every person who contemplates ordering a doll should place the order at once so that the doll can be shipped in time to reach its destination before the holiday season."

Review of Doll from Harper's Bazar: "Perhaps the most interesting feature about the jointed child doll is the fact that each type is made after the portrait or photograph of a real child, and is often a copy of a living child model. One traces the incentive to realism in doll manufacture to a lovely elderly lady in Munich. She is an artist, and one with a deep love for childhood. It seemed to her that when one considered all the passion of love which a doll inspires into the breast of its owner, that little girls ought to have a pet that looked more human than dolls have been wont to look. With this idea she developed, in plaster, dolls that were exact imitations of the various peasant folk who came to Munich from Bavarian and other provinces of a Sunday. The holiday attire of each native village..."

 

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