The Izannah Walker Dolls

Izannah Walker doll from the Little
 Compton Historical Society.

       Izannah Walker was an important early American doll maker born in Rhode Island in the town of Bristol. She came from a relatively large family including four daughters. But by the time Izannah was 8, both of her parents, Gilbert and Sarah had died and she and her three sisters were relocated to Somerset, Massachusetts to live with their aunt and uncle.

       She started her small cottage industry in the 1840s and she was an active participant in every stage of the dolls creation. Izannah was said to have used her own hand press and dies for the shaping of the doll heads and bodies, according to her niece, but that the fingers and toes on the doll's hands and feet were each individually sewn on.

       Each of her dolls was painted with a baby-like innocent expression much like the American primitive paintings of Colonial child portraiture. (See portrait examples of primitive American children that influenced the Izannah Walker dolls.)

• Take a virtual tour of the Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg to see Colonial primitive paintings of children here.

More About Izannah Walker Dolls:

• Paula Walton's blog about Izannah Walker inspiring dolls
• The Izannah Walker doll owned by Elizabeth Windsor McIntyre
• The United States Postal Service commemorated classic American dolls issued stamps depicting both modern and antique dolls

       Through the alertness of Mrs. Edward Singsen, the following additional interesting history of the Izannah Walker doll was obtained which places the date of the original, non-patented doll from 1848 up until the patent of 1873.

From Philomena Hart's Column in the Providence Bulletin.

       "Mrs. N. M. R. wrote me a fascinating account of a doll which she thinks is the predecessor of the Chase Doll of Pawtucket. It was made in Central Falls by Miss Izannah Walker. (1817-1888) She was the aunt of my correspondent who says of her, 'Always inventive, she had created a stockinette doll as early as 1848 when my mother was a little child in New London, Conn. Family tradition tells of her struggle to perfect her work and of the long wrestling with one problem, how to obtain a resistant surface to the stockinette heads, arms, and legs, without cracking or peeling. With this problem on her mind, Aunt Izannah, suddenly sat up in bed one night to hear a voice say 'use paste.' It worked. And so she was given a patent in 1873 for 'Improvements in the Manufacture of Dolls.' Aunt Izannah always deplored the fact that she was not a man. However she made dolls and doll furniture, tinkered with household gadgets, designed a parlor heater, 'that beat Ben Franklins,' raised canaries, dabbled in real estate and was looked upon with admiration by male contemporaries because of her skill with carpenters' tools, so perhaps she was resigned. She used her own hand press and dies for the shaping of her dolls' heads and bodies; all of the little hands and feet were hand-sewn."

 

Doll and molds by Bates modeled after Izannah
Walker's designs? The molds are made
of cast iron.

       This letter to Mrs. Hart was from Mrs. Norman M. Robertson, the grand-niece of Miss Walker, who was Mrs. Robertson's mother's Aunt Izannah. Mrs. Hart, who wrote the column, in a Providence, Rhode Island newspaper, passed on not long ago.
       This proves, without any shadow of a doubt, that the Walker doll existed some twenty-four years before it was patented. Calling upon Mrs. Robertson, the grand niece of Miss Walker, Mrs. Singsen obtained the history of the career of the doll maker which was substantially that written up by Mrs. Hart. The family came to Central Falls in Somerset, Mass., and the first dolls were made for friends. One, owned by the family, and now out west, is one of the very earliest. and is practically life sized. Izannah Walker had three sisters, and as the business began to develop she put them to work painting the doll faces. There were also black skinned dolls made, but these Mrs. Robertson said, had wool hair instead of painted on hair. From 1845, when the first doll is supposed to have been made, until she died in 1886, Izannah Walker carried on the business, not securing a patent for her method until persuaded to do so by friends in 1873.
       This additional information about a highly cherished example of an early American doll is indeed welcome. Collectors can, however, be doubly grateful to Mrs. Singsen for she has added to the data of this particular era of doll by making the amazing find of a rag doll with its original mold. Although undoubtedly inspired by Izannah Walker, this doll was created by a man named Reuben Harlow Neal Bates who was born in 1802 in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He was a pattern maker all his life residing for a number of years in Providence, Rhode Island probably about 1840 until his death. He was employed by the Barstow Stove Manufacturing Company and it may have been during his work there that he developed the mold from which the 'Bates' doll was made.
       This mold is most unusual and interesting for it is of iron and therefore very heavy. One half, fitting down firmly and tightly on to the other, pressed the features and head into the desired shapes.
       Izannah Walker commenced making her cloth dolls in 1840 and the similarity. in type is what makes one believe that Reuben Bates had her dolls in mind when he made his own mold. So far as is known his dolls were never offered for sale. Perhaps they were made for his own large family, or for his friends.
       "The body of this most interesting specimen," writes Mrs. Singsen, "is well made and is covered with blue cloth. The pattern for the body was in the possession of the lady from whom the doll was obtained as well as the mold, her husband having been a descendant of Reuben Bates, but at the moment she could not locate it. In the photograph, the mold to the right, is, of course, the hollow part. Note also that the doll's mouth is slightly crooked and that one eye is higher than the other."
       This rare find is the kind of discovery that keeps the doll collector ever on the alert and prevents the hobby from becoming a static thing. There is always something new to unearth, to ponder and to study.
       It is not easy to find an example of an Izannah Walker doll today." 

       That fact alone makes it most interesting to study the few pictures of the dolls found on the internet today.

Exploring American Cloth Dolls with Carol Cameron

Read the Original Patent Information on the Izannah Walker Doll Below.

The illustration included with the patent of 1873.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.
IZANNAH F. WALKER, OF CENTRAL FALLS, RHODE ISLAND.
IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF DOLLS.
Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 144,373, dated November
4, 1873; application filed June 28, 1873.
To all whom it may concern:

   Be it known that I, IZANNAH, F. WALKER, of Central Falls, in the county of Providence and State of Rhode Island, hav invented a new and valuable Improvement in the Manufacture of Dolls; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the construction and operation of the same, reference being had to the annexed drawings making a part of this specification, and to the letters and figures of reference marked thereon.

• Figure 1 of the drawings is a representation of a transverse section of my doll.
• Fig. 2 is a view of my press. 
• Fig. 3 is a view of my die; and 
• Fig. 4, a view of my doll completed.

   This invention has relation to the manufacture of dolls; and consists, mainly, in the secondary or double stuffing next to the external or painted layer, whereby, with a sufficient soft surface, the tendency of the paint to crack or scale off is obviated.
   My doll is inexpensive, easily kept clean, and not apt to injure a young child which may fall upon it. It will preserve its appearance for a long time, as the soft secondary stuffing under the stockinet or external webbing enables it to give under pressure, so that the oil paint will not scale off. At the same time the inner and more compact stuffing prevents ordinary pressure from forcing the surface in to such an extent as to crack the paint.
   What I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is- In the manufacture of dolls, the combination, with the external webbing, the internal cloth forms, and the inner packing, of the secondary or outer stuffing between said forms and said external webbing, substantially as specified. In testimony that I claim the above I have hereunto subscribed my name in the presence of two witnesses.

IZANNAH F. WALKER.
Witnesses:
ROWLAND H. FRY,
G. F. CROWNINGSHIELD.
Izannah F. Walker doll patent No. 144,373.

Baby in Red Chair, 1800-1825 by unknown primitive American
artist. Oil on canvas. 22"x15 1/4th inches. In Abby Aldrich 
Rockefeller Folk Art Collection.

       "Above, Sentiment, probably the strongest motivating force in the production of folk art, is strikingly apparent in this whimsical portrait of a small sleeping babe. Such a personal expression of family life captures a fleeting moment as effectively as a snapshot would today. The portrait demonstrates the endearing quality of folk art - an emotional directness which is seldom found in more formal portraits."

Mary Jane Smith at age 2, 1838. by Joseph Whiting Stock from
Massachusetts. Oil on canvas 42"X30 1/8" inches.

       "Mary Jane Smith was the daughter of David and Harriet (Griffin) Smith from Springfield, Massachusetts, and sister of William Howard Smith. She died at the age of eighteen from an illness contracted while working at a Methodist revival at the Pynchon Street Church. Her father was an ardent Methodist, and Mary Jane is said to have inherited his religious fervor."

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