Pflugerville Public Library, September 2012

Members Myrna Loesch and Sylvia McDonald created a display of some of their delightful dolls for the Pflugerville Public Library.  

The dolls ranged from the 1880s through the 1940s and were made of a variety of materials, including bisque, composition, and hard plastic. Some  of the bisque heads were on jointed composition bodies and some dolls had bodies of cloth or kid leather with bisque or composition heads.

Some of the earlier dolls were made by German companies, such Simon and Halbig, Shoenau and Hoffmeister, Armand Marseille, Heubach Koppelsdorf,  and J.D. Kestner, while later dolls were produced by American companies, including Effanbee, Cameo, and Madame Alexander.  Below, you can see examples of the popular Kewpie and Patsy dolls.

The solemn little boy is a cloth doll stuffed with deer hair and hand painted by German artist Kathe Kruse, dating from the early 1900s.  His female friend cheerfully clad in red and white is McGuffy Ana by Madame Alexander, made in the 1930s and 40s, and the wee baby in the buggy is a Bye-Lo Baby designed by American doll artist Grace Putnam in 1923.

The display was well received and Myrna and Sylvia plan to do another display next September.