Doll
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a toy made to imitate, usually, a child, but sometimes a grown person. The name is believed to have been derived from Dolly, an abbreviation of Dorothy. A love of dolls is universal. Children of every hue and nation delight in fondling dolls. The Eskimo child makes a doll out of a bit of bone or ivory, dressing it possibly in fur. The child of the African jungles gowns a bit of stick with forest leaves. The wooden dolls with painted faces and inexpensive clothing are made for the most part in Thuringia, and in certain sections of France and Germany. The most expensive dolls are made in France. Doll making is an important industry in London and New York . Dolls are made of almost every conceivable material. The famous molded wax dolls of France have glass eyes, stuffed bodies, flaxen ringlets, and fancy dresses. The heads, hands, and feet are sewed usually to a body of cloth or kid, stuffed with bran, sawdust, cork, meal, or even cotton. Unbreakable dolls are now made from celluloid. The entire body, or only the heads, hands, and feet may be made from this material, which differs little in appearance from bisque. Many dolls are made in one piece, of rubber; others have porcelain heads and limbs. Other materials are papier-mache' and plaster of paris, painted to represent the complexion, hair, and features. For dressing small dolls, makers purchase remnants at millinery establishments. Children seem, however, to care little for the expensiveness of a doll. A rag baby, worth a few cents, is often loved as tenderly as an expensive combination of wax and silks. Nearly all children are partial, however, to dolls that shut their eyes when laid down. This effect is secured by means of movable eyes, furnished with wires and weights in such a way that when the doll is placed on its back the weight drops down, and the eye turns over bringing the lid into view. When the doll is lifted up, the weight takes a new position, causing the eye to open. A doll having a flexible, hollow body, as rubber, may be made to cry by means of a whistle set in the mouth. Edison amused himself constructing a doll with a phonograph in its interior. When its machinery is wound up, the doll laughs, cries, talks, and sings in a surprisingly natural fashion. All said and done, however, the simplest dolls give quite as much pleasure as those of more ingenious construction. See Automaton; Toys English Greyhound. Russian Greyhound. Fox Terrier. Dachshund. Black Field Spaniel. Dogs
What Has Changed in the Last Century
When Aiton's wrote this in 1910, the trade belonged to Thuringia, France and Germany, and the marvels were sleeping eyes, celluloid limbs and Edison's phonograph doll — that talking doll, sold in 1890, was in fact a commercial failure withdrawn within weeks. Wax, bisque, papier-mâché and celluloid have all given way to moulded vinyl and plastic, celluloid being abandoned largely because it burned so readily, and the bulk of the world's dolls are now made in China rather than Sonneberg or Paris. The biggest break came in 1959, when Mattel's Barbie made the adult-figured fashion doll, rather than the baby, the industry's centrepiece. What has not changed is the entry's closing point: children still love a rag baby as fiercely as an expensive one, though makers now also sell dolls in a range of skin tones the 1910 text never contemplates beyond noting that "children of every hue" play with them.
Written for this edition, 2026.