Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation

Thermopolis, Wyo. -- If you could only pick 15 dolls to represent the spirit of American innovation in the toy industry during the last two centuries, which would you pick?

That was the dilemma that long-time stamp designer Derry Noyes and photographer Sally Andersen-Bruce faced in the late 1980s when the U.S. Postal Service decided to print a set of stamps featuring American dolls.

It took nearly 10 years to settle on the 17 dolls that would grace the “Classic American Dolls” 15-stamp panel released in 1997.

The dolls pictured on the 32-cent stamps were gathered from collectors and museums around the country. They included a Native American hide doll, rag dolls, composition and modern plastics dolls – but no Barbie. (Although Barbie was designed by an American, she was manufactured in China, and that disqualified her as a truly American doll.)

The U.S. Postal Service licensed a number of related products, including first day cover envelopes and replicas of the dolls pictured on the stamps. Doll manufacturing companies still in business – such as Madame Alexander and Effanbee – were asked to reproduce dolls from their archives and records. Other dolls were reproduced based on the original patents granted to the dollmaker or the company. Because some materials used to make the original dolls were no longer acceptable, those dolls were reproduced in another medium but as true to the original as possible.

As soon as the replicas were released, they were snapped up by collectors and disappeared from the market, according to Ellen Sue Blakey, director, Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation, who curated the exhibit. The collection is on loan from private collectors to the Foundation. It is the first traveling exhibit to be sponsored by Wyoming Arts Council’s Community Arts Partners, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Foundation.

“It took five years to put together a complete set on the secondary collectible market,” said Blakey. “Some companies had made larger editions – so those were not hard to find. But there were three replicas that didn’t show up for sale for more than four years.

“In the 12 years since the replica dolls were made, not a single complete set that we know of has gone up for auction or sale.”

According to Blakey, replicas have a special value. “They are never going to be worth what the originals are, of course. The originals can be worth thousands of dollars. But few examples of some of them have survived – or they are in private collections and rarely seen.

“A quality replica may require a company to revive an old production technique or to improve on it. One of the dolls was originally produced in an early rubber composite that deteriorated into black gunk. When they made the replica, they tried to create another composite that would not break down as the original had done.

“But the real value of the replica is that more people have a chance to appreciate a three-dimensional model.”

Hot Springs Greater Learning Foundation staff developed the idea of a traveling doll exhibit because of the broad appeal of dolls. “They are the number one collectible in America; and stamps are right up there in the top three, depending on who is gathering figures.”

Since no book was published to accompany the doll stamps, information had to be researched from numerous sources, not all of which agreed on dates or even the construction of the dolls. “It was amazing how sparse information is in some areas,” Blakey said.

Many of the doll makers and manufacturers were women. “This was an acceptable business for women in the days when women did not own manufacturing companies. They had made dolls at home and as cottage industries. It was a logical step. Some of the women – like Madame Beatrice Alexander (Madame Alexander Dolls) and Rose O’Neill (kewpie dolls) – were astute businesswomen who licensed their products and made fortunes. At one time, Madame Alexander was the third largest toy company manufacturing in the United States.

“What was sad, however, was how many doll makers had their ideas stolen. Johnny Gruelle, who created Raggedy Ann, and Percy Crosby, who created Skippy, both spent years of their lives fighting those who stole their ideas. “Sometimes it became an issue of who made it to the patent office first. In other cases, people just blatantly ignored patents and dared the artists to sue them. Sometimes a rival company made only a small change that barely seemed noticeable and called it different,” said Blakey.

“Does the person who creates a character have the right to keep others from using it without permission? How little can something be altered to be considered a different product? This issue of ‘intellectual property’ is very much with us today -- especially when it is so easy for items to be reproduced on the internet.”