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Topsy-Turvy Dolls: A part of American history
It has recently been suggested that topsy-turvy dolls originated in plantation nurseries. If that was so, then it is a poignant reminder of the danger inherent in the lives of slave families' children in the South. Wanting a (forbidden) white doll like the babies their mothers cared for in plantation nurseries, the children were given a two headed (topsy-turvy) doll which could be flipped to the black side when an overseer passed the mat play. The dolls were generally made of plain calico or homespun linen, and had a head on each end of a single body and two sets of arms, with no legs. The heads were concealed by a long skirt.
Early topsy-turvy dolls originated in folklore, and were known as hex dolls. The Pennsylvania hex doll, which sports both human and pig heads - now to be found in the Mary Merritt Doll Museum in Douglasville, Pa. - could have been one of those hex dolls used for curing warts and casting spells. There is a common thread linking dolls of this kind in many world cultures.
With the progression of the Industrial Revolution, mechanical and novelty dolls became quite prevalent, and a succession of dolls often took their characters from fairy tales or special themes. Some dolls combined Little Red Riding Hood and the Grandmother or the Big Bad Wolf, others depicted different, starkly contrasting seasons. Others had themes such a rich and poor or City and Country (England, 19th Century).
(C) Jane McDaniel 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001.
Sources: "American Folk Dolls", Wendy Lavitt, 1982 Alfred A. Knopf, New York "Designing and Making Dolls", Ilse Gray, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York.
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