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Paper Dolls, and How to Make Them
1media/HTMPaperDolls_thumb.jpg2020-06-29T15:27:00+00:00Marianne Hansene5c1491b9c20d37a95fc0356366eeb2ddecf682b181Paper Dolls, and How to Make Them: A Book for Little Girls. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 683 Broadway, 1857.plain2020-06-29T15:27:00+00:00Marianne Hansene5c1491b9c20d37a95fc0356366eeb2ddecf682b
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12020-04-27T18:20:19+00:00Books to Entertain10plain2020-08-11T19:33:02+00:00ntertainment for young and old was provided by books describing indoor and outdoor games and amusements. Books of puzzles, memory challenges, and fireside contests were usually written for an undifferentiated audience of boys, girls, and adults of both sexes. But as publishers began thinking in terms of distinct markets, publications for a female readership appeared: games designed for girls, DIY paper dolls, and books with patterns and instructions for domestic handicrafts.
The author of the Hieroglyphick Bible interspersed accounts of creation and salvation and moral passages from the Bible with rebuses — popular at the time in other children’s publications — in an attempt to interest children both in reading and in holy scriptures. The Gaping Wide-Mouthed Waddling Frog is a memory game where players add a couplet on each repeat (like the "Twelve Days of Christmas") to build up to a 150-word long nonsense rhyme. The Whim Wham exemplifies inexpensive books of riddles, anagrams, and word puzzles for a lone reader or a company; the “Enigmatical Bouquet” gives clues that produce the name of a flower. The answer to II is foxglove — see if you can figure out the rest! Cousin Lively’s Picture Book of Nice Little Games for Nice Little Girlsoffers a variety of active games for inside play, as well as instructions for jumping rope, tag, and lawn bowling. Paper Dolls and How to Make Them is the first American book on homemade versions of the toy; the anonymous author explains how “out of an old card, and a few bits of colored paper … a child can create for herself a world of enjoyment.”
Paper Dolls, and How to Make Them: A Book for Little Girls. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph, 683 Broadway, 1857.
Some of us had paper dolls when we were young where the clothing was held on the doll by folded over paper tabs. And we have seen in our examination of Little Fanny that the early nineteenth century saw commercial printing of paper dolls whose head moved from garment to garment. The author of our book is excited about a different technology: “Now the great invention, from which Paper-Doll playing may be said to have its beginning, consists simply in making the dresses doubled at the top, so that they may stay on. I consider this one of the greatest discoveries of modern times.… The way is simply this; to fold the paper of which the dress is to be made, having the fold at the top, so that the dress is cut double, front and back, and the folded part makes a shoulder-strap.” Read more about this book on our blog.