Moveable Porcelain Baby Doll

This porcelain doll’s head, arms, and legs can move. Her features include painted brown eyes, rosy cheeks, and brown skin. The baby doll’s dark brown hair is a combination of curls painted and molded on the porcelain and yarn gathered into three ponytails on the top and sides of her head. She wears a beige dress and, underneath, a white tunic with thin brown stripes. The doll belonged to Jacqueline Griffith, a lifelong District resident and the only child of Allen and Delaphine Griffith. Born around 1927, she resided in her family’s northwest Washington home until her death in the early 1990s. Her clothing and dolls in the Anacostia Community Museum’s collection complement the Griffith Family Papers in the Museum’s Archives, together documenting three generations of this African American family.