Object Details
maker
Sperry, Portia Howe
Description
Portia Sperry designed, produced, and sold this cloth doll with the help of a network of local farmwomen in her rural Indiana community in the early 1930s. The Abigail doll was dressed in the print dress, apron, and sunbonnet of a pioneer woman and was the first of two dolls the women created. A resourceful entrepreneur, Sperry persuaded the Marshall Field department store in Chicago, IL to sell the dolls and the Quaker Oat company to donate boxes for shipping them. Her efforts brought thousands of dollars to the women of Brown County, Indiana during the Great Depression.
Location
Currently not on view
Credit Line
Gift of Susan Popp
date made
1930-1939
ID Number
2014.0262.01
catalog number
2014.0262.01
accession number
2014.0262
Object Name
doll
Measurements
overall: 20 in x 9 in; 50.8 cm x 22.86 cm
place made
United States: Indiana, Brown
See more items in
Home and Community Life: Domestic Life
Data Source
National Museum of American History
Link to Original Record
Record ID
nmah_1590924