First Person Museum Exhibit Design

Assignment: How would you design the First Person Museum? Read Alice Parman's "Exhibit Makeovers: Do-It-Yourself Exhibit Planning" and describe your plan according to her six steps. Be sure to include a blueprint.

Step #1: Mission Statement, Take-Home Messages, and Storyline

Mission Statement (adapted from the First Person Arts website): "Everyone -- and everything -- has a story to tell. Sharing our stories and the stories of our possessions connects us with each other and the world."

Take-Home Messages:
(a) The story: Every object -- no matter how small or seemingly insignificant -- has two stories to tell: a personal story, and a history.
(b) The museum: The First Person Museum celebrates everyday objects, both for their individual (person) value and the value they possess within the larger (historical, cultural, social) context.
(c) The visitor: People like me play an essential role in museums like this.

The Storyline: Every object tells a story and a history. These stories and histories connect objects -- and their owners -- across time and place, and across racial/ethnic, gender, and age lines.

Step #2: "Galleries of Thought"

Unlike more conventional museums, which often display like objects with some sort of shared category, recognizable chronology, or collective theme, the objects in the First Person Museum relate to each other only insofar as they all have a story and history to tell. For this reason, creating a "gallery of thought" as Craig Kerger and Parman describe such arrangements becomes untenable. However, to show that all stories are valuable (in keeping with my take-home message), I have arranged the gallery into a semicircle; hopefully, visitors will recognize that while each story/history is different, all have value.

Step #3: Inventory & Facts

The sixteen objects that will feature in the First Person Museum have already been selected by a group organized by First Person Arts, and the "facts" relevant to each object have been presented by the owners of the objects (the storytellers) and the students in Studies in American Material Culture (the historians).

Steps #4 & #5: Motivate & Engage Visitors, Create the Look & Feel

Each person visiting the First Person Museum brings a unique set of experiences and perspectives to bear upon the objects in the museum and their arrangement within the space. The task for the curator, then, is to create the museum in such a way that visitors can move beyond those initial conceptions to arrive at the take-home messages of the museum and each object in it.

To that end, my design for the First Person Museum would attempt to strip away all superfluous context from the objects, allowing them to exist in and of themselves. Since Parman suggests cultivating within the exhibit space a "distinct visual style that communicates key messages about the content," I want to choose a design style that communicates the immanence of the objects first, and then augments that focus on materiality with story and history. The following description and blueprint (Step #6) attempts to cultivate such a space.

Housed in a display case of appropriate size, each object would present itself as unfettered as possible. With low lighting throughout the exhibit space and focused lighting (spotlighting) drawing attention to each piece, I would hope to further centralize each object and bring the focus of the visitor to bear upon the very materiality of the object (rather than on the physical surroundings of the object).

I recognize that this approach does contextualize the object in a certain way -- as a piece in a museum display -- and that people will necessarily bring attendant preconceptions and biases to such displays. I hope to combat these "bring-ins" by situating each object (literally) between video and audio presentations of its story and history. Visitors would wear headphones to experience each presentation.

Step #6: Blueprint

My basic design for the First Person Museum. Seating area in center,
individual display "cases" (pretend that the tables are cases, since Floorplanner
didn't have a "display case" option) in ring around room.

Closeup of one object area. Again, pretend that the table is in fact
a display case and note the two screens -- one to display a video
presentation of the object story, and another to display a video
presentation of the object history.

Images designed using Floorplanner.

Social/Cultural Context: Black Dolls

Assignment: How has your object or objects like it figured in popular culture? Has it appeared in political discourse, literature, film, television, or other visual arts? How does its role in popular culture vary with audience? What different meanings does it convey in different cultural contexts?

As I wrote yesterday, Iris's black dolls are homemade productions that have (presumably) not moved far beyond the context in which Iris (as the producer and owner) conceived them. This fact complicates my ability to complete the above assignment in its original form.

Even if I were to expand beyond Iris's dolls to a more generic examination of the social and cultural context of all black dolls, another problem crops up: black dolls have not been widely represented in most popular culture outlets. Such anonymity reflects the larger absence of black dolls in the consumer marketplace.

In attempting to move beyond these conceptual dilemmas, I have decided to focus this study on how popular cultural conceptions of blacks are reflected in (some of) the dolls of that era. After all, as the publicity blurb for SUNY Rockland's 2008 exhibit "Black Dolls: From Mammy to Barbie" suggests, the evolution of the portrayal of African Americans in popular culture can be seen quite clearly in mass-produced dolls.

Early dolls introduced or reinforced negative stereotypes about blacks. "Pickaninny" dolls emerged in the late decades of the 1800s, reflecting a stereotypical image of black children "as nameless, shiftless natural buffoons running from alligators toward fried chicken." The first famous pickaninny figure was Topsy, a character from Harriet Beecher Stowe's anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852); though meant in Stowe's narrative to show how slavery "indelibly corrupted" children, the character was later placed in comic contexts "to trivialize slavery's brutality." Thomas Edison's 1904 film Ten Picaninnies "referred to [black children] as inky kids, smoky kids, black lambs, snowballs, chubby ebonies, bad chillun, and coons."

Image of a Golliwog doll, a representation of blacks
made popular in the 1890s. (WikiCommons)

Golliwog, another early anti-black caricature, came into the cultural consciousness of pre- and post-Civil War America by means of minstrel shows. Golliwog dolls, byproducts of these shows, existed as late as 1870s. Florence Kate Upton, a British novelist inspired by a black minstrel doll she'd played with as a child, wrote an 1893 book that re-popularized these dolls. The fact that both black and white children played with early iterations of these dolls helps to explain why a debate about the Golliwog as "a lovable icon or a racist symbol" has existed in Europe and the U.S. for the last four decades.

Another stereotypical image -- the mammy -- became so ubiquitous as to merit its own representation in doll form. The mammy caricature stereotyped black women as "obese, course, maternal figure[s]," and persisted throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Evidence suggests that both white and black children owned "mammy" dolls; while whites are most often remembered as using the dolls as servants for their white dolls¹, little evidence remains as to the use and meaning of mammy toys for black girls.²

With the rise of popular radio in the early years of the twentieth century, and continuing with the rise of television in the 1950s and 1960s, black dolls came to resemble characters from media productions. Among these representations was Amosandra, a doll based on the child of Amos and Ruby Jones, characters on the popular radio/TV program Amos 'n Andy. Despite controversy surrounding the show, contemporary writers perceive that Amosandra was "[p]robably the most well received [black] doll of [the] postwar period" among both whites and blacks. A doll based on baseball legend Jackie Robinson also became popular with both black and white consumers.³

With the dawn of the black doll industry in the 1960s and 1970s U.S. alongside the increased visibility of black celebrities in American popular culture, a trend toward black character dolls emerged. Black G.I. Joe figurines for boys appeared as late as 1964⁵; representations of actresses like Diahann Carroll and musicians like Dianna Ross also emerged in this era.⁶ Into the 1980s and 1990s, popular TV characters -- from The A-Team's Mr. T to Family Matters' Steve Urkel to Moesha's Moesha Mitchell -- were also presented in doll form, highlighting the continued prominence of black actors and actresses in American mass media.

Notes:
1. See Plate 39 in Myla Perkins, Black Dolls 1820-1991: An Identification and Value Guide (Paducah, Ky.: Collector Books, 1993), p. 26, for evidence of this use.
2. Dawn E. Reno, The Encyclopedia of Black Collectibles: A Value and Identification Guide (Radnor, Pa.: Wallace-Homestead Book Co., 1996), p. 103, conjures that, for pre-Civil War black children, "[p]erhaps mammy herself made the doll" -- an indication (though perhaps an unreliable one) that black children played with toys modeled in this way.
3. Perkins, p. 80.
4. "Modern Designs for Negro Dolls," Ebony, January 1952, p. 46, quoted in Perkins, p. 80.
5. Perkins, p. 151.
6. Reno, p. 106.

Revealing Iris' Dolls

Iris's dolls. Photo courtesy of David Kessler.

Thanks to Dana Dorman of First Person Arts, I recently had my first opportunity to view Iris's dolls, the objects I am researching in preparation for the opening of the First Person Museum this November.

The photograph above shows a number of Iris's dolls, two of which will appear in the museum exhibit. According to a report from Dana, Iris makes these dolls herself. As I have discovered in my research, homemade black dolls have a long heritage in the U.S.

I posted this picture (with permission from First Person Arts) because I thought readers of this blog might be interested in learning more about Iris's dolls specifically, even as they read more general research about the historical, social, and cultural context of black dolls.

Historical Context: Black Dolls

In her book on black dolls, writer Myla Perkins claims that "black dolls have been used as far back as one can practically go in our African history."¹ This study concerns itself with black dolls used as children's toys, particularly in an American context. Such black dolls came to the United States in the early colonial era as the playthings of slave children. As Buster writes, many dolls of this kind "have the humblest of origins, fashioned by the hands of anonymous black seamstresses, craftsmen, and other plain folk who simply liked to make things." ² Such dolls -- called "folk dolls" to distinguish them from their mass-produced counterparts -- were often (at least in the colonial and pre-Civil War U.S.) the possessions of slave children; store-bought dolls were a luxury few could afford.

In the early nineteenth century, commercially made black dolls appeared on store shelves and in catalogs. Manufactured in Germany and France, the "heartland" of toy production in this era, the dolls, while rare, were sold in the U.S. These dolls were likely owned by whites and "were made to be used as supplementary dolls, used in play situations as maids, servants, slaves, etc., for the white dolls."³ Most were fashioned after adult females and dressed "to represent household slaves"⁴; Reno notes that such dolls "were made to resemble mammies," and "are often holding tiny white babies, symbolizing the mammy's role in the household."⁵

In the mid-1800s, production of black dolls came to American shores. Reno notes that by the early twentieth century, U.S. productions were rare and, when available, often "character dolls" made for the kitchen use of whites: these dolls could hold whisk brooms or cover toasters.⁶ Like earlier renditions, these dolls reinforced notions about black servitude and subservience. Similarly, U.S. productions that "tended to play up the comic aspects of . . . black dolls" reinforced dominant popular mythologies about blacks; their emergence echoes the "Jump Jim Crow" caricature that came to light in the U.S. through popular minstrelsy routines in the early nineteenth century.⁷ Add to this the fact that virtually all black dolls in this era were produced from the same mold as white dolls and merely dyed or painted a darker color, with no attempt to craft dolls with "ethnically correct features."⁸ Perhaps expectedly, black families felt prompted to boycott mass-produced dolls in favor of homemade productions.⁹

Black dolls with ethnically correct features emerged as early as the 1950s and 1960s, amidst the "growing awareness" caused by the burgeoning Civil Rights movement.¹⁰ Buster cites Sarah Lee Creech, a white civil rights activist, with leading "an early effort to produce a black doll that was more than just a browner shade of pale."¹¹ Perkins credits two companies -- Remco Industries, which "introduced four 'ethnically correct' Negro dolls" designed by black artist Annuel McBurrows in the late 1960s, and Shindana Toys, "the first large-scale national black-owned-and-operated doll manufacturing company" -- with popularizing realistic-looking black dolls.¹² These dolls were widely embraced by blacks in the U.S.

Since the 1950s and 1960s, a new kind of black doll owner has emerged: the doll collector. While doll collecting has existed in some form since the nineteenth century (primarily as a pastime for "a few refined ladies"), black doll collecting gained momentum in the later half of the twentieth century, with the establishment of the nation’s first black doll museum in 1988 and the publication of several black doll collectors guides. Today, the black doll collecting community thrives through conventions, online publications, and regional collector networks.

Notes:
1. Myla Perkins, Black Dolls: An Identification and Value Guide, 1820-1991 (Paducah, Ky.: Collector Books, 1993), p. 5.
2. Larry Vincent Buster, The Art & History of Black Memorabilia (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2000), p. 130.
3. Perkins, p. 6.
4. Ibid.
5. Dawn E. Reno, The Encyclopedia of Black Collectibles: A Value and Identification Guide (Radnor, Pa.: Wallace-Homestead Book Co., 1996), p. 103.
6. Ibid., p. 104.
7. Leon F. Litwack, Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), p. xiv.
8. Buster, p. 132.
9. Perkins, p. 80.
10. Ibid., p. 102.
11. Buster, p. 132.
12. Perkins, p. 102-103.

Object Description: Black Dolls

In preparation for the opening of the First Person Museum in November, I will be investigating the historical, social, and cultural context of "Iris's black dolls," two objects that will be exhibited in the museum.

According to the method laid out by art historian Jules David Prown¹, such a study should naturally begin with an objective description of the artifact under analysis. A report from First Person Arts (the organization behind the First Person Museum) indicates that three general remarks may be made about Iris' black dolls: they are approximately 18 inches tall, made of cloth, and light-weight. A more exact description of the objects, however, cannot be presented at this time, since extenuating circumstances have prevented me from viewing or handling the dolls.

In lieu of a precise object description, I will offer a generic object description of black dolls.

Before I begin, one caveat: This post rests on the assumption that the objects termed "Iris' black dolls" are, in fact, generally similar in form, size, shape, material, production method, etc., to the objects described in various resource guides like Myla Perkins' Black Dolls 1820-1991: An Identification and Value Guide, Debbie Behan Garrett's Black Dolls: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion, and Dawn E. Reno's The Encyclopedia of Black Collectibles: A Value and Identification Guide. Because a visual examination of Iris' black dolls has not yet occurred, the appropriateness of this assumption cannot be verified. Nevertheless, I proceed from this premise.

Generally speaking, black dolls are "dark-skinned, inanimate representations of dark-skinned people"² made from a variety of materials and made in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most often these objects are fashioned as playthings for children. Thus, when considered in Prawn's categories of function, most black dolls constitute diversions; some may be considered art, though the lines between these two categories (as Prawn himself acknowledges) are not strictly drawn.³

Dolls are modeled on both the male and female form. The dolls are composed of a head, torso, arms, legs, hands, and feet; most (but not all) have eyes, ears, a mouth, a nose, and hair. They are rendered with more or less resonance to human form depending upon the material from which they are made as well as the method of production used to create them. Most (but not all) wear an outfit made from a variety of fabrics. The dolls vary in coloring from black to very light brown. Some have articulated joints.

The dolls themselves are made from a variety of materials. Early folk dolls produced before the era of industrialization were fashioned from various "found" materials: corn husks and chicken bones (among other materials) formed the torsos, while nuts, socks, or even a rubber bottle nipple constituted the head.⁴ Later dolls were (and continue to be) fashioned from paper, papier-mache, china, bisque, wood, composition, leather, hard plastic, resin, porcelain, silicone, polymer clay, and vinyl (soft and hard), to name a few materials. Often dolls are made from a combination of materials: wood pulp bodies with bisque heads; cotton-stuffed bodies with bisque or china heads; etc.

The material used to create the facial features of black dolls varies, often according to the material used to make the head of the doll or according to the sophistication of the production process. In the case of all-cloth dolls, eyes may be made from buttons or from colored thread; in the case of bisque dolls, eyes may be made from glass and be recessed into the bisque head, or may be painted onto the ceramic itself. Noses and mouths follow a similar pattern; some dolls have open mouths (revealing teeth) or closed mouths. Ears, when present, are typically molded from the material used to make the head (plastic, ceramic, etc.).

Likewise, the material used to create the hair of black dolls varies, often according to the sophistication of the production process. Doll hair may be rendered from materials like yarn, lamb's wool, mohair, and human hair. Some dolls have painted hair or hair molded from plastic.

Black dolls have been mass-produced in Europe and the United States since the early 1800s. Prior to, continuous with, and subsequent to such industrial manufacturing, dolls are/were produced by hand. Production method (both industrial and non-industrial) varies depending upon the material.

Notes:

[1] Jules David Prown, "Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method," in Robert Blair St. George, ed., Material Life in America, 1600-1860 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), pp. 24-25.

[2] Debbie Behan Garrett, Black Dolls: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion (Privately published, 2008), p. 12.

[3] Prawn, p. 19, 29-30.

[4] Larry Vincent Buster, The Art and History of Black Memorabilia (New York: Clarkson and Potter, 2000), p. 130.

Welcome!

Welcome to mə-tir-ē-əl! Over the next fourteen weeks, this site will serve as my homepage as I explore (along with the rest of my colleagues in Studies in American Material Culture) the use of "stuff" as a source in historical inquiry.


mə-tir-ē-əl will primarily serve as a repository for personal research. During the course of this semester, I'll be researching the historical, cultural, and social context of an object to be displayed in the First Person Museum, an experimental "museum of the people" coming to Philadelphia's Painted Bride Art Center this fall.


You'll read my research first on this blog. In order, I'll progress through an object description (Assignment #1), the object's historical context (Assignment #2), the object's social/cultural context (Assignment #3). Finally, I'll post my own design for the First Person Museum (Assignment #4). Stay tuned for more.


The title of the blog -- mə-tir-ē-əl -- is a bit tongue-in-cheek. My use of the pronunciation spelling of "material" acts as a visual representation of what I plan to do this semester: look at material in a whole new way. How do we derive meaning from material things? What can those things tell us about history? What can they tell us about culture, race, and gender? As I ask such questions throughout this semester, I anticipate deconstructing (breaking down) my previous conceptions of the value of material things.


Thanks for joining me!