Counting down the year...

Ayer's Hair Vigor, ca. 1880s

Merry Christmas

David Wolfe's Golden Girls

Special greetings from artist David Wolfe! You can download a high-res version here:

http://paperdollreview.com/golden_girls_paperdoll.html

Thank you, David! Look forward to seeing you in Phoenix.

More Story-Telling with Paper Dolls

Cordelia Prescott’s story, as told to Carol Carey:

My birth name was Cordelia Prescott, "Cordelia" chosen by my daddy who came from up North.  I think it was from Shakespeare or the Bible, never had a chance to ask cause he died when I was four.  Soon after, Momma lived with a few other men, some good, some bad.  It was the baddest one that set me out on the streets. 

I found a few jobs: Clothes-washing, okra-picking, fish-cleaning.  And then I met Madame Jolene who said that I could earn good money entertaining gentlemen. Paid money for what I'd given freely (or not so freely) seemed like a gift.  I became known for my tolerance for unusual role play:  Decked out like a school girl or a cat or roles even I would blush to tell.

Then came Bubba Lachaise, a sweet old farmer who wanted marriage. I didn't hesitate. God is my witness, I would never be hungry again!

What Bubba didn't say was that it was an Alligator Farm!  I worked from dawn till dusk. In a backroads shack, I sold gator meat, gator patties, gator purloo, gator gumbo. It was mostly chicken meat. (Wonder if that started people thinking that gator tasted like chicken).

Five years into our marriage, Bubba died. To sell the farm, I would have to see a lawyer.  And when asked by the  lawyer for my full name, I replied "Cordelia Prescott Lachaise."   "By any chance was your daddy Zebediah Prescott IV?" Didn't know what number Daddy was, but that name sounded right.

Well, it turned out that relatives up North had been looking for me for years, I being dear Zeb's only child and therefore heiress to a Yankee fortune! The Prescotts paid my lawyer a large fee for finding me. I did as well, for he'd concocted a past history more in keeping with their delicate sensibilities.

I moved to New York, where I met my Grandmama and cousins, and found my former skills in role-playing a definite advantage.

All delighted in my modest demeanor, strong resemblance to Daddy (thank God), and lamented the fates that left me orphaned at an early age. They believed my story that I had lived as a companion for many years until my sponsor's death.

Balls were held in my honor. I was decked out in jewels and satin. I was pursued by a handsome widower, a Polish prince, a Rockefeller, a famous author, a Chinaman, a railway magnate. And I chose one of them to be my husband.

Reader, don't you love a happy ending?

Telling stories with paper dolls

When I saw this old photograph in the newspaper, I knew I had to make a paper doll out of it. It's a famous photo of a New Orleans prostitute in Storyville, 1912. The photographer was E.J. Bellocq.

I thought of Fanny Gray, the first paper doll published in America in 1854. Here is a review that ran in The Lady's Repository, 1855:

FANNY GRAY: An Amusement for Children 

This is one of the most unique and exquisite things of this season of beautiful gifts. It is in the first place one of the very best specimens of colored printing yet given by the Art of the country and then the intent of the play is excellent tracing by six illustrative pictures while a poem is read: the history of Fanny Gray from poverty to happiness amid wealth. As the poem is read the figures are altered to illustrate each portion of Fanny's career, the same face fitting into all the figures. The picture of Fanny's Cottage is very attractive but her name beneath wrought by the union of flowers, grapes, mosses and birds is the most delicate of exquisitely beautiful designs The whole comes in a box and is indeed a rare gift for the Christmas holidays. Mr Collins, 1 South Six Street, has it in Philadelphia 

Why not tell a story with this doll? That was the challenge for the New York Paper Doll Group. Here are the designs I made for the other members earlier this year. 

I named her Delia. What happened to Delia after she left her wild life in Storyville? Each member got to choose an outfit from her wildlife and an outfit from her future:

Fortune Teller 

 Boutique owner

Bookseller

 Mother

Foreign Correspondent

Itinerant musician, 1925

A strange little print that was tucked in the Little Folks magazine. It looks like it was separated from another image at the bottom. The landscape reminds me of the Wizard of Oz. That looks like a violin case under his arm.