Vigo County Historical Society

Paper dolls were popular and much in demand

"I’m gonna buy a paper doll that I can call my own, a doll that other fellows cannot steal."

Those opening lines of a song popular some years back, were whirling around in my head recently and it suddenly brought to mind a question. Do little girls still play with paper dolls? I don’t recall my daughter playing with them. Or my granddaughter.

Random House Dictionary defines paper doll as: "A paper or cardboard, usually two dimensional, representative of the human figure, used as a child’s toy."

The history of toys suggests that paper dolls could not have been possible before the middle of the 18th century.

I was a child in the 1930s and I loved playing with paper dolls. I looked forward to the Sunday comics, because there was usually a paper doll with two or three outfits to cut out. These were "Tillie the Toiler," "Etta Kett" or "Little Orphan Annie," which were popular comic strips in those days.

Sometimes I would draw extra outfits for them. I liked to think my dolls were the "best-dressed" in the neighborhood.

This was the time of the Great Depression. Money was scarce but once in awhile I would have a dime and I would go to the five-and-10-cent store and buy some paper dolls.

Shirley Temple was very popular in those days and paper dolls of her were much in demand. There were dolls patterned after other favorite movie stars of the ‘30s and ‘40s.

During World War II, some of the paper dolls had uniforms as well as other clothes. Nurses and cowgirls were other favorites.

The Vigo County Historical Society Museum has some old favorites as well as more recent ones of President and Mrs. Reagan and President and Mrs. Clinton and daughter Chelsea.

If you are over age 30, visit the museum and take a trip down memory lane. If you are under 30, come anyway and see the paper dolls your mother and grandmother played with when they were girls.