item details
Overview
This paper doll set features 6-year-old orphan Buffy Davis, a television character who was played by child actor Anissa Jones (1958-1976, USA) in the hit sitcom Family Affair (1966-71). The paper doll features a photograph of the actor and is dated 1968. Her clothing is fashionable to the period, and reflects the impacts of youth culture when teenage fashions became extremely influential and marketable to young girls.
Due to the popularity of the show with girls, dolls were created: ‘Small Talk Buffy’ and ‘Mrs Beasley’ (a doll which Buffy often carried with her). This paper doll set includes Mrs Beasley, her baby clothes and cradle.
Paper doll history
Paper dolls became popular in Britain, Germany and the United States in the nineteenth century, and were either imported by New Zealand distributers, or printed locally. They were particularly popular in the 1930s and during the Second World War years when imported dolls were scarce and too expensive for many families. Paper dolls could be produced cheaply and provide hours of fun and imaginative play.
Paper dolls were seen to encourage child development, and in particular, taught girls about acceptable ideas about femininity (and sometimes maternity), and suggested appropriate activities for girls (such as going to the beach and playing tennis). Their multiple costume changes and accessories reflected girls’ complex social lives (real and imagined); and allowed space for their owners to invent stories for their dolls.
Paper dolls often came in books (sometimes called a ‘dress book’), with the doll printed on the cardboard cover with a cut-out stand. Inside the book would be many different fashionable and interchangeable outfits. In the more expensive books, the outfits were pre-punched, and could be easily cut out from the page.
Dolls were named and presented within narratives such as Hollywood glamour, going out, city life, at the beach, etc. The selection of clothing would reflect a myriad of activities at different times of day, ranging from sleepwear, day wear, evening dress to accessories. This set includes fashionable mini dresses.
Paper dolls of the mid-twentieth century like this example often featured white role models living idealised middle/upper class lives. A paper doll’s social status was depicted through their clothing, grooming and accessories, revealing gender codes of their period, particularly ideals and stereotypes of femininity.