We need to get back to the Living History Village. We also want to go to the Superstition Mountains but we’ve decided to go to some places closer to home this week. On Tuesday we went down town to a small (tiny, actually) museum called the
Arizona Doll and Toy Museum. This is something Maya read about in our AAA book. Matt was amiable so we went. It is one corner of the only block of houses left from “original” Phoenix. This block of late Victorian era houses is known as Historic Heritage Square. The blocks immediately south, southwest and west are covered by museums and a parking structure. The streets through the area are blocked off to form an expansive promenade. The whole complex is called Heritage and Science Park.
As we mentioned, the Doll and Toy Museum is tiny (but they still validate parking!). It occupies one small house on the southwest corner of Historic Heritage Square named Stevens House. Inside hangs an award from a local paper naming the museum “The Best Museum You’ve Never Seen!” This sentiment rings true. It’s not the kind of place very many people would be interested in. We overheard the docent talking on the phone saying that more money goes out than comes in. We were only the second visitors of the day. While we were still there three other people came. So, maybe it was a good day for them after all.
As one might imagine, the museum specializes in dolls from between the 1880s and the 1930s. The dolls from this period are wax, or porcelain with elaborately crafted dresses, costumes and hats. Dolls from this period have a certain otherworldly, disconcerting look. They are not realistic children or miniature adults. They aren’t really idealized children, either. At least they are not what
we want our theoretical future children to look like. People had different aesthetic sensibilities in the years around 1900, but
really? Many of the dolls were donated by local doll collecting groups. Some bore ribbons from various doll show competitions. All this amazed Matt, who had the impression that all this doll connecting stuff was a thing of the relatively distant past. Maya on the other had insisted that obsessive colleting of antique dolls is alive and well. Dolls of particular note: one taller than Maya, one dressed in a traditional Native Alaskan costume made
by a Native Alaskan who happened to be the maid of the doll’s owner and an original Cabbage Patch doll with a cloth face instead of plastic one.
It was definitely a
DOLL and toy museum. There weren’t really very many toys at all. A wooden scooter here, a small mechanical bucking bronco there… There was one room that had two boy-toy cases. One contained the original G. I. Joe figures and accessories. There was a jeep, an inflatable raft and even other soldiers like the French Resistance soldier and the German sergeant. There were also several issues of the official G. I. Joe fan club newsletters dating from the early 1960s. Neat! The other case contained in impressive (possibly complete) collection of original Star Wars action figures. These would be the poorly articulated (shoulder and hip only; no knee, elbow or waist articulation) toys that appeared along with the original releases of movies. There were multiple versions of Luke, Han and R2-D2 plus a myriad of the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary characters. Matt had some of these as a kid, but they are so obscure he didn’t realize they were Star Wars figures. Something for everyone at the Doll and Toy Museum!
The other element of the museum that we both found really interesting was all the doll houses. It makes sense that a doll museum would have them, but we didn’t think about them. There were none of the pre-fab or plastic types. One summer when she couldn’t get out to putter about in her garden, Matt’s Grammy made a doll house from plastic canvas. That was a neat thing. These houses blew even that one away in scope and detail. One had real working electric lights inside and another was a full four stories tall with a game room, full dinner spread in the dining room, bathrooms, bedrooms and the gardens outside. One of the
most detailed was a combination hat shop and fabric store. It contained realistic, fancy ladies’ hats decorated with fly fishing feathers, individually rolled bolts of cloth, miniature scissors and belt buckles collected from all kinds of sources. It was amazing. We both found it impossible not to be sucking into the tiny world. Anther made by the same mother-daughter team was an old-style medicine shop with hundreds of tiny bottles. Apparently, the ladies contacted an actual owner of such a shop in order to get the arrangement of bottles and the Latin names for the various concoctions correct. Truly an amazing piece of work. A work of art.
As we mentioned, the Doll and Toy Museum is tiny (but they still validate parking!). It occupies one small house on the southwest corner of Historic Heritage Square named Stevens House. Inside hangs an award from a local paper naming the museum “The Best Museum You’ve Never Seen!” This sentiment rings true. It’s not the kind of place very many people would be interested in. We overheard the docent talking on the phone saying that more money goes out than comes in. We were only the second visitors of the day. While we were still there three other people came. So, maybe it was a good day for them after all.
As one might imagine, the museum specializes in dolls from between the 1880s and the 1930s. The dolls from this period are wax, or porcelain with elaborately crafted dresses, costumes and hats. Dolls from this period have a certain otherworldly, disconcerting look. They are not realistic children or miniature adults. They aren’t really idealized children, either. At least they are not what we want our theoretical future children to look like. People had different aesthetic sensibilities in the years around 1900, but really? Many of the dolls were donated by local doll collecting groups. Some bore ribbons from various doll show competitions. All this amazed Matt, who had the impression that all this doll connecting stuff was a thing of the relatively distant past. Maya on the other had insisted that obsessive colleting of antique dolls is alive and well. Dolls of particular note: one taller than Maya, one dressed in a traditional Native Alaskan costume made by a Native Alaskan who happened to be the maid of the doll’s owner and an original Cabbage Patch doll with a cloth face instead of plastic one.
It was definitely a DOLL and toy museum. There weren’t really very many toys at all. A wooden scooter here, a small mechanical bucking bronco there… There was one room that had two boy-toy cases. One contained the original G. I. Joe figures and accessories. There was a jeep, an inflatable raft and even other soldiers like the French Resistance soldier and the German sergeant. There were also several issues of the official G. I. Joe fan club newsletters dating from the early 1960s. Neat! The other case contained in impressive (possibly complete) collection of original Star Wars action figures. These would be the poorly articulated (shoulder and hip only; no knee, elbow or waist articulation) toys that appeared along with the original releases of movies. There were multiple versions of Luke, Han and R2-D2 plus a myriad of the secondary, tertiary, and quaternary characters. Matt had some of these as a kid, but they are so obscure he didn’t realize they were Star Wars figures. Something for everyone at the Doll and Toy Museum!
The other element of the museum that we both found really interesting was all the doll houses. It makes sense that a doll museum would have them, but we didn’t think about them. There were none of the pre-fab or plastic types. One summer when she couldn’t get out to putter about in her garden, Matt’s Grammy made a doll house from plastic canvas. That was a neat thing. These houses blew even that one away in scope and detail. One had real working electric lights inside and another was a full four stories tall with a game room, full dinner spread in the dining room, bathrooms, bedrooms and the gardens outside. One of the most detailed was a combination hat shop and fabric store. It contained realistic, fancy ladies’ hats decorated with fly fishing feathers, individually rolled bolts of cloth, miniature scissors and belt buckles collected from all kinds of sources. It was amazing. We both found it impossible not to be sucking into the tiny world. Anther made by the same mother-daughter team was an old-style medicine shop with hundreds of tiny bottles. Apparently, the ladies contacted an actual owner of such a shop in order to get the arrangement of bottles and the Latin names for the various concoctions correct. Truly an amazing piece of work. A work of art.
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