Nancy Hanks Doll (Abigail Doll): Museum Object and Cultural History
Nancy Hanks Doll (Abigail Doll): date made: 1930s. maker: unknown. Object Name: doll.
The object in the museum catalogue
Portia Sperry designed this cloth doll in 1933, which she named after Abraham Lincoln’s mother Nancy Hanks and dressed in a print dress, apron, and sunbonnet. This was the second doll she designed, produced, and sold with a network of local farmwomen in her rural Indiana community during the Great Depression. A charismatic entrepreneur, Sperry persuaded the Marshall Field department store in Chicago, IL to sell the dolls and the Quaker Oat company to donate boxes for shipping them. Her efforts brought thousands of dollars to the women of Brown County, Indiana.
Materials, dates and provenance
- date made: 1930s
- maker: unknown
- Object Name: doll
- Object Type: dolls
- Object Type: toys
- Physical Description: cotton (doll covering material)
- Physical Description: batten (doll stuffing material)
- Physical Description: cotton (dress material)
- Physical Description: cotton (apron material)
- Physical Description: cotton (bonnet material)
- Physical Description: wool blend (shawl material)
- Physical Description: cotton (corset material)
- Measurements: doll: 12 in x 4 1/2 in x 2 in; 30.48 cm x 11.43 cm x 5.08 cm
- place made: United States
- classified: Toys
- classified: Children
- ID Number: 2008.0173.01
- accession number: 2008.0173
- catalog number: 2008.0173.01
- Credit Line: Gift of Mary M. Seubert
- Data Source: National Museum of American History
Sources and reuse
Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of American History through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed.
Sources
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