Refurbishing a Shackman Doll (1)

The life cycle of a porcelain doll looks like this: a little girl wants one, because porcelain dolls seem more special than regular dolls, with their ravishing clothes and their hair dressed in banana curls.  Maybe she read about a little girl having a porcelain doll in A Little Princess.  Finally her mom buys one, admonishing her to keep it in the box because it's breakable.  So the doll sits in the box, looking pretty, or is mounted on a dollstand on a high shelf, until the little girl is a big girl, too big for dolls.  Even if the girl keeps one doll for sentiment, it won't be the porcelain doll, because she never played with that one, anyway.  The porcelain doll is given to a charity shop, and there finds her many sisters, each on her own dollstand or in her own box, perfectly coiffed and un-played-with. 

My local Goodwill has a whole corner shelf filled with these breakable little treasures, set high above the questing hands of juvenile browsers, looking out at the world that only ever looks back. 

I was that little girl, once, and I'm pretty sure that my own porcelain doll came from the Salvation Army Thrift Store, and eventually went back to same.  I remember she looked like a little girl, but I wanted one I'd only ever seen in stories: one who looked like a miniature woman.  Perhaps I wanted a fashion doll instead of a baby doll, a sophisticated, elegant lady doll to match my self-concept, because I never saw myself as a child even when I was one.  Until yesterday, I never saw such a doll in real life.

Yesterday, I was at Goodwill with my friend, doing some recreational thrifting.  She grabbed some straight-sided baking pans for making layer cakes, and we tried on dresses atop our regular clothes, because the dressing rooms are still closed due to COVID fears.  (Given that COVID transmission happens through breath and spit, a dressing room seems like an unlikely danger zone, since you're in there alone.  Closing dressing rooms seems like security theater, to me, but then "Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it." [-Helen Keller])  I found a blue and white coffee mug for ninety-nine cents, and then, walking past the porcelain doll corner, I saw her: a real lady doll, not a baby doll! 

I picked her up and showed my friend, who laughed and recoiled.  "Oh, it's creepy!  You don't want that!"  Of course I wanted her!  Little-girl-Karen living inside memory wanted her!  But that dress, that poor, torn dress, so faded and sad... it had to go.  "I'm gonna buy her," I said, and "what for?" from my friend.  "I'm gonna fix her up and make her pretty."  "Then what?"  "Probably give her back to Goodwill... I don't know.  She deserves a better dress, at least."  Won over by my personifying language, my friend amended her pronoun if not her judgement: "Well, she's still creepy!" 

UNCANNY VALLEY

I understand the "creepy" sentiment about some dolls.  Human faces are difficult to render in any art form, and porcelain is quite unlike skin.  An attempt at verisimilitude easily slides into the uncanny valley: that uncomfortable spot between "looks human" and "not human" that makes the viewer shudder.  But in this case, since the doll's face is pretty, I think the problem is the torn and faded dress: anything neglected can look sinister. 

Totally-Not-Creepy dolls at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, St. Johnsbury, Vermont, USA. Daderot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

UN-DRESSING

The first thing I do when I get her home is undress her to see what I'm working with.  The only damage is her missing thumb; her soft body is clean and sound, her other hand and her feet and head are whole.  Unlike bisque dolls, this doll had a glaze on her, making her skin glossy rather than matte.  Her dress, hand-sewn and falling apart, is not salvageable: I could mend the ripped seams, but there's no un-fading what has faded. 

denuded of her threadbare finery

The faded folds of the skirt.

The "As-Is" on the Goodwill tag means the item is damaged and not eligible for return after purchase.  The black X and the tag alike come off easily with warm water and rubbing, revealing an imprint:

  1979
© BSCO

B. SHACKMAN & CO.

Google is surprisingly unhelpful when I look up the imprint: I try "1979 BSCO doll" and "BSCO doll history" and "doll maker BSCO" and other variations on that theme, and get Pinterest pages with pictures of (creepy) dolls, or Etsy pages selling them, but nothing to say what BSCO stands for or where it was made or anything.  But the word "Shackman" comes up several times, so I search for that, and voila! 

Some sources say Bertha Shackman founded B. Shackman & Co. , often abbreviated BSCO, in 1898, when she was 49 years old (maybe 50?).  But since her husband David Shackman was already dealing in novelties in 1885, and the B. got added to the business name the same year he died, perhaps they started it together?  Or she took it over after his death?  Or maybe it was always her project but she took more credit once she was widowed.  I'd be curious to know! 

The company was a wholesaler of novelties such as children's toys, gag gifts, cards and stationery, et cetera.  They also had a storefront in New York City, in a section of town that was for a while called the Flatiron Novelty District because of the variety of similar stores, there.  They moved locations a few times and Bertha ran the company with the help of her sons. 

Bertha Shackman was hit by a car and died on September 5th, 1925.  The company stayed in the family until Dan Shackman Jacoby, her great-grandson, sold it to its employees in 1985. 

I can't find out if B. Shackman & Co is still in business.  Several of the blogs I linked above say it is, but the company website says "server not found" when I try to access it. 

RE-DRESSING

I start with some scraps of tulle and petticoat net that I have, and whip up a crinoline for her.  The top of the skirt is tulle, in two layers,  The bottom ruffle is a folded strip of petticoat net.  I fold it and enclose its raw edges in the tulle because petticoat net is scratchy, and I don't want to scratch my hands.  I leave the skirt entirely open in the back and tie it on her like an apron.

Crinoline ready to be sewn to ribbon waistband. The red pin marks the Center Front, the black pins the Center Back edges, so all the gathers have to fit in between.

Crinoline tied on!

Next up: she needs underpants.  I have some Swiss dot with faux hemstitch eyelets that'll do marvelously.  I cut a rectangle for each leg, fold them around the leg, and mark the approximate bottom of the crotch with a pin.  Then I cut a little half-U shape out above that  pin, and there are my leg pieces.  I sew them together and give them an elastic waistband. 

So much for underwear; on to the dress itself!  It's small work to disassemble the already torn dress and see my pattern shapes.  Then, because the original dress is a bit big on the doll, I pin it tighter to make the bodice fit better before tracing off new pattern pieces.  The sleeves I leave exactly the same; they'll be gathered into the now-smaller armscye, and I'm sure they'll fit fine.  They're leg-o-mutton sleeves, so they're supposed to look enormous! 

I use my sewing machine for most of the project, only hand slip-stitching the velvet trim on cuffs and waistband.  Because of the smallness of the garment, it's hard to hem around the neckline, so I sew a piece of iron-on interfacing as a facing, turn it to the back, and press the whole together, simultaneously enclosing and glueing the raw edges. 

Picture over-exposed and color washed out and dull.

My materials are green polyester satin, cerise burnout velvet, and the original lace collar.  I think it comes together prettily!  I work long into the night and soon have it all sewn except for hem and back-closure!  I also think I should make her a camisole/corset-cover, because there's a very corset-like ridge where her ceramic bust ends and her stuffed torso begins, which shows through the dress.  So there's a little more work to do. 

The doll cost me ten dollars, and gave me at least five hours of pleasant labor: a fine return on investment! 

Now she needs a name.  Ideas?