These artifacts were featured on our monthly social media series, "Museum Mystery Mondays."
Both artifacts are pieces of doll furniture: one a wooden rope bed with a folding frame, and the other a chaise lounge with a green and red leaf pattern. Doll furnishings often reflected contemporary interior design trends; the wooden bed resembles styles common in many homes around Western North Carolina in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, while the chaise lounge mimics Victorian furniture of the late 19th century, most likely seen in an affluent home.
People started crafting dolls around 3000 to 2000 BCE, and the materials and appearances have varied by region. Wood and cloth were commonly used to make dolls in colonial America. In Western North Carolina, cornshuck dolls were popular within Appalachian and Native American cultures. We have two cornshuck dolls on display in our exhibit “Creating the Good and the Beautiful: The Appalachian Craft Revival, 1890s to 1930s and Beyond.”
