I have been enjoying my doll collection this Spring and looking through my archival papers to see what I could pass on at our sales table when I downsize and I came upon research Mary Krombholz did for the Real Services of the UFDC.
Mary Krombholz was a collector but also a researcher of the German doll industry discovering the factories, delving into articles translated by Susan who speaks fluent German, talking to villagers and digging in gardens around the factories finding and saving moulds that has been thrown away. Susan as her interpreter and Mary made many discoveries. While reading through one of the study sets on Kestner she did for the UFDC I came upon what she had found in articles regarding the doll makers not the owners of the factory who gave their names to the dolls we love but the home workers who toiled endlessly for little pay to produce our beloved dolls we collect today.
I share with you Mary’s research on the children of the doll makers. They were an important part of Thuringian doll making. In the Kestner employment there were 1,264 people in 1846, of these 432 were children. It was a cottage industry where they began working at age 3 or 4. It is hard to believe in this day and age. They sat by the sewing machine or under the table cutting thread for as long as ten hours a day. When they became more skilled they graduated to doll making doing the sewing ,knitting, sanding, painting and setting eyes in the dolls.
They were particularly good at packing the completed doll in cardboard boxes. Once packed the 6 delivery of dolls was often done by the children as the adults had to work at least 12 hours a day to support their family. One child walked 3 miles there and back (probably to the Kestner factory) twice a week to deliver wooden doll limbs with a delivery basket strapped on her back which was tall and heavy. She frequently lost her balance she said in an oral history given many years later.
Home workers led very hard lives with little disposable income for clothes and food. Potatoes were the staple diet and often eaten raw. Children shared clothes and shoes often going barefoot in the summer. Families shared dwellings often two to three families in small rented homes. They had allotments where they grew vegetables and of course potatoes. They must have had a cow for milk probably shared with the community.
Sonneberg Museum has a tableau in the basement of a typical family working at doll making with children helping. When next I buy, admire or play with my antique dolls I am going to say a silent prayer of thanks for all those children who have unknowingly made my collector’s life so happy. Suzy