Name: Topsy and Eva Babyland Rag Topsy-Turvy
Made by and When: Albert Bruckner, circa 1901-1924 for Horsman Doll Company
Material: Cloth
Marks: The doll usually has a cloth tag on the lower right neck that identifies it as a patent-pending Bruckner, which this doll is missing.
Height: 12 inches from head-to-head; 14 inches when the dress hemline is included in the measurement
Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Stiffened-cloth mask-faced heads are covered with lithographed facial features. Topsy has brown eyes, a broad nose, smiling red lips, and upper and lower painted teeth. Salt and pepper hair that frames the face has red ribbon accents. The rest of Topsy’s head is covered with a red tignon. Eva has lithographed bangs, blue eyes, and a closed mouth with bright red lip color. The rest of the head is covered with a bonnet.
Clothes: Topsy wears a red tignon, a sewn-on red blouse with an attached white shawl, and a red and white gingham skirt. Eva’s sewn-on bodice is red and white gingham. The shared red and white gingham skirt matches Eva’s bonnet. A white pinafore covers Eva’s bodice and skirt area.
Other: Albert Bruckner was an early American doll manufacturer of Topsy-Turvy and other dolls. Topsy-Turvy dolls are also known as double-sided dolls because two dolls share the same torso with the head of one doll covered by the full-length, shared skirt when the other head is exposed. The dolls are legless. This version has mitten-shaped cloth hands. (Topsy’s hands are black; Eva’s hands are white). Flipping the doll to one side or the other exposes the hidden doll and hides the previously exposed doll.
Linda’s Blog quotes Stonegate Antiques where the white doll is identified as Betty (which cannot be substantiated).
Having conceived of the revolutionary idea of a lithographed, molded-mask doll face in 1901, New Yorker, Albert Bruckner applied for and was awarded the patent for his idea that same year. All Bruckner dolls were then stamped, “PAT’D JULY 8th 1901″ on the lower right neck edge. From 1901-1924, Bruckner produced this original, 12” Topsy Turvy doll for Horsman’s Babyland Rag Doll line that features Caucasian, “Betty”, on one end and African American, “Topsy”, on the other. The inspiration for this doll is based on the character of Topsy in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic 1852 novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.
In Harriet Beecher Stowe’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin or Life Among the Lowly (1852), Topsy is the enslaved child of the white child, Eva. Stonegate possibly reassigned the white doll’s name to the character Betty in the alphabet-based story application, Alph and Betty’s Topsy Turvy World, which was released in 2013.
Gallery
See other Topsy-Turvy doll installations here.
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