Shirley Temple-Type Transitional Mama Doll

Name:  Shirley Temple-Type Transitional Mama Doll

Made by and When: Unknown, late 1940s

Material: Hard plastic face and breastplate, stuffed cloth body, composition arms and legs, and a Ma-ma crier, (possibly) human-hair wig

Marks:  Unmarked

Height: 29 inches

Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Brown wig styled with loosened Shirley Temple curls and bangs, brown sleep eyes with upper bristle eyelashes, open mouth with four upper teeth and a felt tongue

Clothes: Redressed in a lavender Dotted Swiss dress, white tights, and white leather Mary Jane shoes

Other: The late 1940s was one of the transitional doll-making periods when composition dolls were being phased out and hard plastic dolls were phased in. Many doll makers combined old and new materials to produce dolls like this one.

The popularity of Ideal’s early 1930s Shirley Temple composition doll influenced other manufacturers to produce similar black and white renamed versions. This doll is called a Shirley-Temple-type because its facial sculpt resembles Ideal’s Shirley Temple. With certain movements, its ma-ma crier makes a ma-ma sound. Because of the ma-ma crier and the use of transitional materials (composition, hard plastic, and cloth) before composition was replaced with hard plastic, transitional mama doll is included in the doll’s descriptive title.

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