This African American doll named Chloe belonged to Eleanor Stevens (1891-1983) of Greenfield, Massachusetts. Manufactured dolls with porcelain faces could be purchased, but cloth dolls with painted faces like this one were made at home. Although African Americans had lived in New England since the 17th century, their numbers remained relatively small outside large cities and coastal areas. During the “Great Migration” of the early 1900s, unprecedented numbers of African Americans migrated from the economically depressed rural South to the industrial North. Cities experienced the greatest population gains, but the large influx of newcomers affected smaller New England cities and towns such as Greenfield, as well. It was not uncommon for White children like Eleanor Stevens to be given an African American doll, suggesting that young children were aware of diverse racial and ethnic groups in this period.

European doll companies began manufacturing Black dolls in the late 1800s. African American businesses began selling and making Black dolls specifically for African American children at the turn of the 20^th century. Richard Henry Boyd (1843-1922) began selling European-made Black dolls in 1908 and started the Negro Doll Company of Nashville, Tennessee, in 1911. A Baptist minister and a businessman, Boyd was acutely conscious of the need within the African American community for Black dolls that did not reinforce negative, racist stereotypes. An illustrated advertisement for the dolls declared, “An Opportunity is Given to Every Negro Family to Secure a Beautiful Negro Doll for Their Girls.” The company assured potential customers that “[t]hese toys are not made of that disgraceful and humiliating type that we have been accustomed to seeing black dolls made of…These toys are placed in the city and at the disposal of the people that they may teach their children how to look upon their people.” By the mid-1950s, many American toy companies were producing realistic Black dolls.