{"id":3903,"date":"2013-06-19T15:23:30","date_gmt":"2013-06-19T15:23:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=3903"},"modified":"2021-04-21T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T15:10:18","slug":"finding-ancestors-names-can-be-childs-play-paper-doll-comics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/finding-ancestors-names-can-be-childs-play-paper-doll-comics.html","title":{"rendered":"Finding Ancestors\u2019 Names Can Be Child\u2019s Play: Paper Doll Comics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.<\/span>\u201d In this guest blog post, Gena addresses the problem that it\u2019s often hard to find information about our ancestors when they were children. One solution? Look for their participation in fashion and coloring paper doll contests run by newspapers.<\/em><\/p>\n

Previously in my article \u201cWhat about the Kids? Researching Your Family Tree\u2019s Children<\/a>\u201d I wrote about places to find children\u2019s names in newspapers. I commented on how as researchers we genealogists often ignore the childhood of our ancestors because children did not generate the quantity of records that adults left behind.<\/p>\n

The wonderful thing about newspapers is that they are the great equalizer: they record the stories of everyone whether rich or poor, young or old. While there can be no doubt that some people get more articles written about them than others, you can find ancestors\u2019 names in all sorts of places in the newspaper\u2014even in something as unexpected as a paper doll contest.<\/p>\n

\""Tillie<\/a>
Credit: Windows Live Photo Gallery<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It seems that today very few children read newspapers\u2014or for that matter very few adults. But it wasn\u2019t too long ago that children read the newspaper often, at the very least to check out the comics page, enter contests, and even acquire new toys to play with. One toy that could be found in the Sunday newspaper was paper dolls. According to the OPDAG (The Original Paper Doll Artists Guild) article \u201cHistory of Paper Dolls<\/a>\u201d by Judy M. Johnson, the Boston Herald<\/em> was printing newspaper paper dolls as early as the 1890s. Additional wardrobes for those paper dolls could be found in subsequent issues of the newspaper, adding to the child\u2019s paper doll collection. During the Depression years, children could find many different newspaper paper dolls, most based on their favorite comics including \u201cBoots and Millie\u201d and \u201cJane Arden.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only would the comic strip authors themselves provide dolls and wardrobes in the Sunday papers, they would solicit contributions from readers. One comic strip that encouraged readers to design outfits was \u201cTillie the Toiler.\u201d Tillie, drawn by Russ Westover, ran in newspapers from 1921 to 1959. Tillie toiled at her jobs as a stenographer, secretary and model. Her life as a single working girl was the focus of the strip and the character of Tillie was also featured in a couple of movies.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a call to the young readers of \u201cTillie the Toiler\u201d to submit designs for the Fashion Parade.<\/p>\n

\"Dresses<\/a>
Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), 29 January 1933, page 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019m always on the lookout for unusual places to find ancestors\u2019 names. Searching through those newspaper paper doll fashion contests can yield the names of the winners; those people chosen to have their doll and\/or wardrobe published. Not only are the contest winners\u2019 names and cities printed but sometimes even street addresses and, occasionally, the winners\u2019 relationships to other budding fashionistas\u2014such as in this example, where friends Zelene Des Champs and Ann Wolff from South Carolina submitted entries together.<\/p>\n

\""Tillie<\/a>
Credit: from the author\u2019s collection<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Girls were not the only ones who submitted entries; boys and even married women from the United States and Canada submitted their doll and fashion drawings.<\/p>\n

Aside from designing an outfit and having their name printed in the newspaper, children could also enter coloring contests featuring their favorite comic characters. In this 1933 newspaper article, Shirley Jean French is congratulated on her winning entry by \u201cTillie the Toiler\u201d cartoonist Russ Westover. According to the 1930 U.S. census Shirley was 12 years old when she won the first-prize award. Of Shirley\u2019s entry, Westover wrote that \u201cTillie has never been better dressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"winner<\/a>
San Diego Union (San Diego, California), 27 August 1933, page 11<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While today\u2019s American children may not be as engaged with newspapers as previous generations, for their grandparents and great-grandparents the Sunday comics page was not just a place to get a few laughs\u2014it may have been a place to leave their mark on the world.<\/p>\n

Genealogy Tip<\/em><\/strong>: Examine every part of a newspaper when doing your family history searches. You never know where a long-sought ancestor\u2019s name might turn up\u2014an obscure ad, a paper doll contest, a family recipe\u2014providing a little more detail to help bring that name on your family tree to life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction: Gena Philibert-Ortega is a genealogist and author of the book \u201cFrom the Family Kitchen.\u201d In this guest blog post, Gena addresses the problem that it\u2019s often hard to find information about our ancestors when they were children. One solution? Look for their participation in fashion and coloring paper doll contests run by newspapers. Previously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[4322,5280,4315,1142,3732,3970,3969,4321,1129,1658,2233,1656,4325,465,2191,4316,4580,5354,5355,2020,4314,27,4326,4313,5370,5426,4318,4324,4327,4317,4319,4323,5460,4320],"class_list":["post-3903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-ann-wolff","tag-book","tag-boots-and-millie","tag-census","tag-children","tag-comic-strips","tag-comics","tag-des-champs","tag-family","tag-family-history-2","tag-family-research","tag-family-tree","tag-french","tag-historical-newspapers","tag-history","tag-jane-arden","tag-johnson","tag-life","tag-long","tag-newspaper-archives","tag-newspaper-contests","tag-newspapers","tag-original-paper-doll-artists-guild","tag-paper-dolls","tag-people","tag-records","tag-russ-westover","tag-shirley-jean-french","tag-sunday-comics","tag-tillie-the-toiler","tag-westover","tag-wolff","tag-young","tag-zelene-des-champs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3903"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70407,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3903\/revisions\/70407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}