Soft toy, Golly, cotton, Margaret Henry, USA, 1980

Soft toy 'golly' with a black cotton head and body. Its facial features have been embroidered using cotton threads and it has curly black woollen hair. Red thread has been used for its mouth, and the eyes are circles of black and white. It is entirely dressed in felt clothing: the shirt, collar and feet are white felt; the tailed jacket is mid-blue felt and the trousers are red felt. The bow tie is white, black and red felt. The belt is black felt with a white buckle. Three circles of red felt are on the shirt front, and there are three circles of white felt on each jacket front, and two on the back, all representing buttons.

Given by Margaret Henry

Donated by Margaret Henry, New York. Made by the donor in 1980 in the style of a 1920s golly. 'I was born in England in 1925 and had a doll which I have since tried to make from memory. It was a Black Doll called the Golly Wog. It used to be on the label of Marmaalada Jam.' The donor used to make rag dolls of all kinds.

The original golly was a central character in a series of books published between 1895 and 1909. Bertha Upton (1849–1912) wrote the books and her daughter, Florence Kate Upton (1873–1922), illustrated them. They based the character ‘Golliwogg’ (as it was originally spelled) on a doll Florence owned as a child growing up in 1880s America. The appearance and clothing of the doll (see B.493-1997) is based on the ‘blackface minstrel’ figure, a 19th-century racial caricature of African Americans. Blackface minstrel shows were performed by white actors and singers, who parodied African Americans by darkening their skins with shoe polish or burnt cork. These portrayals perpetuated many negative stereotypes and were steeped in racism. The shows originated in the USA, with the first widely known blackface character, ‘Jim Crow’, appearing around 1830. Soon after it became popular in the UK, which developed its own blackface traditions.

Florence moved to the UK in the 1890s, where the Uptons’ books became very popular. Their Golliwogg character was not copyrighted, allowing multiple representations of the golly to enter the public domain. The character featured in British toys, games, textiles, ceramics and children’s books, and was used as a mascot by the food manufacturer, Robertson’s, from about 1910. From the 1980s the character’s popularity began to wane as campaigners fought against the racist stereotypes that the golly represented. Robertson’s continued to promote the figure as part of a British ‘national tradition’ until 2001, when they stopped using the golly in their branding.

MISC.96-1980