Black dolls made from 1850s to 1940s now on display in Rochester museum exhibit
One part of the exhibit features dolls made by Harriet Jacobs, author of the renowned slavery narrative, “Life of a Slave Girl." An upstate New York museum is featuring homemade dolls depicting African American life as an homage to their makers and as a jumping off point into the history of oppression faced by the Black community. Black Dolls, produced by the New-York Historical Society, is on view through Jan. 7 at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. “These dolls were made between the 1850s and the 1940s,” Allison Robinson, associate curator of exhibitions for the New-York Historical Society, told ABC News. “It allows you to relate to people who really went through overt oppression and racism within their lifetime, from the height of American slavery to the early years of the American Civil Rights Movement. And how these dolls proved to be a way to counter that, and resist that.” Black Dolls, produced by the New-York Historical Society, is a new exhibit at ...