Artist and entrepreneur Emma Adams from Oswego, NY, set out to make a sturdy cloth doll for child's play. She made her dolls of muslin and stuffed them with excelsior and cotton. Emma's practiced hand artfully painted the doll's curly hair, large expressive eyes, and distinctive rosebud mouth. Emma's sister Marietta contributed the clothing for the dolls, which sold in four sizes: 15, 19, 23, and 29 inches through the Marshall Fields department store in Chicago. The Adams sisters exhibited their dolls at the 1893 Columbian Exposition and received a diploma of honorable mention, which gave the dolls some deserved prestige and the name by which they became known. The Columbian Doll later travelled around the United States and the world in an exhibit used to raise money for children's charities. The sisters continued making Columbian Dolls for children until Emma's sudden death in 1900; Marietta carried on for another 10 years or so.
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