Doll:Betsy Sheffield

In the 1950s, doll artist Martha Thompson created Betsy Sheffield and her Little Brother for the church in Sheffield, Alabama, where her brother-in-law served as minister. Thompson fashioned Betsy dolls with porcelain heads and limbs on cloth bodies; ladies of the parish created the little wardrobes for the doll and sold the dressed Betsys to benefit the church. The success of the sales inspired Thompson to create a Little Brother Sheffield dolls for the church, and she made a series of Laughing and Crying Babies for the church ladies to dress too.