The first doll carriages, made with just two wheels, appeared in the United States around 1850. By the 1870s, doll carriages had either four wheels or just three wheels. Some toy historians suggest that the three-wheeled carriages derive from a British law that prohibited four-wheeled vehicle on city sidewalks. Although America had no such law, U.S. manufacturers produced quantities of the three-wheeled carts. Joel Ellis, well-known doll and toy maker from Springfield, VT, made doll carriages of painted wood with protective oilcloth hoods from about 1859 to 1988.