Doll

In the early 20th century, toy makers introduced dolls based on characters from history and popular children's books as a way to promote reading and gender-neutral doll play. Martha Chase began making her story character dolls in 1905, when she offered several figures from Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." She made dolls of George and Martha Washington, Roger Williams, and characters from Charles Dickens novels. Her "mammy" and piccaninny" dolls based on characters from the Uncle Remus stories of Joel Chandler Harris exposed the stereotypical depictions of African Americans common at the turn of the century.