Dolls’ Skirts Held Hidden Fortunes

Fortune-telling dolls were popular in the 19th century. Many were made as family projects, with a governess or big sister helping out the younger doll makers of the family.

The main feature of each doll was a skirt of many paper pleats. When these pleats were opened out, they contained a “fortune” - similar to the type we find in fortune cookies today, although they tended to be more sentimental.

The dolls sometimes were complete wooden dolls which were dressed completely except for the skirt. Then the pleats, as many as 100, were stitched on to a fabric attached to the doll. There were two variations. In one type, the skirt actually supported the doll. In the other, the doll was supported on some type of stand and the skirt hung free.

In yet another version, the doll had a head and dressed torso only, and these were supported by the skirt. Most likely, the doll chosen was based on the most suitable adult doll that could be found.

The pleats themselves were of paper and appear to have been made commercially in most cases. Then the fortunes were written on by hand. The brighter the color of paper, the better. A variety of vivid colors made a brilliant design. And the more pleats used, the easier it was for the doll to stand without support.

Old fortune-telling dolls are scarce, probably because the paper skirts have not lasted.

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Explorers Had Opportunity To Name Places

...a note from history

Capt. George Vancouver was busy in the year 1792 exploring the waters of Washington,. It is he who is responsible for naming many of the bays and towns along his way.

Discovery Bay near Port Townsend, was named for his flagship Discovery. This was his base for the exploration of adjacent areas. There is also an abandoned town by this name.

Port Orchard Bay was named for H.M. Orchard, a clerk on the Discovery who first sighted it. The little town founded on the bay was also called Port Orchard. Although the town's first post office was called Sidney, the name officially reverted to Port Orchard by legislative designation in 1903.

Port Townsend, both the city and the bay, were named for Vancouver's friend, the Marquis of Townshend. A much-used chart of the bay in 1842 dropped the "h" and the revised spelling continued.

Port Angeles was first discovered in 1791 by Spanish explorers. They called the bay, from which the town is named, Puerto de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles. We can all be thankful to Vancouver, who decided the following year that this was too much for his English maps and shortened the name to its present form.]

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Clean Brilliant Cut Glass With Care

The American Brilliant glass period began in 1876. Visitors to the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition had the opportunity to see there the fine quality and extreme beauty of American cut glass.

The Brilliant period lasted until the early 1900s. Pieces of this period of glass making are characterized by deep miter cuts. Large wedge-shaped pieces were removed to form patterns.

Companies such as Mount Washington Glass and Dorflinger & Sons were leaders of the glasshouses. Their designs such as hob stars, were fashioned on clear blanks, with the entire design cut by a craftsman.

Later pieces, after 1900, began as partially pressed blanks, due to increased labor costs. These are not quite as desirable, since less hand-crafted work was involved.

Washing beautiful cut glass needs to be done with care. A 1912 issue of Ladies Home Journal provided this advice in an ad for Ivory soap. Today, nearly 100 years later, it still works.

To wash: make a suds of Ivory Soap and lukewarm water. Let the glass remain in the suds a few minutes. Then go over it with a medium stiff nail brush. [Note: today an old toothbrush works well.]

Rinse twice in water of the same temperature as the water used for washing. The first rinsing water should be clear. To the second, add a little bluing; bluing gives a brilliancy to cut glass that cannot be produced in any other way.

Dry with a soft flannel or a piece of cheesecloth which has been washed. Polish with soft tissue paper.

Ivory soap still works well, as do other mild soaps (not detergents.) Bluing, although little used today, is still available in the supermarkets. Old cloth diapers and linen tablecloths also work well. Some collectors prefer to dry the glass with newsprint, as it does not leave lint. Old cloth diapers and linen tablecloths also work well for drying.

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