Bertabel's Mary McLeod Bethune Found Me

Mary McLeod Bethune, a Bertabel's Doll by I. Roberta Bell, 1969

Made in 1969 by I. Roberta Bell, this 17-inch portrait doll of Mary McLeod Bethune entered the collection in February of this year.  The purchase motivated me to complete my formerly dormant article on Mrs. Bell.  As indicated in my prior post on Bell's Pedlar Doll, research on the Bell article commenced in 2013.  Now completed, a link to the said article is provided below, but please allow me to first introduce you to Mary McLeod Bethune.

Part of the I. Roberta Bell/Berta Bell's Black Americans series, later called African American Heritage Dolls, the portrait doll of Mary McLeod Bethune was the second doll in the series.  Mrs. Bell made several African American Heritage series sets, each of which contained 26 dolls.

This doll has distinctive facial features similar to Mrs. Bethune, who was an educator, civil rights activist, and founder of Bethune-Cookman College (now Bethune-Cookman University).  This historically black college (now university) is located in Daytona Beach, Florida.



Sculpted in porcelain with sawdust-filled tan cloth body, the doll has clenched hands.  According to the artist, Bethune talked with her hands clenched.  The eyes are painted brown.  Her gray hair is pulled back with the sides and ends rolled and tucked.

The Bethune doll is dressed in a two-piece heather gray flannel suit, pink crepe blouse with lace embellishment, straw hat, tan taffeta undergarments, knee-high stockings, and black vinyl shoes.  Pinned to the lapel of her coat is a lavender flower. 

Ms. Bethune died the year I was born, but well into my teens, I was reminded of her existence and contributions to the African American community through classroom studies and books I read on my own about past African American historical leaders.  

While packing the doll for shipment to me, the seller found the above newspaper clipping which had been tucked inside the doll's jacket.  (This is something that we, as collectors, do for future reference and/or to enhance our information about a doll.)  

Formerly owned by a woman who inherited her mother's collection, I was contacted by email to inquire if I had any interest in the doll.  After the transaction was completed and the doll arrived in beautiful, near pristine condition, I wrote the former owner to let her know I was pleased and asked how she found me.  Her reply was,

I am so glad Mary arrived safe and sound!  I just did a search for “who would buy Mary McLeod Bethune dolls” online and that’s how I found your black dolls blog.  I found your email at the bottom of the first page.  So happy to pass on one of my mom’s dolls to someone that will love her just as much!

And I do... I love her very much and have honored the woman who made her, I. Roberta Bell, in a three-part article which can be read on my Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black blog here!

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Pedlar Doll by I. Roberta Bell

Pedlar Doll by I. Roberta Bell, 1986.

Purchased in March 2014, this 15-inch doll with hand-sculpted porcelain face was made by I. Roberta Bell in 1986.
Named "Pedlar Doll" by the artist, she has porcelain lower arms and hands and sawdust-filled light brown cloth body, legs, and feet.  A label that reads "Certified NIADA Doll" is on the doll's stomach.

Her eyes are painted brown.  Her gray hair is pulled back into a bun.  

Pedlar Doll wears permanently-placed black stud earrings, black satin dress, white apron, white slip, white pantaloons over white tights, and black mock-laced shoes.  Her burnt orange cape, lined in black, is made of flannel.

Because she represents a pedlar (one who, more chiefly in the nineteenth century, would go from place to place or house to house selling small items), she holds a basket of wares.  Note that Bell used the British spelling of "pedlar," more commonly spelled, peddler.  According to the Strong National Museum of Play, pedlar dolls were popular between 1820 to 1860.

Inside this pedlar's basket, which hangs from her neck by a gold cord, are a toy truck, white Victorian-style porcelain doll, plastic hammer, and utensils.  From the sides of the basket hang a figure of a sleeping man wearing a sombrero, a plastic car, false teeth, pan and skillet, and three pairs of plastic scissors.

Text on the inside of the hang tag certifies that Mrs. Bell was a member of the National Institute of American Doll Artists (NIADA), an organization of esteemed artists of handmade dolls.

"Pedlar Doll" is written on the front of her hang tag.  The inside reads, "Bertabel's Dolls by I. Roberta Bell, Artist Member, National Institute of American Doll Artists" (typed) and handwritten, "250. 4-1986 age 82."  The number 250 might have been the doll's original price.  4-1986 indicates the month and year the doll was made at Mrs. Bell's age 82.

This doll, whose ethnicity is ambiguous, has been patiently waiting for me to write and publish this post.  Doing so was delayed because my plan was to include her in an article about Mrs. Bell that I began researching in 2013.  The purpose of the said article is to contribute to the dearth of online information available about the artist.  Because that article will soon be published on my Ebony-Essence of Dolls in Black blog, this post on Pedlar Doll was published.

In an undated image that accompanied Pedlar Doll, Mrs. Bell, second from left, is seen at a doll exhibit sponsored by Guys & Gals Funtastique Doll Club.

Please stay tuned to learn more about I. Roberta Bell, a remarkable woman, an educator, a collector turned doll artist, who, in the 1960s, began using her dolls to teach Black history in her Chicago classrooms and community.


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Preserving and Imparting Black-Doll History: I. Roberta Bell Dolls

I received the following e-mail inquiry from a Black Doll-E-Zine subscriber.

Hello All, [does] anyone have any information on Alberta Bell who was a Black Doll Artist out of Chicago? I believe she was a member of UFDC. Thank you in advance for any info you can give me.

My reply:

Thanks for writing me and prompting me to do mini research based on your question about "Alberta Bell" dolls. I knew the name rang a bell. Last night I conducted a cursory search for information about her before retiring to bed, but the results were unfruitful.


With dolls constantly on my mind and always wanting to increase my black-doll and black-doll artist knowledge, I woke up thinking about the Bell dolls and recalled having seen dolls by Roberta Bell and hearing Barbara Whiteman of the Philadelphia Doll Museum speak about her dolls.

This morning, I sadly discovered that the Philadelphia Doll Museum's website is no longer online. I was going to share the link to it with you because I believe some of Bell's dolls were featured on the website.


Some of Mrs. Bell's dolls are featured in Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide Book II by Myla Perkins, Collector Books, 1995. The artist is listed as "I. Roberta Bell" in Perkins' book.

After sending my initial reply to the BDE subscriber, in an effort to preserve and impart black-doll history, I took the "liberty" of photographing two pages from Ms. Perkins' book, which illustrate additional Bell dolls (see above image).

According to Perkin's book II,

Ida Roberta Bell, 1904-1992, was the first black American elected into the prestigious organization of doll artists, NIADA, (National Institute of American Doll Artists).  She was inducted into the organization in 1970 as a result of the excellence of her Dr. George Washington Carver doll...

Bell was born in Nashville, Tennessee... and moved with her family to Kansas City... where she received her formal education.  She became an educator and retired from Chicago, public schools in 1969. 

Bell came from an artistic background.  Her father and brother were artists and sculptors.  When Roberta... was a young child, her father was upset at the fact that she had only white dolls to play with and once removed the pink and white bisque head and hands from a doll and sculpted black ones to replace them.

Bell first began making dolls in the early 1940s.  She used paper-mâché, oven-hardening clay, and cloth.  Wanting to perfect her craft, she took classes in mold making and painting facial features.  Her famous black Americans series were made by first modeling the head in plastilene.  A mold was then made and the head and hands were poured with brown porcelain slip.  The bodies are stuffed with sawdust.  All costuming was done by Mrs. Bell and was thoroughly researched for detail.

To quote Ms. Whiteman, from an online article (no longer accessible at previous URL link),

Whether for reasons of cost, the negative racial stereotypes presented in some manufactured dolls, or the fact that often black dolls were just an afterthought to white dolls, many blacks made their own dolls. 

I honor trailblazers like I. Roberta Bell, her predecessors, and the modern-day doll artists, who recognize the need for accurate portrayal of African Americans in doll form.

Update (12/28/2014) - The Philadelphia Doll Museum's website is back online.  I. Roberta Bell's well-known African American Historical Dolls owned by the museum can be seen at their website here.

Ms. Bell is shown in a screen capture from a May 1972 issue of Ebony magazine with some of her dolls representing historical African Americans, L-R, standing:  Harriet Tubman, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Dr. George Washington Carver, Crispus Attucks, W. C. Handy, Mary McLeod Bethune, and Sojourner Truth.  Ms. Bell holds her portrait doll of Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable.

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