On December 17, 1902 – satisfyingly, 119 years ago to this very day – someone called Gussie D. Decker, a resident of Chicago, filed a patent application for a new invention, the object of which was to ‘provide a cheap, durable, and attractive doll and to render the same unbreakable and incapable of injuring infant children.’

The patent was then registered in April 1903 – you can see the full patent here, but you can also look at the rather wonderful drawings here, as well as the text of the patent transcribed for easier reading.

I first saw this doll when a good friend forwarded an image that she had come across online (see here, here or here, for instance). One of the lovely things about doing this project is that people around me are generously on the lookout for unusual or interesting playthings, so I often receive wonderful treats.

Initially, what struck me is that the notes accompanying the few remaining dolls (mostly, rare appearances in auctions) were all the same and not very extensive. They stated the name Gussie Decker, and sometimes the maker (M.S. Davis Co. – which I searched for, unsuccessfully), but not much else. Occasionally the dolls are also referred to as ‘teaching dolls’ or ‘lacing dolls’, but it is interesting to note, however, that the patent does not draw attention to the lace other than to say that “the lacing ribbon brought about the neck and tied in a bow-knot under the chin adds to the appearance of the doll, forming a tie when the same is dressed.” There seems to be no mention anywhere of the ‘teaching’ purpose of the doll – it may be that I am missing some crucial information.

A basic search for ‘Gussie Decker’ mostly produced links to a few of these auction pages, but no further information about her. I had not yet seen the mention of the book ‘A Celebration of American Dolls’ (see further below), so I decided set out to try and find some more information about the designer, hazarding a guess that Gussie was probably ‘Augusta’ (or Augustus, if male).

I searched through Chicago records for the period and came across an Augusta D. Decker, born in 1871 (sometimes stated as 1873 or 1875) in Germany as Augusta D. Erdmer. She is recorded as having immigrated to the United States in 1886. She married Orrin A Decker (born in Holland in 1868), and had two sons – the first, William, was born either in 1900 or 1901, and the second, Orrin, was born in 1910. Here is the 1900 census page with details of Orrin, Augusta and William (line 68).

Interestingly, if this Augusta were indeed Gussie Decker, she would have filed her patent application when her firstborn William was still one or two years old. Other than census records for 1900, where I saw their names and their address at the time (2182 Washington Blvd), and the fact that they also lived with Augusta’s younger sister Elsie – listed as ‘a milliner’ –, I found it hard to get any more information about her.

I turned my attention to her husband Orrin, and this proved a little more fruitful. Firstly, a notice in a newspaper, dated October 24, 1911, stated the Chicago Railways Company was leasing a property to Orrin A Decker for 15 years. This indicated that he was some sort of businessman, at least at that point. I then came across this 1900 list of residents of Chicago which includes Decker’s name and home address, but more importantly, the name and address of his business – Decker, Phillips & Populorum, owned by Orrin Decker, William E Phillips and Paul A Populorum Jr. Their trade? Leather goods!

This was also confirmed by the census records for Phillips, whose occupation is stated as ‘Business Leather’, and Populorum, whose occupation is transcribed on the records website as ‘Leather Novetters’ but most likely says ‘Leather Novelties’. I went back to inspect the scribbles on the 1900 census record for Orrin Decker, and realised they say ‘Mfg Leather Novelty’ (the ‘Mfg’ standing for ‘Manufacturing’), rather than the amusingly garbled words suggested by the archive website – ‘Mfg Nosha Noodles’.

The business address for Decker, Phillips & Populorum at the time that this doll was made was 19 & 21 S Jefferson, which I calculated was a convenient 13-minute walk from the Deckers’ home.

I was very happy with these little discoveries, as I felt like I was getting a bit more of a narrative. This was then rounded off by looking again at the census page for Augusta & Orrin Decker and realising that William E Phillips not only worked with Orrin Decker in 1900, but also – like the Deckers – lived at 2182 Washington Blvd with his family, which at that time included his wife Minnie, and his son William, born in 1898.

This means that when Gussie Decker came up with her design in 1902, she did so while taking care of her own infant son, and living in close quarters with another young child, William Phillips, who was around four. It makes me wonder whether her design was spurred in some way by a specific incident with either of the boys hurting their soft gums on a toy with hard edges or seams.    

At this point I came across a photograph of the book by Dorothy McGonagle, A Celebration of American Dolls, showing the page that mentions this doll [scroll down here, and through the photos] – page 54, illustration 71. In it, McGonagle says the dolls were made by M. S. Davis Co. of Chicago, and were

‘offered at forty cents each through Butler Bros and Sears and Roebuck, who called it baby’s friend, and said the leather was “very fine to chew on when teething”’.

For price comparison, around that time a dozen eggs cost around 20-25 cents in Chicago and newspapers were 1 or 2 cents.   

I found this doll and its origins fascinating. What I was most taken with was how apparently ‘ordinary’ Gussie Decker was, and yet what a marvellous example she and the patented doll are of that era in Chicago, the US, and more generally, of what immigrants – and perhaps, specifically, women – do.

I loved wondering about how the idea came about – whether, for instance, she would use of scraps of leather from her husband’s business to make different things; whether her husband encouraged her to patent the idea; or whether her idea would have been met with approval and encouragement if it had been something completely unrelated to babies or women.

I also found it interesting to see what remains of her on record and took great delight in joining some of the dots for her, fleshing out her life a little. She died at the age of 42 – two years younger than my own age now – in 1916, when William was 15 and Orrin Jr was 6. Orrin Decker went on to marry a widow with children of her own. Their son William would end up working variously as a clerk, a mechanic, and a salesman, while I didn’t find many records about their son Orrin’s later life.

I loved spending a bit of time with her in her neighbourhood (Near West Side), looking up images of where her homes had been. The building at 2182 Washington Blvd no longer exists, though there are some remaining terraced houses from that period which must be the same as the building they lived in with the Phillips. I found out that the Metropolitan Missionary Baptist Church on the nearby corner was completed in 1901, so they would have seen the building site and heard the clanging and banging whenever they passed it.

Half an hour’s walk away was the Hull-House Settlement, founded by Jane Addams together with Ellen Gates Starr – this provided a very interesting detour which linked somewhat to the Headless Suffragette portrait and Sylvia Pankhurst.

The appearance of the Gussie Decker dolls surviving today is likely to be quite different from their original appearance. Most of them are very worn, the leather has darkened and spotted, the design of the features and hair has faded. Some of them possibly fall within the realm of ‘disturbing dolls’ – I think this is partly due to the fact that leather is organic and can look like it is or at least has been in the process of decaying. For my portrait, I decided to refer to the patent drawings and try to ‘reconstruct’ the face somewhat, giving it (hopefully) an appearance closer to its original design.

When I finished the drawing, I realised it reminded me of a slightly melancholy Gingerbread Man – but maybe we can catch this one after all, and give him a good old slobbery chew.