hroughout her long life,Maxine Maxson Waldron(1898–1982) assembled avast collection of paperephemera, books, andmemorabilia about child-hoods of years past. Shecollected a variety ofmaterials, including paper
dolls, children’s books, andother youthful amusements
and educational materials.
A native of Iowa, Mrs. Waldrongraduated from high school in Utah
and attended Teacher’s College at ColumbiaUniversity. She worked in the EducationDepartment of the Metropolitan Museum ofArt, taught art at private schools, and special-ized in ceramics at the Greenwich HousePottery Shop. All the while, she pursued herinterests in art, fashion, and interior decorationand became an avid and well-known collectorof items associated with childhood.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Mrs. Waldrongave much of her collection to Winterthur;today it is one of the largest archival holdings inthe Winterthur Library. Thanks to grant supportfrom the Institute of Museum and LibraryServices, the collection is now housed in state-of-the-art enclosures, fully described in its owndatabase, and catalogued in WinterCat, thelibrary’s online catalogue.
ofChildren’s Books and Paper Toys
Maxine Waldron Collection
Mrs. WaldronFrom The ClassBook of 1921.New York:Teacher’s College,ColumbiaUniversity, 1921
Below: ParlorAmusement forLittle Girls:Paper Furniture;No. 2 Parlor Set.McLoughlin Bros.,New York,ca. 1870s
Paper Doll. McLoughlin Bros.,New York, ca. 1870s–1880s
The paper dolls in the Waldron Collection ra n g efrom one with an ornate 17th-century chenilledress to sheets of paper dolls extracted fromThe Ladies Home Journal, McCall’s, and other20th-century women’s magazines. Handmadeand cut dolls show the work of such Americanartists as Sarah Goodridge, Martha Appleton,and Lillie Gardiner. Printed paper dolls depictpopular figures, including Jenny Lind and TomThumb, and magazine cut-out dolls portrayDolly Dingle, Lettie Lane, Betty Bonnet, andBetsy McCall. Some of the paper do l l swere designed and illustrated byMrs. Waldron herself.
In addition to paper dolls, thecollection includes a variety ofrelated paper toys, includingpeepshows depicting suchthings as garden parties,model villages, a dairy yard,exotic places, and the holyfamily; Victorian theater setscomplete with stages, props,characters, and dialoguesheets; a roll panorama,made by Milton Bradleyin the late 19th century,which gave children achance to operate a smalltheater; and movablepop-up books issued bythe English firms Tuck,Nister, and Dean. Boardgames round out thecollection: The Circle ofKnowledge, published byJ. Passmore; Newton’s NewGame of Virtue Rewardedand Vice Punished, printedby W. Darton in 1818; an illustrated geographylottery game, consisting of 18 cards of placesand cities and one sheet of numbers, made inGermany around 1840; and Historioscope, aPanorama of American History, published byMilton Bradley.
Raphael Tuck andSon, McLoughlinB r o t h e r s, L o u i sP ra n g, and theAmericanSunday-SchoolUnion garneredMrs. Waldron’sattention as well.
The imprints andperiodicals arepart of WinterthurLibrary’s PrintedBook and Periodical Collection. The remainderof the Waldron Collection is located in theJoseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts andPrinted Ephemera and has been divided intoeight series:
I. Research materialsII. Paper dollsIII. Christmas items other than cardsIV. Greeting cardsV. Scraps and scrapbooksVI. GamesVII. Fabric objectsVIII. Trade cards and miscellaneous illustra t i o n s
Below (left):Advertisement forAcme Soap, ca. 1875
(right):The Round Gameof Tiddledy WinksMcLoughlin Bros.,New York,ca. 1880s
Under theWindow:Pictures andRhymes forChildren.Kate Greenaway.George Routledge& Sons, London,1879.
Right: ThreeSantas Figures(Gigantic ReliefNo. 842).Raphael Tuck.London, ca.1880–1909
Linen ABC Book:First Steps.McLoughlin Bros.New York,ca. 1890.
Mrs. Waldron’s personal archives reflecther studies and teaching of art as well asher work in design and her interest in thehistory of dolls, toys, and greeting cards.Her papers feature correspondence abouther collection purchases and doll-collectingclub activities, and many of her earlierletters to family members are decoratedwith her original illustrations. Thankfully,Mrs. Waldron kept her research notes andarticles about collecting, and she createdlists of makers, illustrators, and artists ofthe items that she collected.
An inveterate collector of books and mag-azines, Mrs. Waldron assembled an impres-sive collection of about 550 titles. Suchwell-known authors as Kate Greenaway,Charles Dickens, Daniel Defoe, LewisCarroll, Mark Twain, and L. Frank Baumare represented alongside lesser-knownwriters Bertha Upton, Jane Ta y l o r, Fr e d e r i c kStarr, and Geraldine Glasgow. Periodicalsinclude The Infant’s Magazine from mid19th-century London, and history booksfeature The Story of Prehistoric and RomanBritain Told in Pictures, by C. W. Airne, oneof six books by the author contained in thec o l l e c t i o n . C h i l d r e n ’s classics from decadespast—Yankee Doodle, Mother Goose, andHumpty Dumpty—sit on shelves next tomore modern books—Captain Big Bill, thePelican, Adventures of TV Ti m , and H o l i d ayfor Edith and the Bears. Noted publishers
!Winterthur Library is located in theCrowninshield Research Building, accessiblefrom the main entrance to Winterthur, AnAmerican Country Estate.
Hours: Monday–Friday 8:30 AM–4:30 PM
(closed New Year’s Day, Thanksgiving, andChristmas Day)Phone: 302.888.4681E-mail: [email protected]
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