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Sources:
- Perry, Dame & Co. catalog Spring and Summer 1915 Pg 89 for the Corset see from the Internet Archive
- Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1913 Pg 47 for the Shoes from HathiTrust
- Portrait of Mrs. Ike Perkins and Mrs. Sgt Dorsey 1915 from the Joseph Pennell Photography Collection at the University of Kansas (the resemblance is… not high.
Today’s paper doll is wearing a 1915 corset and shoes from an ad from 1913. Her corset is the “Perida” model, which seems to have been a name for several different styles sold by Perry, Dame & Co at a variety of price points. This model was advertised as a comfort model, likely because of the elastic inserts and lack of heavy boning.
Confession: I am not 100% happy with how this paper doll’s hair came out. I started with a reference image, as I do, but somehow between the penciling stage and the inking stage and the reinking stage, because I hated the first inking, the end result doesn’t look like the reference photo at all. I’m hesitant to even state what I was working from, as the resemblance is… not really there.
But I did have a source even if the outcome doesn’t look much like the source. Sometimes, that’s how it goes. I did not put it on the paper doll file, because I thought doing so suggested a higher level of fidelity to the original than exists As a librarian, I think a lot about the idea of constructed authority- if you cite a source, people then assume a higher level of accuracy than if you don’t cite a source. Since most people don’t actually check sources, this can create a false appearance of historical rigor where no such rigor exists.
Is this a high standard to hold paper dolls too?
Well, yes, but I still think it matters, especially because this image will likely be separated from this blog post by the whims of the internet and I don’t want people to get a false impression. Mrs. Ike Perkins and Mrs. Sargent Dorsey deserve better than that. Don’t you think? I think so.