Patricia Fertel Paper Doll Collection

About the Digital Collection

The Digital Collection includes selections from the Patricia Fertel Paper Doll Collection, including sets of dolls, fashion publications, and various other advertising and relevant materials ranging from the later 1800s to the present day. The materials cover the history of fashion and popular culture and give a glimpse of publications from Europe and the United States.

About the Physical Collection

The Patricia Fertel Paper Doll Collection contains sets of dolls, fashion publications, and various other advertising and relevant materials ranging from the later 1800s to the present day. The materials cover the history of fashion and popular culture, and give a glimpse of publications from Europe and the United States. There are several wedding themed sets and articles featuring famous brides, sets themed around children and babies, sets and articles featuring foreign styles and language, celebrity sets with additional articles and memorabilia, fashion sets and catalogs with additional fashion plate etchings by Godey, sets of royalty with photographs and articles about them, and a large selection of sets designed by Queen Holden.

The main paper doll publishing groups found in this collection are Saalfield, Artcraft, Whitman, Watkins Strathmore, Dover, Golden, Merrill, Merrimack, and Paper Studio Press. The additional articles and advertisements are spread across newspapers and old catalogs including The New York Times, Life Magazine, The New Yorker, Doll News, McCall’s Magazine, Pictorial Review, The Ladies’ World, The Woman’s Home Companion, and Needlecraft. Major artists found in the collection are Tom Tierney, Peggy Jo Rosamond, Brenda Sneathen Mattox, Sandra “Sandy” Vanderpool, David Wolfe, Kim Brecklein, and Eileen Rudisill Miller.

Some of the notable celebrities and royals who make appearances are Princess Diana and Prince Charles, Queen Victoria, Charlie Chaplin, Shirley Temple, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Elvis Presley, Divine, and the Dionne Quintuplets who were the first set of quintuplets to survive infancy and became government-backed celebrities after being taken from their family following their birth.

The collection is a history of paper dolls from decade to decade and reflects the changes in clothing and accessories as well as the subject of interest in the public eye.

Biographical Note

Patricia Fertel has been a collector of paper dolls for over forty years. She also creates paper dolls based on early fashion illustrations from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. Many of her works have been produced in limited editions, and two have been published by Paper Doll Review Press. She is a frequently cited expert in the history of paper dolls and regularly speaks to regional and national audiences about paper dolls.