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Harlem Doll Show Celebrates History and Culture of Black Dolls

By Gustavo Solis | December 2, 2014 4:14pm

HARLEM — Ellen Ferebee grew up a tomboy, more interested in playing cops and robbers than dress-up. 

But as she got older, she became obsessed with dolls, building a collection so big that she now doesn't have room for any more in her Washington Heights apartment.

"She'd probably say 'eek' and stick her tongue out," Ferebee, the founder of the Morrisania Doll Society, said when asked what her childhood self would think of the collection.

Ferebee's dolls aren't Barbies or Cabbage Patch Dolls or American Girl Dolls. She collects black cloth dolls whose history dates back to the 1800s. They range in size and style but they are all handmade and tell a unique history, she said.

This Saturday and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m., Ferebee is showcasing her love of dolls at the 14th annual Morrisania Doll Society show at the Arts Horizons LeRoy Neiman Art Center at 2785 Fredrick Douglass Bvld. in Harlem.

The show will feature about 200 dolls, most of them cloth, but there will also be figurines and other types of dolls.

Ferebee became interested in them 15 years ago when she just happened to walk by a doll show on 125th Street.

“I was just mesmerized,” she said. “I can do a lot of things around the house but sewing is beyond me. So many of these doll makers make them beautiful and to me that is astounding because I don’t have that talent.”

When picking a new doll for her collection, Ferebee, who declined to give her age, likes to hold them and inspect them up close. She studies the stitching, the eyes, the buttons and the hair. Because of her hands-on approach, she rarely buys them online.

To find new dolls, Ferebee travels to various shows throughout the Northeast. Some of the biggest ones are in Washington, D.C. and in Mansfield Mass., the home of the National Black Doll Museum of History and Culture, she said.

All dolls for this weekend's show are welcome as long as they are not mass-produced.

“They just have to show a certain amount of love,” Ferebee said. "If you see a doll that talks to you, it doesn’t have to have a specific set of criteria.” 

People will be able to see and buy the dolls, as well as speak with some of the people that make them.

Although Ferebee's show will not feature any mass-produced dolls, she is not completely against them.

“The only mass-produced doll I have ever bought is one from a company that does historical figures,” she said. “I bought the Michelle Obama doll with the Inaugural white dress because I thought it was so pretty.”