Cut, Dress, Play!
A cheap, flat, and disposable alternative to traditional dolls, paper dolls were popular toys among young girls throughout the early 1900s. Accompanied by thematic wardrobes, the dolls were commercially printed in books similar to magazines. Users would cut or punch out the figure and use foldable tabs to dress her up in various outfits.
A rise in popularity during the 1930s-1950s, the so-called “golden age” of paper dolls, resulted in an explosion of new archetypes to play with, including celebrities, career-oriented women, and volunteers in the armed services. Despite this new cast, paper dolls' physical features perpetuated the era's pin-up beauty standards in homogeneously white, young, and shapely figures.
Feminine identity in the 1940s was both reflected and constructed in paper dolls through creative play, representations of women in the war effort, and the marketing of celebrity images. Take a close look at how paper dolls personified specific types of women in the ‘40s. Who held the power in paper doll play?
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We would like to thank the Fashion and Textiles Collection, UT School of Human Ecology
About the Exhibit
When: Open Nov. 10 - Dec. 1, 2022 | 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
Where: The University of Texas at Austin, School of Information
1616 Guadalupe St., Austin, TX, 78701
This digital exhibit is a companion to an in-person exhibit housed in the UT Administration Building. All Dolled Up: Playing with Identity in 1940s Paper Dolls was planned and installed by students from this semester's section of INF 386E: Planning and Understand Exhibits, under the guidance of Professor Sarah Norris.​
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We would like to thank Professor Norris for her guidance during the exhibit planning and installation process, and the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin for hosting this exhibit.
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