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All About Old Toys
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All About Old Toys
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Scarey Ann History
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Scarey Ann: America’s Famous Hair Raising Doll By: Gene Metcalf, Professor American Studies, Miami University Oxford, OH This essay is part of an ongoing research project on Scarey Ann dolls. If you have information on these dolls, or know where any dolls can be found, please contact Gene Metcalf: metcalew@miamioh.edu _________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Although Scarey Ann dolls are virtually unknown today, they were one of the most popular toys in the early decades of the twentieth century. Created in 1923 by a retired dentist, Dr. H. T. Chinn, in the small town of Atascadero California, the dolls became such a sensation that, within six years of their introduction, 1,000,000 of them had reputedly been sold in the United States and internationally. (1) Merchandised in toy and department stores, newsstands, railroad stations, amusement parks, dime stores, florist shops, bakeries, and through direct sales, the versatile toys served as advertising symbols, wedding announcements, bridge prizes, Christmas ornaments, dance marathon awards, party favors, and bingo prizes. So influential were the dolls that by the 1930s the term "scarey ann" had entered the American popular lexicon. They are "scarey anns," said President Roosevelt in 1937, when referring to those who disagreed with his optimistic view of the economy. (2) Yet, by the time Roosevelt uttered those words, the dolls themselves had all but disappeared, a casualty of the depression.
Homely and somewhat peculiar, Scarey Ann dolls were unlike traditional dolls. Standing straight and rigid, with arms at their sides, these 5 -inch wooden toys were not soft, cuddly, or cute. Instead, they had bulbous heads with large, staring eyes, and straggly hair that stood up on end when a lever in the back was pushed. According to the patent application, The object of the invention is to provide a doll, which on the turning of a button, will represent fright, her hair being caused to rise up on the head giving it an expression of fear. (3) That such a doll was a favorite of girls across the country--the focus of numerous newspaper children's short-story competitions and doll parties, as well as a keepsake chosen for girls to take with them to college--suggests that its appeal was indeed remarkable and unusual. On his retirement in 1922, Dr. Howard Chinn moved with his family from Denver to Atascadero. In search of business opportunities, Chinn became intrigued by a stuffed rag doll that his wife had made for his young daughter. According to Evadean Chinn, Dr. Chinn’s daughter: “My dad took /the doll/ and tried to put some hair on it….My mother told daddy…to put some hair on his own doll! So he did. He made a wooden doll, and used some brushes….While he was showing what he had done, the hair slipped in some way and flew up in the air. It caused great laughter, so my dad went back to his workbench, and figured out a way to do this intentionally.”(4) And so the Scarey Ann doll was born. Chinn named his company the “Poppy Doll Company,” coined the slogan “America’s Famous Hair Raising Doll,” and began making dolls in a small garage. The next year Chinn applied for his first patent that was issued in June of 1924.
1924 Scarey Ann Patent In late 1923, with sales increasing, Chinn moved his operation to the back of a building owned by the Dooley Doll and Toy Factory. E.T. Dooley had come to Atascadero in 1919 and set up a toy business in a dehydrating plant abandoned after the U.S. government canceled local contracts to supply dried fruit and vegetables to troops during the war. Containing a solar-heated drying room, the facility worked well to dry the composite materials that Dooley used to make his toys, in particular the popular Twistum figures that could be bent and twisted into many shapes. Chinn used Dooley’s manufacturing facilities for only a few months, during which time his Scarey Ann dolls were made of composite materials, as Dooley’s had been. By this time, Chinn’s dolls were beginning to be promoted and sold nationally. An advertisement for Scarey Ann, run on October of 1923 by the Stix, Bayer & Fuller Department Store in St. Louis, shows a crude line drawing of the doll along with the text “A clever wooden doll, whose hair stands on end when you press a lever in her back. Painted in bright colors of red, blue, green and orange.” (5)
The curious nature of the Scarey Ann doll was a continuing feature in its sales. In 1924, an article in the St. Louis Star and Times entitled “Some Oddities,” announced some of the era’s most unusual new toys, and Scarey Ann was highlighted as a “doll whose stiff, bobbed hair stands on end with fright.” (Another featured toy was “The Famlee Doll,” “which has one body and three detachable heads and may be converted into mother, girl or boy.”) (6) In March of 1924, Dr. Chinn moved the manufacturing of Scarey Ann dolls into the southeast wing of the Caladero Warehouse in Atascadero, a large cannery building that had gone out of business. Adjacent to a railway spur, the location of this new facility cut the cost of transporting the dolls by truck. At this time, Chinn also streamlined his production process and switched the material for making the dolls from composite to solid redwood. The redwood blanks were shipped to Oakland where they were turned on lathes before being sent to Atascadero where the dolls’ bodies were fitted with arms, legs and feet. Next, the dolls were bathed in a solution of glue, talcum and glycerin to fill cracks in the wood, and then they were dipped into a heavy lacquer paint before being decorated by hand and having their inner mechanisms and hair installed. “I figure I can turn them out cheaper making them this way rather than out of composition as I used to do,” Chinn said in a 1924 interview. (7) The hand painting of the Scarey Anns was done by local Atascadero women who painted each doll’s face, as well as a decoration on the chest. Although the faces of the dolls were all similar, with large rounded eyes and wide grins, the chest decorations varied. Most were floral, ranging from colorful expressionistic flourishes to simpler designs of three or four petals on a stem with leaves. More abstract and geometrical decorations also appeared, and, at a later time, some of the hand-painted designs were replaced with stenciled versions. Women sat at workstations where they did their handwork. Finally, the dolls were placed on racks, ready to have their hair and inner mechanisms installed.
The most unique feature of the Scarey Ann dolls was the patented mechanism that made their hair stand up when a lever in the doll’s back was pressed. This mechanism was comprised of three parts: a shaped metal rod, a brass hair-holding cup, and a return spring. The top of the rod was bent into a loop so that it could hold the hair in the cup.
Horse hair was then
worked into the loop at the top of the rod
Next, the mechanism
was inserted through the dolls body,
Finally, the doll’s hair was shaped so that it would hang
When finished, the
doll’s hair stood on end when a lever in the
back of the doll
By 1924, Scarey Ann sales were increasing dramatically. Chinn had acquired a New York distributing agent and was now advertising nationally for representatives and sales people. Shortly after moving into his Caladero plant, Chinn bragged, “My distributing agent is going to the New York Doll and Toy Fair… he expects to sell around a million of the Scarey Ann dolls this coming year. Four Los Angeles stores took all the output of the factory last season and cried for more. They could have sold thirty thousand more dolls had they had them on hand.“ (8) In the following years, Scarey Ann dolls became a national craze, incorporated into many of the events of everyday American life. “Another big carnival night with dance pastimes for the ever popular ‘Scarey Anns’ will be offered at Joyland Park Saturday evening,” touted a come-on for a Phoenix amusement park in the summer of 1924. “Here’s a chance to get one for your girl for free.” (9) “Announcement of the approaching November wedding of Miss Zella Cotter to Glen Pry was made last evening. The announcement was cleverly concealed in a Scarey Ann doll which was won in a game by Miss Emma Tolle,” pronounced the La Cross Tribune in 1925.“ (10) “Miss Marie Krilanovich went to San Jose yesterday to enter the state teachers college, and on Sunday night, her friend, Miss Martha Meyer, gave her a farewell party,” recounted the Santa Cruz News in 1926. “Miss Krilanovich was presented with a Scarey Ann doll to serve as a room mate.” (11) By 1927, the popularity of the dolls had encouraged the creation of other Scarey characters which were promoted and sold together as a family. “Have you seen the increased ‘Scarey Ann Family’? Scarey Ann now has brothers and sisters to keep her funny company. The kiddies love them at 50c each,” announced a Christmas advertisement by Swems Department Store in Medford Oregon. (12) These new figures included: a Witch, Santa Claus, Ching Chang (a Chinese man with a queue), St. Patrick holding a shamrock, a Hobo, a Pumpkin-Head figure, Ducky Daddle, a Clown, the sailor Jack Tar, and a Mule. Instead of hair that stood up when a lever was pushed, most of these figures sported hats that raised up and tilted. Some had noses that also went up and down along with their hats. Ducky Daddle flapped its wings, Santa’s beard stood up, and the mule lowered its ears when its tail was pulled. All of these characters were going to be featured in a tri-color, multi-page brochure created by the Poppy Doll Company for its sales people, but it is possible that this brochure was never produced because no copies have ever been found.
Some of the
figures in the Scarey Ann Mechanical Family,
Atascadero News, June 23, 1928
To promote “Scarey Ann and Her Mechanical Family” the Poppy Doll Company devised a variety of incentives for their agents and dealers. These included a jingle contest, which was widely advertised as an incentive to attract new sales people. The prize for this contest was a dozen free dolls for each of the eleven best jingles submitted for the toys included in the new Scarey Family. (13) To give contestants an idea about what they might submit, the company offered suggestions. For example:
Scarey Ann
The Mule Ching Chang
Atascadero News. September 19, 1928 By early 1928, the increasing cast of Scarey characters had created a sharp rise in sales. And following Poppy Doll Company’s presentation at the New York Toy Fair in February of that year, Scarey Ann sales climbed to over two thousand units a month. This made it necessary for the Poppy Doll plant to operate at night, hire more workers, and install more equipment. In addition to “jobbers,” or wholesalers, who ordered hundreds of dozens of boxes of toys, Union News Stands, which operated newsstands across the United States, made a sample order of 792 dozen dolls. Sears and Montgomery Ward requested samples of the entire doll line to consider for their catalogues, and the Ay-Won Toy & Novelty Company of New York made a sample order of dolls to investigate sales opportunities in Japan. (14) Boosting sales further, Fox Film took movies of Scarey Ann figures at the New York Toy Fair and planned to show the films in theatres as part of a Christmas toy presentation. According to Dr. Chinn, the film showed “the antics of the doll family and…will be shown throughout the nation….” (15) Although a finished version of the film no longer survives, two outtakes from the original shoot still exist. (16) Emphasizing the unique features of the dolls through the use of stop-action film technique, the first outtake shows two Scarey Ann dolls whose hair stands up when they are frightened by a wind-up toy dog. The second outtake
presents a scene in which a Scarey Clown, Hobo, Witch and Sailor
To view both outtakes go to: https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A14803 The video is long
and includes all of the film taken by Fox for the Christmas From late 1928 to 1929, at least seven other figures, in addition to those in “The Scarey Ann Mechanical Family,” were added to the Poppy Doll line. These included an “Indian” whose head-dress went up and down, a Happy Hooligan with a can that tilted on his head, a Professor, an Irishman, a Chinese Woman, a Boy Scout, and numerous versions of a black “Picaninny.” Although examples of these dolls exist in collections, none of them were announced or pictured in promotional material that has come to light, and the exact names given to these characters by the Poppy Company are not known, except for the “Picaninny” figure for whom a box exists. In 1928, the Poppy Company is even said to have produced a “Hoover Elephant” and “Al Smith Donkey,” as Republican and Democratic symbols for the November presidential election. Presumably, the donkey used for this pairing was an adaptation of the mule already in production as part of the “Scarey Ann Mechanical Family.” Examples of the elephant and donkey have not been found. One of the most popular of the later characters was the “Picaninny.” Utilizing, as a name, a derogatory racial slur used to describe children of African descent, Poppy sold this doll in numerous versions. Many types were produced, often elaborately painted with fanciful costumes and unusual decorations. Some even had red hair instead of the usual black hair and expressive eyes with eyelashes.
The most interesting Scarey Ann character, probably produced by the Poppy Doll Company, remains at the center of a mystery. In 1978 Michael Moore, the grandson of Rew Troxell who worked at the Poppy Company, wrote to the Atascadero Press claiming that in late 1928 or early 1929 his grandfather traveled to Burbank, California, to meet with Walt Disney, who had just released “Steamboat Willie,” featuring the soon to be iconic “Mickey Mouse.” According to Moore’s account, Troxell returned immediately to Atascadero where he produced a Mickey Mouse prototype for Disney. However, although drawings and models for this Mickey doll were said by Moore to be forthcoming, they never arrived. Moreover the prototype said to have been made by Troxell was later misplaced, and Michael Moore has not been located. A year later, in 1979, a box of Scarey Ann parts and dolls was discovered on its way to the Central Coast Landfill near Atascadero. In this box was a figure of Mickey Mouse. The figure was taken to the Atascadero Historical Society and shown to curator Marjorie Mackey. A picture of Ms. Mackey holding the Mickey figure, as well as a large Scarey Ann store display, appeared in the Atascadero News in 1979.
Marjorie Mackey and Mickey Mouse Yet the Mickey doll found in the box with Scarey Ann parts and pictured with Marjorie Mackey was not unknown. Called a Borgfeldt Mickey by collectors, since Disney signed an early contract with the George Borgfeldt Company as the sole licensee and distributor for Mickey and Minnie Mouse toys, this doll is thought by collectors to be the first Mickey Mouse doll. Yet Borgfelldt did not manufacture the toys they distributed, and they did not become Disney’s distributor until 1930, after the tag attached to the front of Mickey in the newspaper picture says the patent was applied for. (The decal reads, “Pat Applied for: 1928-1930 by Walter E. Disney.”) In addition, during this period the Poppey Doll Company produced a number of unlicensed toys based on popular culture and cartoon characters like Happy Hooligan and Duckey Daddle, and this Mickey is remarkably similar to other toys they were making. The same size as the other dolls produced by Poppy Company, the Mickey doll also features the same interior mechanism which animates the other Scarey Ann dolls. This mechanism moves Mickey’s head up and down when a tab, which is identical to those on other Scarey dolls, is pushed. The maker of the Borgfeldt Mickey has never been identified. Was it manufactured in 1929 by the Poppy Doll Company?
The Borgfeldt Mickey During the late twenties, Poppy Doll Company’s products were ubiquitous. Advertised both as novelties and toys, Scarey Anns were merchandised through a wide variety of outlets to people who used them for many purposes. Sold at hotels and vacation destinations, they were purchased as travel mementos. Appropriated for advertising promotions, the unique nature of the doll was sometimes used as a sales ploy. For example, George E. Gano, the operator of a large grain storage and sales business in Hutchinson, Kansas, used the doll to allay concerns of farmers about the frequently precarious nature of the grain market and their fear that they might not be able to make a profit on the sale of their crops. “Not Scared When Consigned to GEO. E. GANO,” read a sticker glued to the front of the Scarey Ann dolls that Gano passed out as promotions. The Poppy Doll Company also boosted sales by including in the Scarey Ann Family seasonal products like Santa Claus for Christmas, Pumpkin Head and Witch for Halloween, Ducky Daddle for Easter, and St Patrick for St Patrick’s Day. In addition, the company was also an early toy manufacturer attempting to license and produce popular cartoon characters like Happy Hooligan, Duckey Daddle and Mickey Mouse. Finally, during an era when racist and ethnocentric toys were widely popular, the Poppy Company not only made many versions of the “Picaninny,” a doll whose name utilized a racist slur, but also Ching Chang, a Chinaman. In an era when Chinese emigrants were subjected to racial discrimination and violence, Poppy’s promotional jingle for the doll, written in pidgin English, presented the toy in stereotypical fashion. It said: “Ching Chong Chinaman, workee velly much, wave his pigtail in the air when his back you touch.”
Another reason for the Poppy Doll Company’s success was their innovative marketing. Available not only from retail outlets, Scarey Anns were also sold through direct-sales by a nation-wide network of individual agents who “enrolled” with the company. Agents were encouraged to purchase a sales kit of dolls, which consisted of one of each of the dolls in the “Scarey Ann Mechanical Family.” The kit cost $4, and, according to company literature, “could be sold for $12, a profit of 200 percent…. Sales experience is not necessary,” trumpeted company advertising. “All you need is your sample line since the dolls sell themselves.” (21) Among the most active participants in this direct-sales program were members of the American Woman’s League, a national women’s organization originally formed to empower women economically by encouraging them to sell magazine subscriptions.
Atascadero News, June 23, 1928 Finally, although Scarey Anns were unlike most dolls that girls could hug and cuddle, their popularity with girls as a doll cannot be discounted. With hair that stood on end, Scarey Ann represented fear and discomfort. She was viewed by girls as a “fraidy cat,” as a newspaper story telling of girls’ reactions to the doll put it. Nevertheless, the doll was a perpetual favorite with girls and young women. In a 1925 newspaper article interviewing women about the dolls they brought with them to college, University of Wisconsin coeds commented about their favorite dolls, particularly their fascination with the “antics of Scarey Ann, a doll who gets so scared that her hair stands on the end whenever a lever is pulled!” (22) Another article, written in 1926, recounts a young girls’ doll party where the girls voted on which doll was the prettiest. “Scarey Ann, a wired haired wooden doll with wooden legs and a beady black stare was a problem. But still, it was decided, she would pass. When a spring was touched at the back her hair would shoot out straight on end. This won her friends….” (23) In all these accounts it is Scarey Ann’s fear, represented by her hair standing on end, that endears her to the girls. For by taking care of Scarey Ann girls could confront and manage the fear, a significant part of child development, and perhaps this had something to do with the popularity of the doll. As a series of stories for girls about Scarey Ann suggests, “when the ‘Fraids’ are at the door… if you are wise you will not let them in. Then you’ll not be like Scary so wild and so thin.” (24) In February of 1929, the Poppy Doll Company opened a sales office in New York and advertised the manufacture of, not only dolls, but also hand-painted garden birds, breakfast trays and pull toys. (17) In March, the company instituted periodic sixteen-hour factory work-shifts to handle their large volume of sales, and it began the process of hiring a production expert. (18) By this time, Poppy was selling many of its dolls abroad. According to Mrs. Chinn in a May, 1929, interview: “We have received orders from Australia, New Zealand, from England and from France….Of course we sell to jobbers who also sell to foreign countries…I would estimate that almost as many go out of the country as remain in America.” (19) Looking forward to strong November and December sales, the Poppy Company had already sent out its Christmas orders by early October. But later that month, when the stock market crashed, the bills for most of these toys remained unpaid. By the early 1930s, the Poppy Doll Company was out of business. Soon after the crash, retailers were offering Scarey Ann dolls for whatever they could get, and even the Christmas buying season could not jump start sales. In December of 1930, an advertisement for Taylor’s Cash Store in Santa Ana, California, read: “Scarey Ann and Her Mechanical Family Half Price: 50c Value for 25c. Cash Sales, Small Profits.” (20) The demise of the Poppy Doll Company did not entirely stop the sale of Scarey Ann Dolls. The patent rights, as well as remaining inventory, were purchased by the Atascadero Wood Products Company which continued to sell the Poppy Company inventory and produce their own dolls. The dolls made by Atascadero Wood Products were similar to those made by Poppy except that the arms, legs and feet were not fitted to the body before the doll was painted. Instead the arms, legs and feet were painted separately, often a different color than the body, then attached to the torso of the doll. Only one doll made by Atascadero Wood Products has been found.
When Atascadero Wood Products went out of business in early 1932, in addition to woodworking and office equipment the auction sale listed “Patent rights for ‘Scarey Ann’ dolls in the U.S.A. and Europe…finished and partly finished dolls, toys and mechanical parts, hair, etc.” (25) The patent to Scarey Ann was purchased by another Atascadero business, the Atascadero Mill & Lumber Yard. Besides mill work, the Atascadero Mill also manufactured numerous toys and dolls. By January of 1933 the mill was producing new versions of Scarey Ann. Slightly different than the dolls made by the Poppy Company, these toys had swinging arms attached to the body by a single nail, longer legs, and their interior mechanisms were simpler, enabling the head of each doll to move up and down on a wooden dowel. Different varieties of these toys were made including, in addition to the basic Scarey Ann, a Chinese man, clown, grandfather with a long beard, grandmother, policeman, black porter, and hobo. With the exception of one newspaper advertisement, no promotional materials or boxes are known to exist for these toys. Consequently, the names given them by the manufacturer are unknown. It is probable that the Atascadero Mill Scarey Ann dolls continued to be sold until 1939 when the Atascadero Mill went out of business.
Ad for Atascadero Lumber Yard The sale of the Atascadero Mill Scarey Ann dolls received an initial boost in mid 1933 when Scarey Ann (the Wooden Doll) and the Cookie Man was published. Written by Ethel Howland, this illustrated children’s book utilized the doll as the central character in a number of adventures.
Scarey Ann did not die even with the demise of the Atascadero Mill and Lumber Yard. The resilient doll emerged again in the early 1940s when it was manufactured for a few years in Blue Rapids, Kansas. The dolls made in Kansas were identical to the ones first made in Atascadero by the Poppy Doll Company, except that their eyes were larger. Since the boxes for the Kansas dolls say “Manufactured by the Poppy Doll Company,” it can be assumed that after the demise of the Atascadero Mill and Lumber Company in 1939 Dr. Chinn once again gained the patent rights to manufacture Scarey Ann. Moreover, since Chinn’s sister, Margaret Drake, and her family lived in Blue Rapids, and there is evidence that the Chinn family visited there a number of times in the late 1930s, it is probable that Chinn and his family were once again involved in producing Scarey Ann dolls.
Scarey Ann Doll and Box from Blue Rapids, Kansas Despite their wide popularity and international distribution, Scarey Anns are difficult to find today. Unlike other dolls that were often carefully crafted, lovingly cared for and treasured as keepsakes, Scarey Anns were mass-produced and generally merchandised as novelties. Frequently purchased as mementos and oddities, one can imagine that many were forgotten or discarded not long after purchase. . Nevertheless, like Beanie Babies in the 1990s, Scarey Ann dolls were, for a time, a popular craze, a remarkable market bubble that burst in late 1929 with the stock market crash.
ENDNOTES If you have any additional information about Scarey Ann dolls, or if you know of the location of any dolls, please contact: Gene Metcalf metcalew@miamioh.edu
This essay would not have been possible without the assistance of many people. Lon Allan, former editor of the Atascadero News, and Kent Kenney, curator extraordinaire of an enormous archive of Atascadero materials, spent hours going through numerous sources in Atascadero, California. In addition to searching through years of old newspapers and magazines and making available remarkable historical images, Allan and Kenney offered invaluable insights into the rich history of Atascadero and how it affected the development of the Poppy doll Company. Kevin McGuire sent me information on Dr. Chinn and his family in Denver, and suggested a research source that led me to many newspaper articles and ads for Scarey Ann. Greg Wilsbacher, Curator of the Newsfilm and Military Collections at the Moving Image Research Center, University of South Carolina, found the remarkable Fox News-film outtakes of Scarey Ann dolls from 1928. Lori Parker and Pat Osborne, at the Blue Rapids Museum, helped sort out information regarding the production of Scarey Ann dolls in Blue Rapids, Kansas. Thomas Hawkins, Dr. Chinn’s grandson, gave me invaluable information about the Chinn family. Francie Owens generously sent me pictures of her Scarey Ann dolls and a copy of Scarey Ann and the Cookie Man. Jim Sneed read this essay numerous times making important suggestions, and supplied images used here. Finally, my wife, Joanne Cubbs, first sparked my interest in Scarey Ann dolls. She generously allowed many of the dolls in her collection to be used as illustrations here, and her careful editing of the final version of this essay made it much better than it would have been otherwise.
1. Atascadero News,
May 31, 1929. |
