The Jackie Robinson Doll (13-inch Composition Doll)

Item

Identifier: MSSP 10083

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

One Jackie Robinson doll wearing a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. The doll is a 13-inch tall, fully jointed composition doll, molded with painted hair and painted facial features. The doll is wearing a blue Brooklyn Dodgers hat with with a white “B” logo, a blue warm-up jacket that reads “Dodgers” in white script, a gray jersey that reads “Dodgers” in blue script on the front and the number “42” in blue on the back, gray pants, blue socks, and black shoes with laces.

Original accessories with the doll include a wooden bat, a hard plastic baseball, a cardboard hang tag in the shape of a glove that reads, “The Jackie Robinson Doll” with a photo of Jackie Robinson on the front and “MF’d by Allied Grand Doll Mfg. Co. Inc., Brooklyn 5, NY” on the back.

The collection also includes “Jackie Robinson’s Pocket Baseball Game,” a 6.5 inch X 4.5 inch cardboard game that folds out to a baseball game that uses a metal spinner to determine results. The front of the game notes that it was “designed by the National League’s most valuable player of 1949,” and the back lists the game instructions. Also in the collection is a copy of the 1949 Fawcett Comic Book Jackie Robinson #1, “Jackie Robinson Baseball Hero: True Life Story of the famous Brooklyn Dodger” that Allied Grand included in the box for customers.

The original box, measuring 15 inches X 15 inches X 4 inches, is also present. The interior of the cardboard box contains an insert with a diagram of a baseball diamond. The top of the exterior of the box is made from clear plastic attached to cardboard, and the cardboard broder on the top of the box depicts the diagram of a baseball diamond with a picture of Jackie Robinson across from home plate.

Two sides of the box read “The Jackie Robinson Doll, the Most Valuable Player in the National League, © Jackie Robinson.” The other two sides of the box read “Play Ball with Jackie, His Bat… Windbreaker… and Baseball Game and Jackie’s Rise to Fame Booklet. Manufactured by Allied Grand Doll Mfg. Co. Inc. Brooklyn, N.Y.” The text is flanked by photographs of Robinson fielding and batting.

Dates

Creation: 1950

Creator

Allied Grand Doll Manufacturing Company (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

There are no access restrictions on this collection.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright status for collection materials is unknown. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.) beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owners. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user.

Biographical / Historical

Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson (1919-1972) was the first acknowledged African American to play major league baseball in the twentieth century. After a successful athletic career at UCLA from 1939-1941 and a brief stint with the Kansas City Monarch of the Negro Leagues in 1945, Branch Rickey, the General Manager, of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Robinson to a minor league contract in the Fall of 1945, breaking the longstanding informal color line in organized baseball that had long excluded African American baseball players. In 1946, Robinson played for the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers’ AAA affiliate. In 1947, Robinson began the season as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, becoming the first acknowledged African American to play Major League Baseball since the 1880s.

Despite enduring racial harassment on the field, Robinson won Major League Baseball’s Rookie of the Year Award in 1947. He went on to win the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1949 and played in seven All-Star Games. Robinson enjoyed a successful ten-year career for the Dodgers until his retirement in 1956. During and after his playing career, Robinson was active in politics, including the Civil Right Movement.

The Allied Grand Doll Manufacturing Company was a doll and toy manufacturer based in Brooklyn, New York. The company began making dolls in about 1915, and by the 1930s and 1940s, Allied Grand was known for making dolls that represented African American people in addition to dolls that represented white people. Allied Grand went out of business in about 1980.