Portraits of Childhood exhibit uses dolls to delineate identity

Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff at the Toys and Miniatures Museum on the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) campus. // Photo Courtesy of The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures

“Portraits of Childhood: Black Dolls from the Collection of Deborah Neff” opened at The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures on the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) campus in June 2024. The exhibit features 135 handmade Black dolls from 1850 to 1940, as well as nearly 60 period photographs and paintings of the dolls posed with children and adults. The collection also includes more modern Black dolls, offering additional perspectives on Black childhood and culture.

The exhibit will close on March 3, 2025, but a major highlight of its programming will be a symposium on Feb. 6-7, 2025. This event will bring together 17 presenters worldwide, including scholars from England and Lithuania. Dr. Tiya Miles, author and professor at Harvard University, will be the keynote speaker, delivering a lecture titled “Material Culture as Archive: Finding Black Women’s History in Sacks and Dolls.”

The symposium is designed to offer international perspectives on the exhibit’s themes. Dr. Deja Beamon, an assistant professor of Black Studies at UMKC, describes it as a unique opportunity for Kansas City. “It’s a great way to welcome these speakers and academics,” she says.

Beamon will also present her research at the symposium, titled “Black Girlhood: Intersections of Theory, Memory, and Material Culture,” exploring how theory helps recontextualize memory. “I had a hesitancy to remember my own girlhood,” Beamon says. “Theory allowed me to look back in a different way. My memories then add a different emotional aspect.”

Museum visitors reflect on the exhibit. // Photo Courtesy of The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures

Beamon was immediately drawn to the exhibit when she first heard about the possibility of the collection coming to Kansas City. “It’s not often that the public sees an exhibit prioritizing the voices of African-American women,” she says. When the collection was confirmed, Beamon was invited to join the advisory group, made up of five Black women, who provided crucial advice on how to market and present the exhibit. “We got to really focus on what intentionality looks like in a space,” Beamon says.

The advisory committee was aware that many visitors might need guidance as they experienced the exhibit. “People are not often forced to look at three-dimensional material culture from Black Americans, particularly,” Beamon says. “We are distanced from that path, whether it be intentionally, or because of digitality. We might have been able to see these artifacts digitally, but looking at them up close is very different.”

Museum visitors reflect on the exhibit. // Photo Courtesy of The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures

The exhibit has prompted significant community engagement. In addition to the symposium, the museum has hosted a range of programming, including lectures and hands-on activities for children, such as doll- and toy-making events. Other events have focused on the therapeutic value of dolls, such as their positive connection to Alzheimer’s care. “Having an opportunity for such diverse discussion is very rich,” Beamon says. “It’s been a bright spot in an otherwise questionable time.”

“The exhibition, programming, and symposium were conceived with the intention of everyone coming out of the experience with a greater understanding of the diverse narratives that make up history and the necessity of amplifying diverse voices to tell those histories,” says Madeline Rislow, curator and senior manager of learning and engagement at The National Museum of Toys and Miniatures, who organized much of the exhibit’s programming, including the symposium.

Rislow emphasized that the symposium is just part of the museum’s ongoing work. “We intend to publish elements of the symposium and the exhibition in an edited volume, and we have plans to exhibit other Black dolls in the museum’s collection in the near future.”

Rislow also noted that while photographs of the exhibition offer a glimpse of its impact, the full experience can only be felt onsite. “The exhibition is undeniably powerful,” Rislow says. “The lighting, the community interpretation labels, and the objects themselves come together.”

The museum hopes to continue to be a space for thoughtful learning and reflection long after the exhibition closes.