@ncdollmuseum: There are fewer than 500 of these dolls in existence! This Maggie Bessie doll was created in Old Salem NC by Moravian sisters Margaret (aka "Maggie") & Caroline Elizabeth (aka "Bessie") Pfohl between 1900-1950. The sisters came from a long line of Moravians. Their mother, Margaret Caroline Siewers Pfohl, made dolls for her children. In the early 1890s, Maggie and Bessie drafted a new pattern from their mother’s handiwork and created a more 3-dimensional doll of muslin fabric coated in layers of paint. Maggie did most of the painting of faces, which were first primed with white housepaint then sanded before the features were added in oil paints. Girls had blue eyes and middle hair parts and boys had brown eyes and side parts. The bodies were tightly stuffed and came in sizes from 13 inches to 22 inches. They were then dressed in typical simple Moravian clothes of either pink or blue for the girls and earth colors for boys. The girls wear a “Haube” cap which is a simple prayer cap worn by all Moravian women to church. The cap ribbon told of a woman’s marital status: girls under the age of confirmation wore red ribbons, unmarried women wore pink, married women wore blue, and widows wore white ribbons. Our museum is lucky to have one thanks to the generous donation of Billye Harris. #moraviandolls #moravian #clothdolls #dollhistory #dollmuseum

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Sunday 02 August 2026 20:39:37 GMT