Frozen Charlotte and the 19th-century porcelain dolls that bear her name
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Attach them to necklaces, brooches, or keychains for wearable vintage elegance. During the war, many of the doll factories were either abandoned or destroyed, burying the Frozen Charlotte inventory in the dirt. These dolls are now hunted for and dug up by excavators for the many collectors who covet them. Ultimately, Frozen Charlotte dolls became eerie reminders for children to obey their parents. Like marbles, dice, and other toys, when they wore out, broke, or were no longer wanted they ended up bring tossed in the trash. In past centuries, many towns and cities dumped their municipal trash over a cliff, in a river, or directly on a beach.
Victorian-Inspired Vignettes
The doll’s origins—as a German bath-time novelty, meant to float in a tub—were innocent, but its arrival in the United States, in the mid 1800s, coincided with the popularity of a morbid song. The story goes that Maine writer Seba Smith stumbled upon a newspaper story that recounted how a young woman froze to death in her carriage on the way to a ball. Hit with inspiration, Smith, who is also known as the first to record the word scrumptious, scribbled a poem on the theme. Published in 1843, A Corpse Going to a Ball described how on a frosty night, a young lady named Charlotte refused to wear a blanket over her fine clothes.
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Was this presumably Victorian connection between Charlotte’s legend and the penny doll a lingering memory from the 19th century? Another kind of doll, called a Half-Frozen Charlotte, has arms attached to the body by a wire that goes through the shoulders. These are "frozen" except for their arms, with straight, skinny little bodies. Other half-frozen types have fleshier bodies with little bellies and buttocks popping out. They were made in various styles and sizes, of bisque (unglazed ceramic), porcelain, metal, celluloid, terra cotta, ceramic, composition, wood, rubber and even molded sugar and soap.
History
Victorian women might have decorated their shelves with delicately painted Frozen Charlotte dolls. But Americans renamed the dolls Frozen Charlotte and gave them a creepy backstory. A documented history of ownership, or provenance, can significantly impact a doll’s value.
They are formed as one solid piece and have no joints, thus giving rise to the name “Frozen”. Some have dark-painted hair and red lips but they are otherwise as white as snow. So, while it makes a compelling and delightfully morbid origin story, none of the children who actually played with these dolls knew of a connection between their favorite toy and a foolish young woman’s frostbitten corpse. And even though they’ve lost a bit of their historical creepiness, don’t let that stop you from being excited if you find a porcelain doll on the shore. The poem was a hit, as it touched on the dangers of vanity and not listening to your parents.
Such dolls were sold undressed (the clothes are almost always homemade) and were used in dollhouses since they wre jointed and were able to sit, unlike the Frozen Charlottes. This new doll was different, though, because whereas most of the china-head dolls represented ladies, the new doll was designed as a baby or small child. It was generally chubby in form, with molded stiff limbs and bare feet. The arms were bent at the elbows, but the legs were straight and separate. It usually had short black molded hair with brush marks framing the face.
Frozen Charlotte dolls were popular in the latter half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Mostly manufactured in Germany, they were produced in a variety of sizes ranging from less than an inch tall to over a foot and a half long. The size of the doll is often a good indicator as to its intended purpose.
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And in order to understand how the doll was so dubbed, you have to know something about the doll and legend on which its name is based. Frozen Charlotte dolls were popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. Smaller versions of the dolls were also known as penny dolls because they were often sold for a cent. These dolls were called badekinder or “bathing dolls,” because they could be completely submerged in water and given a bath.
The Charlottes and Charlies come from Germany and were made between 1850 and 1914. They are also made in bisque, and can come in white, pink-tinted, or, more rarely, painted black.[3] Some rare examples have moulded chemises. Male dolls (identified by their boyish hairstyles) are called Frozen Charlies. Hiding coins or figurines in cakes is a tradition with ancient roots. Exhaustive searches of historic newspaper databases, magazines, and books of the period have failed to unearth contemporaneous evidence to support the idea that 19th-century Americans equated the penny doll with the legend of Fair Charlotte. Further, no one who has written about the penny doll and included a Victorian connection to the legend in his or her analysis has published anything from the 19th or early 20th centuries to support the claim.
Moreover, no one writing today about Frozen Charlottes has provided contemporaneous evidence that 19th- and early 20th-century Americans ever considered these small dolls as corpses or the embodiments of a vain young woman who froze on her way to a ball. Newspaper advertisements and writings of the period demonstrate that Americans at least knew these small rigid dolls as “penny dolls,” but toy sellers never seem to have advertised these as “Charlotte” dolls. In fact, nothing in 19th- and early 20th-century publications supports the belief that Americans ever made a connection between these figures and Charlotte [see Note 3 for databases searched].
When Americans first saw the hard, white bisque dolls, the association with the unfortunate Charlotte must have seemed obvious. Sometimes sold for as little as a penny, Frozen Charlottes (and the occasional male Charlie) were made by the million. Everyday Free Standard Shipping with a minimum order of $150 or more. Purchase total must equal or exceed the minimum order requirement to qualify. Once qualified, free shipping will automatically apply in your shopping bag at checkout.
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It was likely coined by doll collectors as late as the mid-1940s, when mentions of “Frozen Charlotte dolls” in ads, newspapers, books, and magazines skyrocketed, and soon became the common way to refer to these Victorian playthings. Despite what we moderns believe, nor did the legend of frozen Charlotte serve as inspiration for the creation of Frozen Charlotte Russe, a favorite 19th-century dessert. The trifle-like treat, popular into the 20th century, is merely a cold (or icebox) version of Charlotte Russe, which is based on the still older and simpler charlotte, a type of molded cake known since the 18th century. The increasing prevalence of iceboxes in homes and restaurants in the United States in the last half of the 19th century drove the creation of many cold desserts, which could now be served all year long.
The smallest dolls were sometimes used as charms in Christmas puddings. Occasionally, versions are seen with a glazed china front and an unglazed stoneware back. This enabled the doll to float on its back when placed in a bath.
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