Mary Billie cutting cardboard to make hair for her Seminole dolls - Big Cypress Reservation, Florida

Title

• Mary Billie cutting cardboard to make hair for her Seminole dolls - Big Cypress Reservation, Florida

Image Number

• FS80334A

Year

• 1980

Date Note

• Photographed on July 15, 1980.

Series Title

• General: Folklife Collection.
• Specific: Folklife Collection Seminole Slide/Tape Project (Palmetto Dolls)

General Note

• Accompanying note: "'She'll put the cardboard on top of the doll's head and with that black material to make it look nice, I guess. To make it look like hair. And then after she does that, she put the top on. And then she'll sew that up too, so it won't fall off.'"



General Note

• "Seminole women have worn their hair in various different styles over the years, and the dolls reflect this. The high hairdo, mounted with cypress bark or, later, cardboard, was popular about fifty years ago, and some of the women still wear it. But Mary also makes some dolls with yarn hair that show modern styles."



General Note

• Mary B. Billie has been a dollmaker since she was 17. She learned the skill by watching her mother, who had learned it from Mary's grandmother.

Photographer/Personal Author

• Dyen, Doris J., Collector.

Physical Description

• 1 slide - col.

Subject Term

• Craft
• Root dolls
• Seminole dolls
• Palmetto and palm crafts
• Tourist art
• Domestic arts
• Decorative arts
• Art
• Dolls
• Toys
• Scissors and shears
• Paperboard
• Cutting
• Material culture
• Seminole Indians--Material culture
• Dollmakers
• Toymakers
• Artisans
• Dollmaking
• Seminole women
• Doll industry

Geographic Term

• Big Cypress Seminole Indian Reservation (Fla.)

Personal Subject

• Billie, Mary B., 1934-2003.

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