Sindecuse Spotlight

Artifacts from the extensive collection at the dental school’s Sindecuse Museum of Dentistry

Leather Teething Doll

Circa: 1903.

Inventor: Gussie Decker of Chicago, Illinois.

Purpose: “The object of the invention is to provide a cheap, durable and attractive doll and to render the same unbreakable and incapable of injuring infant children,” according to the patent application registered in April 1903. The 12-inch dolls are made of leather and filled with horse hair.

History: Research by Sindecuse Curator Tammy Barnes shows that Gussie Decker’s husband owned a company that manufactured “leather novelties.” The presence of young children in their household may explain Gussie’s entrepreneurial spirit. Gussie was the mother of a son who was 1- or 2-years-old when the patent was filed. In addition, one of her husband’s business partners, who had a small child at the time, lived at the same address in Chicago as the Deckers. The dolls are sometimes called “lacing dolls,” “shoelace dolls” or “teaching dolls” because a shoelacelike string that binds together the chest pieces of the doll could be used to teach children to tie their shoes. However, that function is not mentioned in the patent application, which focuses mostly on the ingenuous way the leather pieces fit together to form the doll. The Sindecuse’s version of the doll is dressed in a red top and pants (not shown in the photo). It is in excellent condition; many of these dolls show extensive wear, particularly on the head, presumably from infants and toddlers chewing on the doll.

Provenance: Purchased by the Sindecuse in 2024 as a way to expand its early 20th century collection of dentistry-related artifacts.

To see more of the Sindecuse Museum collections, go to www.sindecusemuseum.org/collectionsoverview