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The Doll Podcast
Martha Chase, Progressive Kindness Part 2
Dr. Sarah Woodbury, Curator of Art at the Barry Art Museum and host Louisa Maxwell delve into the life and legacy of Martha Jenks Chase. Dr. Woodbury takes you through the "Progressive Kindness" exhibition at the Barry Art Museum, highlighting how Martha's progressive values and medical background fuelled her creations. Uncover the profound impact of Martha's work on both nursing education and children's intellectual growth, as we explore the intersection of art, medicine, and social reform.
Welcome to the Doll Podcast. I'm your host, louisa Maxwell. It's part two of our podcast about a very special American doll maker, martha Jenks Chase, who used dolls as tools of social change and innovation. Although she was born in the Victorian era, martha was an advocate of progressive principles, supporting the rights of women, workers and acknowledging that human rights, equality and welfare were principles that everyone should enjoy.
Speaker 1:In our last episode, we explored how she brought these principles into the realm of doll making, starting a company that would benefit her community for almost 100 years. Martha Jenks Chase is the subject of the current exhibition at the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, Virginia, USA. In part two, we explore Chase's life and times and her social contribution with my guest, Dr Sarah Woodbury. Curator of Art at the Barry Art Museum, Sarah has curated the museum's exhibitions on dolls and automata since 2020. Sarah, welcome to the Doll Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you and, as always, it's a pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Sarah the Barry's exhibition is called Progressive Kindness. How does this describe Martha Chase's philosophy and the dolls she was inspired to create?
Speaker 2:Well, the title ties very much into Martha Chase's philosophy as a progressive era reformer era reformer. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a lot of middle class and upper class women especially became interested in social concerns of the day, and with Martha Chase in particular. Her concern was with public health and she saw making dolls as a way of addressing public health issues, not only in terms of hygiene but especially with her hospital training dolls education.
Speaker 1:Well, all these values she put together created a product that was very much in demand. She not only made baby dolls, child dolls, but then she began to make literary characters, which again was something that would stimulate her young audience of children. Are some of her storybook dolls included in the exhibition?
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm very glad you asked that because we do have in the Berry Art Museum collection examples from the Alice in Wonderland set and if you come to the museum you'll be able to see that set on view. And they're marvelous dolls. They look very different from some of the other public health dolls and the children's dolls because they are representing these fantastical characters. We have Tweedledum and Tweedledee, for example, and other characters in the group.
Speaker 1:Martha Chase stressed the educational aspect of her dolls. How were her dolls used in schools for educational purposes?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the most fascinating dolls that she created, in my opinion, were the hospital training dolls, and these were actually geared for adults, particularly nursing students, and these were life-size dolls that essentially were the precursors of the training mannequins we see in hospitals today, so they were designed for basically learning how to do different types of medical procedures. You would not only wash the dolls, but you could practice giving them injections, for example, or other basic nursing procedures.
Speaker 1:Coming from a medical family, she manages to make this a wonderful, useful tool, and yet it is a life-size doll, exactly.
Speaker 2:What I find so interesting about the story of the doll is it really shows how Martha Chase is using her expertise to make a contribution to the medical field as a woman. As we all know, in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was very difficult for women to go to medical school because of social constraints. At the time, the idea that being a doctor was not an appropriate profession for a woman was very prevalent at the time. Martha Chase has this medical familiarity due to her upbringing and her marriage and whatnot, but by working on dolls more specifically, it's a way of contributing to the medical field, arguably in a way that was more long-lasting than becoming a doctor in her own right, because she developed these dolls that then were used in hospitals across the country and subsequently influenced mannequin design and hospital training to this day.
Speaker 1:It must have saved lives. Today we use them to learn CPR, all kinds of emergency procedures the way we're linking Martha Chase with her progressive values, and I think that's one of the things that's really interesting about this exhibition. Do you think she managed to make that meaningful progressive social statement that she wanted to in the beginning?
Speaker 2:for children that could be played with and cleaned. But to me what's so striking about her legacy is the long-term impact on the medical field in terms of training. One reason why Martha Chase was able to make a contribution to society the way she did wasn't just her familiarity with the medical field but also her relative privilege as a white woman of relative means living within a New England community under a well-regarded family. That was part of what compelled her to embark on these progressive reforms through Dahl's was that she was in a position of privilege and was looking at working classes and other members of society and asking, well, how can I use my position of wealth and relative power to make a difference? And her response was through the dolls. Even if with like the medical training dolls, we don't immediately recognize the legacy of that, but just having the presence of those training mannequins and how they have educated generations of nurses and doctors and other practitioners. That's how we experienced Martha Chase.
Speaker 1:The guest curator for this exhibition of Martha Chase's work was artist Brett Day-Windham, a multimedia artist who has exhibited throughout the United States. How did Brett view the work of Martha Chase?
Speaker 2:Brett got really involved in the research and writing of this exhibition, partly because of the craft of the dolls but also the Pawtucket history and medical connections and as a fellow mother connecting with Martha Chase as a parent and a creative and a businesswoman and all of that.
Speaker 2:I know that all really resonated with her. And plus it brings a different perspective to the exhibitions. You know, when you have one curator, take care of everything, even though it's a different subject matter, and you try to approach it differently. Everybody has a distinct voice so you can start to recognize the style of a curator after a while. But bringing in a guest curator brings a different interpretation to the works. She curated the show differently than I would have and I think that's a wonderful thing. But she's also got a deep understanding of the sense of place with Pawtucket. But she grew up in the same town so she has this intimate connection with the town and its history and its sense of place and that definitely informed the exhibition for the better, because it is so intimately tied to this sense of place.
Speaker 1:Well, it's amazing to think about how important this sense of place is, this sense of being rooted in a community, and that Brett's voice is continuing the story of Martha Chase. So tell me, when people go to see this exhibition of Martha Chase's work, what's included of Martha's legacy? Are any of the medical dolls there?
Speaker 2:So, like all of the Berry Art Museum's intimate doll exhibitions, it's a relatively small collection that we have on view, but it enables us to do a deep dive into each of the dolls. So what viewers will see are a combination of dolls from the museum's permanent collection, some of our own Arthur Chase holdings. Yes, we do have an example of a medical doll on view. It's not an adult size, it's a child-sized one, but it's noticeably larger than the other play dolls on view. One thing that may strike viewers when they come to the show is that the lights may seem especially more dim than usual, and that was very much a deliberate choice because these are light sensitive objects. So if you go in, don't be alarmed if the light seems low.
Speaker 1:That's just the level we're keeping it at to help preserve these objects. Well, that's something that's very common when we go to exhibitions today, because, after all, the paint is affected, the color is affected, oh yes. And we want these things preserved for future generations.
Speaker 2:Oh, definitely.
Speaker 1:So what's the big difference when you look at that child-sized training doll, which had such a great purpose? What's the big difference between that and one of her dolls that she meant as a play doll? Is there a change in expression or features?
Speaker 2:Having looked at the doll myself, I would say with the medical doll there's probably a little less emphasis on the individual facial features. They're still there and they're still lovely and whatnot. But since the emphasis is really on using the doll for training purposes, having a highly expressive face is not quite a priority in the same way as it is with some of the play dolls, but it's still beautifully painted. Throughout the history of these medical dolls they were periodically updated so as procedures became more sophisticated or demand increased, additional apertures and so forth would be added to the dolls so that they would still be relevant to subsequent generations.
Speaker 1:Do they have apertures where you could take their temperature?
Speaker 2:Yes, and the advertisements are a really fascinating part of the exhibition for that reason, because they're helping to shape the public image of these dolls. So what we have on view, just to clarify, are reproductions of some of the advertisements, so you'll find those in the display cases as well as on some of the label texts, and they really help to contextualize these dolls within the early 20th century in terms of what was of interest to these prospective consumers the way she was thinking about her dolls in a way that she wanted people to understand that these dolls were part of the progressive principles.
Speaker 1:Would you say that too?
Speaker 2:I like to think that, on a practical level, it was good for the economy, of course, but it was also an important bolster to the medical field. You're using the same types of materials as being produced by these other local medical producers, so it's this sense of continuity within the community and a source of local pride in terms of not only are we producing these medical materials, but also these really important dolls.
Speaker 1:What do you think Martha Chase's work is telling us today? Because of course, now there are beautiful dolls to collect, but how are they continuing to tell a story about progressive values?
Speaker 2:I think they do. I know for a lot of collectors today, the emphasis is on the craft of these dolls, the exquisite quality of their paintings and their construction and whatnot, and part of that is connoisseurship, which is something you see throughout collecting, looking for the best examples and whatnot, and part of that is connoisseurship, which is something you see throughout collecting, looking for the best examples and whatnot. But the materials and how they were constructed also speak to the interests of that time, especially when it comes to dolls. Seeing what is it actually made out of can tell us so much about what was of interest to their makers, as well as the consumers who purchased these dolls and gave them to their children. And knowing the intimate connections between these dolls and medical care in the form of this stockinette, I think is what really resonates with a lot of viewers today, in addition to the exquisitely painted details. And it reminds us of how dolls aren't just playthings. They are objects that reflect the concerns of their time and continue to shape us today.
Speaker 1:Throughout the history of doll making, we see innovation as a reflection of what is happening in society, and this exhibition at the Barry Art Museum not only showcases Martha Chase's inspiration to create a play doll that was tactile, unbreakable and fun, it's also the story of a community of artists and craftspeople that the dolls built in Rhode Island. Thank you, Sarah Woodbury, for sharing the story of Martha Chase with us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. As always, it's a pleasure to be here to share what we've been up to.
Speaker 1:Tell us, sarah, how long the exhibition is being held at the Barry Art Museum and where can we learn?
Speaker 2:more about it. The exhibition will be up through July 28th of 2024, and you can learn more about the exhibition by going to the Barry Art Museum's website.
Speaker 1:Thank you again, sarah, for joining us on the Doll Podcast. To learn more about Martha Jenks Chase and the exhibition at the Barry Art Museum, go to our website wwwdollpodcastcom. The Doll Podcast is a product of Niche Media Productions. The Doll Podcast copyright Louisa Maxwell 2024. All rights reserved.