Child’s Play: Dolls of Native America Exhibit

The Oklahoma Historical Society’s Office of American Indian Culture and Preservation has curated a new, educational exhibit, Child’s Play: Dolls of Native America. The exhibit highlights more than 65 dolls and doll makers from different American Indian tribes. The exhibit will not only present the importance of dolls as children’s toys, but also their significance as an art form and a way to document styles and materials used in making traditional tribal clothing.

The exhibit includes selected biographies of doll makers such as Mildred Cleghorn (pictured at right), Fort Sill Apache; Lorene Drywater, Cherokee; Donna Tsatoke, Kiowa/Caddo; Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, Seminole; and Rebecca Blue Cloud, Dakota.

The exhibit will run through December 1, 2020, in the John and Eleanor Kirkpatrick Research Center at the Oklahoma History Center, and will be accompanied by an exhibit publication