Part 3: Lenon Holder Hoyte - Educator, Philantropist, Doll Museum Founder

Sotheby's 1994 auction item 176, scanned from the sale 6644 catalog, is described as 23-inch "Pressed Bisque Steiner Bebe Doll, French, circa 1890s."

Continued from Part 2

Posthumous Recognition
In 2002 Alva Rogers' The Doll Plays premiered at the Actor's Express in Atlanta, Georgia. A tribute to Lenon Hoyte, the play depicted Hoyte on her deathbed, with dolls acting out her life, as well as presenting their own histories as toys and collectibles. A fancy French doll described her feelings as a discarded toy and a Grace Kelly doll recalled her transition from Hollywood glamour girl to Princess Grace of Monaco.

Hoyte Biographies written by Betty Kaplan Gubert and Margaret Alic
Ms. Hoyte’s biography, written by Betty Kaplan Gubert, is included on pages 275-276 in American National Biography: Supplement 2.  The various biographies in this supplement, written by a host of different authors, were compiled by John Garrity and edited by Mark C. Carnes.  Hoyte’s biography by Gubert provides a more detailed account of her life as a collector and doll museum founder.  Much of the information written by Margaret Alic in a separately found online biography of Hoyte is the same as Gubert’s, which I have edited out to avoid repetition. 

“The oldest child of Moses Holder, a carpenter, and Rose Holder, who sewed hats for infants for a Manhattan department store,” Hoyte attended public schools and lived a comfortable life.  “Ironically,” Gubert writes, “the doll collector to be and her sister were forbidden to play with dolls when the younger girl, after chewing on the hands of her dolls, contracted lead poisoning. 

Hoyte was “always a collector,” wrote Gubert.  As an adult, “she began filling her home with antiques, ‘cutting her teeth’ with 1,500 china pitchers… She also collected china, cut glass, samplers, and richly carved furniture.”

Church and Community Involvement Led to Doll Collecting and the Museum
She was deeply involved in her church and community.  She taught Sunday school at her church, “directed a girls’ club and served on the church’s board for housing for the elderly.”  Her philanthropic endeavors included fundraisers to purchase an organ for the church. 

Hoyte’s 1962 doll exhibition to benefit the mental health clinic at Harlem “was a success financially, and it changed [her] life. For the next three decades, she collected dolls and their paraphernalia so earnestly that her collection became internationally known.  At first, Hoyte acquired her history of each doll and as a teacher, she saw that the dolls stimulated children’s curiosity about the past and provided a genuine interest in history.”  (Gubert cites Encore, 6 Dec 1976).

“Besides the dolls, Hoyte collected dollhouses, doll carriages, tea sets, stoves, toy schoolrooms, books, toy pianos, and other musical instruments.   She retired from teaching in 1970.  That year, using the name her students gave her, she incorporated her collection as Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum, on display in the basement of her home.  Visitors came by appointment only, and the entrance fees remained low for maximum accessibility.  With about 2,000 dolls, museum space was tight.  But collectors find room, and twenty years later the dolls possibly numbered 6,000 (New York Times, 9 Sept. 1999).”

A Closer Look At the Museum
“The museum was divided into five sections.  The Americana Room contained handmade cloth black dolls of the antebellum South, numerous Shirley Temples, and others of American manufacture.  The Schoenhut Room was devoted to the works of the renowned nineteenth-century doll maker and his Humpty-Dumpty Circus of forty animals and figures.  The Collector’s Room housed the rarest dolls by master doll makers, such as Leon Casimir Bru, Emile Jumeau, and Jules Nicholas Steiner, that ranged in size from miniature to over three feet.  The Dollhouse Pavilion, with an electrified dollhouse, and International Dolls completed the museum. 

Four black cloth dolls were included in the 1994 Sotheby's auction:  a stitched-face black cloth doll, two male fabric dolls, and a black stockinette doll, item numbers 430, 428, and 429, respectively.  (Photo scanned from the Sotheby's Sale 6644 catalog.)

“Hoyte regarded cloth dolls as her specialty, and at one time she planned to write a book about them but never did.  Highlights of the collection included wax-molded Nicholas and Alexandra of Russia in ermine and vermilion robes, an Edison talking doll, a doll of the Queen Anne period, an 1880 black Bru bisque head bébé in pink silk, and [the] two ‘crying babies’ of papier-mâché made by Leo Moss [Lillian and Leo]…  The large number of black dolls was remarkable for its range over time, place, and medium.  The doll dressed in silk tells one story, while the doll fashioned out of a small whisk broom and a nut tells another.  Collecting works of beauty, rarity, and craftsmanship, Hoyte also tried to keep the collection current and included Barbie, Ken, and Muhammad Ali.  A double doll of Flip Wilson and Geraldine [Shindana] was on the shelves along with the Three Stooges and W. C. Fields. 

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Sotheby's 1994 auction items 293, 292, 290, and 289 are German bisque dolls by Simon & Halbig circa 1889-1910. (Photo scanned from the Sotheby's Sale 6644 catalog.)

“Dolls from the collection won many awards in annual competitions.  During Black History Week in 1975 (changed to a month-long celebration in 1976), Hoyte showed twenty-four dolls at the American Museum of Natural History.  The exhibition, Historical Black Dolls, remained on display for six months. 

Auction items 371 from the Sotheby's 1994 auction included a "Pair of Composition [20-inch] Shoulder Head Black Dolls, 1920s with ethnic features, two female dolls, one with composed expression, hair piled up on head; other with broadly smiling mouth, topknot of hair both with fabric bodies, attenuated limbs, raffia skirts, necklaces, bracelets, and anklets."  Item 372, described by Sotheby's as "Amberg 'Oo-Gug-Luk' Composition Head Black Doll and a Composition Wood Warrior Doll... circa 1915, bearing original sewn-on label describing it as a 'Zulu Lucky Doll' originated and designed by J. W. Long; and a warrior toy with broad grin, painted eyes, necklace, and raffia skirt..." (Photo scanned from Sotheby's Sale 6644 catalog.)

“As the collection quickly grew in objects and popularity, Hoyte realized her one-woman operation would have to change.  She began to envision a much larger and permanent space so it could be a tool for education, a place where both children and adults could develop their ideas of the past.  She also wanted her home to remain as well: ‘I want the house to stay as it is, to be used to foster love.  There have been so many beautiful antique homes in Harlem, and so many collections, broken up.  It ought to be left’ (Encore, 5 Dec. 1976).  But for museum accreditation, the New York State Council on the Arts awarded Hoyte a small grant that enabled her to hire a part-time assistant.  With the help from the Community Service Society, Hoyte received a matching grant of $9,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts in the early 1980s.

“In 1990 New York City mayor Edward Koch presented the Mayoral Award of Honor for Art and Culture to Hoyte.  Her home was burglarized soon after, and nine dolls were stolen.  Later four of them—George Washington, Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Benjamin Franklin—reappeared in the front parlor.  She asked no questions, but some few years later she closed the museum because she was no longer able to run it.  Hoyte sold thousands of her dolls before she put the rest up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York.  The auction on 16 December 1994 realized $742,854.”

Gubert cites the following sources for her biography on Lenon Holder Hoyte:

Sotheby’s catalog, The Collection of Lenon Holder Hoyte Exhibited as “Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum” (1994), contains an article from Dolls, Sept.-Oct. 1985 (Joseph Kelleher, “Her Home is Her Museum”), and two autobiographical sketches of Hoyte, although they are short on dates.  Copious photographs and detailed descriptions reveal the scope of the collection.  Other articles with helpful information include Ernest Swiggett, “Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum,” Unique NY, Sept. 1975, pp. 19 ff.; Sandy Satterwhite, “Aunt Len’s Fabulous Children,” Encore, 6 Dec. 1976, p. 36; Frank Hercules, “To Live in Harlem,” National Geographic, Feb. 1977, pp. 178-207; Anna Quindlen, “About New York,” New York Times, 13 May 1981; Carol Schatz, “Hoyte, Lady with Love for Dolls,” New York Amsterdam News, 16 Apr. 1983; and Jane Lusaka, “Aunt Len’s Doll and Toy Museum: Collector Lenon H. Hoyte Creates a Lasting Legacy,” Orator, Winter 1993, pp. 3-4.  An obituary is in the New York Times, 9 Sept. 1999.

Gubert's biography of Lenon Holder Hoyt can be read in full here.  

Additional Resources:
Lenon Hoyte Biography by Margaret Alic -- Alic cites the following:

Periodicals:
Atlanta Journal and Constitution, January 11, 2002.
Los Angeles Times, September 11, 1999, p. A18.
New York Times, January 2, 1989, p. A16; September 9, 1999, p. C22.
Newsday (Long Island, NY), May 28, 1991, p. 25

On-line:
"Toys in the Attic," Creative Loafing Atlanta, December 2004
Contemporary Black Biography, by the Gale Group, Inc.

The Collection of Lenon Holder Hoyte Exhibited as "Aunt Len's Toy and Doll Museum" Sotheby's auction catalog from December 16, 1994, often shows up on eBay.  It contains 491 black and white images of dolls from Aunt Len's Doll and Toy Museum. 

Lenon Holder Hoyte wrote a 44-page book sometime during the 1970s which features a few dolls from her collection.  It is entitled, Selected Dolls: From the Collector's Room, Aunt Len's Doll and Toy Museum, 6 Hamilton Terrace, New York, N.Y.  At the time this article was published, holders of Ms. Hoyte’s book included the University of Virginia Library and The Strong Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play in Rochester, NY.

"All a doll needs to make it a collectors' item is a past."  Lenon Holder Hoyte