An Interview With Myla Perkins Part 1 of 3

An Interview With Myla Perkins

Trailblazing Black-Doll Enthusiast, Doll Historian, and Author

by Debbie Behan Garrett

Myla Perkins, circa 1990

The author of Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide 1820 to 1991 (Black Dolls) and Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide Book II (Black Dolls Book II) granted this exclusive interview. Myla Perkins’ books continue to offer a wealth of information on antique, vintage, and modern Black dolls made from 1820 through the early 1990s. Her journey to become one of America’s most prominent and respected Black-doll enthusiasts, historians, and authors is explored in this in-depth interview.

Myla Perkins spent decades collecting and researching dolls, but her love of dolls dates back to her childhood. She had always liked dolls as a little girl. Born in Pueblo, Colorado in 1939, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan when she was seven after her parents sold the Colorado home and its contents. Her father moved to Detroit first. Six months later, the rest of the family followed. Before the mother and her daughters joined the girls’ father, Myla’s mother allowed them to only bring one thing on the two-day train trip. Myla brought her last doll, and her sister brought her doll. Both dolls were White. This was in the early 1940s, and Myla, like many Black children during that era, did not know Black dolls existed. Myla’s love of dolls began when her mother allowed them to bring their dolls to Detroit. She also recognized the importance of dolls at that time.

After the family moved to Detroit, young Myla still had that doll. For Christmas, she and her sister received many toys, but the dolls remained the most important gifts because of that one doll she brought from Colorado.

During her teen years, Myla's mother tried to persuade her to give her dolls to her younger cousins. She allowed her mother to give some away, but she kept the one she brought from Colorado hidden in her closet with the last doll she received at age 11. The dolls remained hidden until she married. After marrying, Myla’s mother still did not know she had those two dolls. She would have made her give them away if she had known. Myla explained, “I graduated from college at 21 in June and got married in July (we met in college). My husband laughed when I unpacked. Astounded, he asked, ‘What are these dolls?’’’ Two years later, after their first daughter was born, Myla gave her two childhood dolls to her daughter. She displayed the dolls that began her daughter’s collection on shelves in the infant's nursery. Myla began buying dolls for her daughter to add to the others. “I’ve always been interested in genealogy, by the time she was three or four, I thought, she has my dolls from my childhood, and she has her dolls. I want her to have a doll from the period of my mother’s childhood, the 1920s.”

A bisque doll made in Germany, circa 1900 by Simon & Halbig #1358 is featured on a Sugar ‘n Spice Doll Museum note card. (Myla referred to her doll collection as the Sugar 'n Spice Doll Museum.)

Myla began going to antique shops to find antique dolls from the 1920s for her daughter. The first ones she saw and purchased were White. Later during a search, she stumbled upon a Black Simon & Halbig doll in a shop. When she found that doll, all of a sudden something snapped. Myla realized she was not buying dolls for her daughter anymore; she was actually buying them for herself. That was a turnaround in her thinking.

In her first Black Dolls book, Myla wrote, “#1358, the most desired of the Simon & Halbigs because of its Negroid features, came in various shades from deep black to light brown in a size range from 15” tall to 34” tall…”

During the late 1960s, she became more involved with antique dolls, and she met doll artist/doll dealer Betty Formaz, who later discovered Leo Moss dolls. By this time, Myla had stopped buying antique White dolls in favor of antique Black dolls. Later, she joined the United Federation of Doll Clubs (UFDC), an organization that unites and organizes doll collectors around the world ("About UFDC").

Myla shared the following experience about joining UFDC:

“In the 1960s, UFDC in Detroit did not allow Black members. Betty Formaz was a member along with two or three of her other customers. She and the other members told UFDC, ‘Either you let Myla in, or we are all withdrawing our membership.’ So, [Betty Formaz] put herself on the line for me. There were about two or three others who did the same thing. So, UFDC did let me in and they were very nice, very gracious. The other women who threatened to withdraw their membership if UFDC did not allow me to join were part of our nucleus group.”

This group photograph of paper mâché dolls by Leo Moss from the 1800s and early 1900s is from the cover of a Sugar ‘n Spice Doll Museum note card.

 

According to Myla, Betty later discovered the Moss family in Macon, Georgia, and brought some Leo Moss dolls back to Detroit. After her first trip to Georgia, Betty returned with only five or six Moss dolls because that is all the family would allow her to bring back. Because the dolls were Black, Betty let Myla, her only Black customer, choose her favorite. Myla chose Mina, the doll in the Moss group photo above seated on the right, above the seated boy. The rest of the nucleus group purchased the other initial Moss dolls from Betty.

Perkins has delighted in meeting several wonderful doll collectors, artists, and others who were deeply involved in the doll community. While attending her first UFDC National Convention in 1973 in Louisville, Kentucky from August 1^st through August 5^th, she met the late Lenon Holder Hoyte. Mrs. Hoyte founded Aunt Len's Doll and Toy Museum in Harlem, New York. Before 1973, Hoyte had been the only Black person to attend UFDC national conventions. Hoyte and Perkins were happy to see one another the first year Myla attended. Myla recalled Hoyte asking her what she brought for the UFDC doll competition. “A doll from the turn of the century,” was Myla’s reply. Because she respected Hoyte, Myla took her to her room to see the doll after Hoyte asked to see it. When Hoyte looked at Mina, the Leo Moss doll, she voiced her displeasure stating that the doll was disgraceful! More unpleasant comments from Hoyte about Mina followed with an attempt to talk Myla out of entering the doll in competition. Second thoughts about entering the doll ensued before Myla discussed the situation with her husband by phone, who said, “She didn’t buy your plane ticket there. She is not paying for your hotel. Do what you want to do in your heart.” When Myla went down to enter Mina in the competition, she said, “Who did I see standing in line… Lenon looked at me [saw the doll] and asked, ‘You’re still doing that?’” Fortunately, for the doll community, Myla followed her heart and did just that.

Mina was photographed at the UFDC 24^th National Convention in August 1973 after winning 1^st and 4^th place ribbons.

Mina introduced Leo Moss dolls to the doll community after being entered in the baby doll category and winning a 1^st place ribbon. After Mina placed first in the baby doll category, Myla said, “Lenon Hoyte was the first person in my room wanting to know where I got Mina, how did I get it, and how could she get something like it.” Myla documented Mina's UFDC convention wins in Black Dolls and indicated that Mina "was the first Leo Moss doll to win a ribbon in national competition" where "there were over 1,800 dolls" competing. During the interview, Myla shared that no other Black dolls were in competition at the convention that year.

After Mina won 1^st place in the baby doll category and 4^th best doll in the show, UFDC became interested in the doll and asked for more information about it. Myla shared a booklet she wrote about Leo Moss dolls with UFDC that was published in the Doll News issue that followed the convention (possibly the September 1973 issue). In 1973, Doll News was published monthly. It is now a quarterly publication.

Continue reading here.

An Interview With Myla Perkins Part 2 of 3

 

In an undated photograph, with dolls in the background and foreground, Myla stands holding Mina.

Continued from Part 1

During her UFDC membership, Myla attended every national and regional convention that followed the 1973 convention. For several years, Black UFDC conventioneers only included Myla Perkins and Lenon Hoyte. Perkins always took a Moss doll and a Moss doll always won 1st place. The only time one of her Moss dolls did not win 1st place was when someone else entered a Moss doll and the other doll placed first. The year that happened, her doll, a smaller Moss doll, won 2nd place. It did not matter to Myla that her doll placed second because another Moss doll still placed first. Nineteenth-century dolls made by a Black man described as a handyman from Macon, Georgia continue to intrigue and fascinate the doll community today. Myla eventually owned several.

Myla is seen in another undated photograph with Leo Moss dolls, Mina, Bobo, and Pansy.

Myla’s love for antique dolls continued. Once she realized there were Black dolls made during her childhood, she became interested in those. Upon learning that Myla collected dolls, one of her aunts, who was also born in Colorado, told Myla she had a Black doll in the 1930s that was ordered in a beauty shop. During that time, beauty shops offered brochures for ordering Black dolls. Myla could not recall which doll her aunt owned, but she knows it is documented in one of her books. After learning about her aunt’s doll, Myla began looking for other Black dolls from the 1930s, ‘40s, or ‘50s. By this time, she was obsessed with Black dolls—who they were made for, why they were made, and where they were distributed.

A lucky girl named Mabel Parchman posed with her doll from R. H. Boyd’s National Negro Doll Company in a photograph published in the Nashville Globe on April 11, 1913. 

            Myla’s vast doll collection included antique dolls by R. H. Boyd’s National Negro Doll Company, which Mr. Boyd founded in 1911 after recognizing the need for respectable Black dolls for his children and others. The former enslaved man's story fascinated Myla. “Boyd’s eyes were open wide,” she said. During her doll research, at one point she spoke with one of Boyd’s daughters, but the daughter was not receptive to Myla and did not want to talk to her. “Some of us get a little off track,” Myla said. According to Myla, the daughter almost tried to deny that Boyd’s early 1900s dolls existed, but Myla asserted that his dolls were in The Crisis magazine, as illustrated in the next image, and she could not deny what her father did. Several people closed doors in Myla’s face. “People are still doing it,” she said. “There are some people who still believe White folk’s ice is colder,” she added. 

"The Crisis magazine is the official publication of the NAACP. It was created in 1910 by renowned historian, civil rights activist, sociologist, and NAACP co-founder W. E. B. Du Bois (“History of the Crisis”).

In Black Dolls Book II, Myla included this National Negro Doll Company ad that was placed in The Crisis in November 1911.

During the years Myla collected dolls and purchased dolls for her children, she witnessed a slight improvement in the availability of modern Black dolls. In the 1960s, finding Black dolls in stores for her first daughter, who was born in 1962, was difficult. To combat this issue, Myla met with buyers for large department stores and put a lot of pressure on them because they did not carry Black dolls. By the mid-1970s, she did not experience as much difficulty finding Black dolls for her second daughter who was born in 1969. Black dolls were not as limited by then, but the scarcity remained. 

Myla’s daughter’s Baby Alive by Kenner, 1973, is featured in Black Dolls Book II.

“I remember when she was four, she wanted Baby Alive. I looked all over ahead of time and couldn’t find the Black Baby Alive. So, I wrote her a note addressed to Santa stating that by the time her birthday came in June, Santa would be able to find her Baby Alive. I had to play games with my kids,” Myla shared. When Cabbage Patch dolls first came out in the early 1980s, Myla said the dolls were in Detroit, but Black versions were the first ones to sell out. She had to rush to get Black Cabbage Patch dolls because the demand exceeded the supply. 

Perkins’ enthusiasm over Black dolls prompted her to actually begin writing the first Black Dolls book during the 1970s. The original manuscript included all the dolls made by 1975. Her husband photographed the antique dolls. One of her good friends, Susan Manos, had written a Barbie book published by Schroeder Publishing Company, and they also wanted to publish Myla’s book. By 1975, Myla was busy with family and work life as a teacher and co-owner of Sugar ‘n Spice day care center and private elementary school. She had four children who were born within seven years and life was hectic. Schroeder published another book on Black dolls around the same time, Collector’s Encyclopedia of Black Dolls by Patiki Gibbs. So, when that book was released, Myla reasoned, “There’s already a book on Black dolls, and I just let that go. Everything just sat in boxes.”

Published in 1991 and 1995, respectively, Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide 1820-1991 and Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide Book II are must-have resources for collectors of Black dolls and anyone with the slightest interest in them.

By 1987, Myla’s youngest child had graduated high school and had gone to college. She and her husband were empty nesters for the first time. In 1988 or 1989, she thought about her unpublished book and contacted the publisher. “They remembered me, still wanted me to write the book, and asked me to please send the information,” Myla recalled. At that point, she updated the manuscript with newer dolls from the 1980s and 1990s. 

 After writing and publishing her first book, in 1994, Perkins founded Motor City Doll Club (MCDC)—Detroit’s first Black-doll club. MCDC achieved charter membership in UFDC in 1995. Myla is no longer an MCDC or UFDC member. When she left the doll world, she closed that chapter of her life completely.

If she had the opportunity to restart her collecting/doll historian journey and do anything differently, she said would not. She enjoyed collecting, enjoyed the friends she met along the way, and she remembered talking to me during the late 1990s after the late Patricia Tyson (former owner of Cultural Accents in Detroit) encouraged me to call Myla. At that time, Myla was selling some of her dolls. Among a few others, I purchased some career-inspiring dolls called Wanna-Be created by the corporation of the same name.  Dolls in the series included male and female pilots, doctors, teachers, executives, firefighters, soldiers, a male football player, and a female cheerleader.

During the mid-1990s, I purchased Wanna-Be males from Myla that represent an executive, a doctor, a football player, and one female that represents a pilot.

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An Interview With Myla Perkins Part 3 of 3

In a photograph courtesy of Michigan State University Museum, Myla Perkins and her sister, standing on the far right, are seen with the other members of The Quilting Six.

Continued from Part 2

For Myla, collecting slowed down due to an issue many veteran collectors face, the lack of display space. Her interest in dolls was also fading. She liked the dolls she had, but she did not want to add any more. By 1992, God had blessed her with two more living dolls—her first two granddaughters. Five more granddaughters and a grandson followed. She also now has two great-granddaughters. As a result, Myla became increasingly focused on her family. “I have a second hobby. I quilt, and quilting takes up as much time as doll collecting,” Myla shared.

While quilting also requires time, it became more gratifying than doll collecting. It allows Myla to use the sewing skills she learned as a child and honed over the years. Two years before her oldest child went to college, Myla’s friends told her about care packages they sent to their college children. Myla admitted, "I have done a lot of things, but I never really loved cooking. I decided I would not cook food, pack it up and mail it because it would not be good when it left Detroit, and it would not be good when it got to where it was going." She decided to make a quilt so when her daughter’s roommate received care packages, “she could wrap herself in a quilt I made and cry because she did not get a care package.” Her then high school daughter encouraged Myla to start working on the quilt so it would be ready before she went to college. She realized she really liked quilting and has continued to quilt since the mid-1970s. A quilt of doll dresses made approximately 20 years ago is her only doll-related quilt.

"Underground Railroad" by Myla Perkins

Myla and a group of sorority sisters and friends formed The Quilting Six. The six members are featured in a photograph on the Quilt Index website, “an open access, digital repository of thousands of images, stories and information about quilts and their makers” (Overview). Photographs and details of two quilts Myla made, “Underground Railroad” from 1984 and “Bridal Wreath” from 1985 are included in her Quilt Index profile.

As Myla’s focus shifted away from collecting, she focused on selling the dolls.  Her Leo Moss dolls were the last dolls she parted with and doing so was not difficult at all for her. The dolls had been on display at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit before she gave her entire doll collection to her oldest daughter to sell. At that point, Myla had a decision to make regarding the dolls—either she would give the dolls to a museum or she would allow her daughter to sell them. Her final decision was based on knowing too many people who gave things to museums and the museums kept them in storage in basements. Either rodents got them, bugs got them, or humidity destroyed them. Myla shared that she curated a doll collection for a museum that kept the collection in their basement and never did display it. She did not want any of this to happen to her dolls. Furthermore, she did not want the collection improperly disposed of as has happened to many other collectors’ dolls. She wanted people to enjoy them.

Myla's impressive collection was displayed in her home in special cabinets.

 

Myla added, “When something is past its time, I am willing to let it go and move on. A lot of people were surprised that I even sold them. My husband and I had lived in our home for 41 years where we raised our four children. That’s where I collected all my dolls. My husband had special cabinets built for them. When I moved from that house 13 years ago, selling the house to my son, I left the dolls there. I took what I wanted. I didn’t have room for them. My son was alright [about the dolls being there] since he grew up with them.” Eventually, Myla decided to move the dolls all out, sell them, and move on.

After receiving the Moss dolls back from the Wright Museum and several other antique Black dolls, Myla gave her daughter a list of national auction houses to contact. Her daughter chose Theriault’s. Theriault’s took all the Moss dolls, a total of 13, and some of the other antique dolls to auction. On March 17, 2018, Myla’s Moss dolls and other antique dolls were auctioned by Theriault’s in the quite successful “Tears for Mina” auction.

A doll that represents King Tut by Averill Manufacturing Co. is seen in a photograph from Black Dolls Book II.

One doll that Myla regrets giving her daughter to sell is the King Tut (U-Shab-Ti” Tutankhamen) doll by Averill Manufacturing Co. made in 1923. “It was totally original and was made the year they discovered his tomb,” Myla shared. Tutankhamen, more commonly referred to as King Tut or Boy King, was the King of ancient Egypt from about 1347 to 1339 B.C. He was only eight or nine years old when he became king.

In answering interview questions about the late doll artist, I. Roberta Bell, who was the first African American member of the National Institute of Doll Artists, Myla described her as a lovely person. She owned several of Ms. Bell’s dolls made in the likeness of historical African Americans. “Bell’s work and Hoyte’s museum enriched the doll community in different ways,” Myla related. We discussed Barbara Whiteman’s annual Memorial Day weekend Philadelphia Doll Shows that were held from the late 1980s until 2012. Myla recalled how grand the early shows were with workshops, lectures, Black doll artists, and many activities for collectors to enjoy.

Myla’s advice to novice collectors is to take care of the dolls they collect, and "don’t try to redo them." She feels that changing the dolls in any way diminishes their value. “You can refurbish antique cars and they maintain their value, but I don’t think you should do that to dolls.” She also encourages collectors to share their dolls with museums and with others in the community through displays and exhibitions.

Myla Perkins today

Myla ended the interview by affirming, “I don’t mind you sharing my age. I’m 83 and feel blessed to still be here and healthy.”

The doll community is also blessed because Myla Perkins shared her dolls and doll research in the form of booklets, books, exhibitions, and community and media appearances.  She founded Detroit’s first Black-doll club, became Detroit’s first UFDC Black member, and introduced Leo Moss dolls to the doll community with the doll, Mina. For me, her first book opened up the world of Black-doll collecting. Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide 1820-1991 was my collector's bible for at least a decade. I still reference it frequently. Before reading Myla’s first book, I had no idea as many delightful Black dolls existed during my childhood. Myla’s books also taught me the importance of doll research, documenting a collection, and the importance of sharing my research with the global doll community.

Myla Perkins, on behalf of the doll community, thank you!

References

“About UFDC.” UFDC, United Federation of Doll Clubs, Inc., 

            www.ufdc.org/about-ufdc. Accessed 12 July 2022.

“History of the Crisis.” A Record of the Darker Races, NAACP.org, 

            naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-crisis. 

            Accessed 19 July 2024. “Overview.” 

“Myla Perkins Quilt Maker.” Quilt Index, Quilt Index, 

            quiltindex.org/view/?type=artists&kid=12-51-51. Accessed 15 July 2022.

“Overview.” Quilt Index, Quilt Index, quiltindex.org/about/welcome. 

            Accessed 15 July 2022.

Perkins, Myla. Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide 1820 to 1991. Paducah, Kentucky, Collector Books a division of Schroeder Publishing Co., Inc., 1991.

Perkins, Myla. Black Dolls an Identification and Value Guide Book II. Paducah, Kentucky, Collector Books a division of Schroeder Publishing Co., Inc., 1993.

Video

Tears for Mina (March 8, 2018, a preview of Leo Moss dolls from Myla Perkins' collection auctioned by Theriault's on March 17-18, 2018)