Saralee’s Baby Brother

Name: Saralee’s Baby Brother

Made by and When: Ideal Doll Company, circa 1951-1953

Sculpted by: Sheila Burlingame

Material: Vinyl, stuffed cloth, paint

Marks: (Head) C 17 / IDEAL DOLL

Height:  18 inches

Hair, Eyes, Mouth: The vinyl head has black sculpted curly hair with a widow’s peak hairline. The brown stationary eyes have applied upper eyelashes. The open/closed mouth is painted red inside. The original orange lip color has faded.

Clothes: Redressed in a blue knit romper, a vintage cloth diaper held with vintage baby pins, and blue crocheted booties

Other: This rarely found brother of Ideal’s Saralee Negro Doll arrived dressed in an infant’s layette gown and an infant-sized pinned-on cloth diaper with a handwritten attached tag that states, “This baby doll has been cherished and loved since the early 50s by Linda Davis Allen of North Quincy, then Newbury, Massachusetts. June 4, 2025.” Thanks to Ms. Allen and her daughter, the doll is now owned by DeeBeeGee’s Virtual Black Doll Museum. It completes the known anthropologically correct doll members of the Saralee Negro Doll family—Saralee, Saralee’s all-vinyl toddler sister, and Saralee’s baby brother—designed by Sara Lee Creech. Other family members were planned and sculpted by Sheila Burlingame, but the three aforementioned, including this baby brother, are the only known dolls produced.

Gallery

Saralee Negro Doll’s baby brother is one of three known dolls manufactured by Ideal Dolls sculpted after images of actual African American/Black children to capture their facial features in doll forms.

Sculpted Prototype Heads

An Older Sister or Mother?

A Baby Sister

A Big Brother

Another Big Sister

Same sculpt as above with a different hairstyle

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