Tootsietoy Dollhouse from 1927

Here is my 1927 Tootsietoy Cardboard Doll House. The house measures approximately 19" long x 14.5" wide x 15 1/2 tall. The Dowst Brothers Company of Chicago started to produce dollhouse furniture sets around 1920 and continued until 1937. They called the toys "Tootsie" after a family member who died tragically young at age of 16  Tootsie soon became Tootsietoy.

The sides of the house have the same artwork with a trellis, flower boxes and green shutters. Wayne Paper Goods  Co. of Ft. Wayne, Indiana actually produced the house for Tootsietoy,

The front of the house has two large doors that open so the interior of the house can be accessed easily. Mine is missing the cardboard piece for the attic windows. It fits into the roof as shown in the next picture. Mine is also missing the knobs for the doors.

The inside of the house has lithographed details, like a fireplace, curtains, accessories, light sconces, carpets and anything else to make it a comfortable home. 

The living room has a lovely brick fireplace with a roaring fire.

The house technically has 6 rooms. 

The bathroom is in an alcove behind one bedroom. The metal Tootsietoy furniture is a perfect fit. 

There is even a scale so the dolls can watch their weight.

The smaller room in front of the bathroom can be a bedroom, or a dressing room or whatever. The console radio opens up to reveal the dials and speaker.

The master bedroom with the Tootsietoy bedroom set in blue.

The kitchen is an alcove behind the dining room.

I am missing the dining room table but I have substituted the living room side table for now.

The living room furniture is gold. The phonograph lets the dolls listen to music after dinner.

Here is the furnished house

Furniture sets were sold in colourful boxes. Here are some sets that are in my collection.

I have had this house for about ten years and have finally shared it, I hope you enjoyed the visit.

Arcade Toys for the Dollhouse - A 1920s Kitchen

Recently I have been collecting cast iron toys from the 1920s. This is the kitchen from the Arcade Manufacturing Company of Freeport, Illinois.

There were two kitchen sets shown in the 1929 brochure. An electric kitchen and a gas kitchen. This one is the gas kitchen, but it has the electric sink.

This is the Roper gas range. The electric kitchen had a very similar stove, but it was a Hotpoint brand with electric burners where the gas ones are.

I believe that Arcade produced these toys under license and authorization from appliance and furniture companies. Each piece has a brand name on it.

The electric sink has a built in dishwasher - very advanced for the 1920s. I have not seen the real life equivalent, but it seems to be just a deep covered sink with an electric agitater on the bottom.

Mother and Ethel, the maid, are busy preparing dinner. The dolls are German dollhouse dolls from the 1920s.  The furniture is a large 1/12th scale, and I find it makes the dolls look small. But perhaps they are just petite ladies.

The butter churn on top of the fridge is just like the one my mother had when I was a child. It took some muscle to crank it until the butter was made. A computer keyboard doesn't give one the same kind of muscles.

It looks like the chicken is almost ready. Time to make the gravy,

I also added some Arcade pieces to the kitchen in my large Mystery house.  They are preparing dinner as well.

The Crane sink is in this kitchen and the ice box is an Alaska brand.

The Arcade company was founded by 2 brothers in 1896. Initially, they made spring hinges, coffee mills, and other household items.

1908 they began to make cast iron toy banks, and in 1921, Arcade brought out their first car - a Yellow Cab Taxi, under license and authorization from the cab company. The car was such a huge success that the company began to produce more toy vehicles, farm items and dollhouse furniture.

These toys were advertised as looking just like the real thing. This is the thing I really love about this furniture, Unfortunately most of the pieces suffer from paint loss - they are about 80 years old after all - so I love to find pieces that are in good shape.

I will try to collect other rooms of furniture as well. When I do I will share them. Thanks for stopping by.

Susan

Playing with the dollhouse - reno time

I found this dollhouse at a thrift store a few years ago for only $5.00. It was the second dollhouse I bought and it started my dollhouse fever and this blog. At that time I went to the local dollhouse store and spent more than $145 on wallpaper and supplies. I had fun working on the inside and I blogged about the house here back in 2009.

This spring I felt like doing something creative so I brought the house in from the garage and repaired one corner of the roof. I painted the outside of the house and the roof.  I had three windows and a door that I had made from House of Miniature  kits.  I had a few pleasant evenings painting those and installing them in the house. They improved it immensely.

I found some fake flowers at the dollar store and discovered that I could unravel them from their wire stems to make perfect mini flowers. I filled the flower boxes and even made little floral trees for each side of the front door.

I added a decorative fence and, viola, and old beat-up dollhouse had new life.

I hand-painted the shutters and was quite pleased with the effect.

I had wallpapered the four main rooms of the house back in 2009, but the attic was bare. I put in a small dividing wall and made the attic into a nursery and a bathroom with new wallpaper.

The maid just took a pie out of the oven.

I added 1950s tin pieces (stove, sink, fridge and Hoosier cupboard) to the kitchen. The red table and chairs are also Strombecker.

I used the same Strombecker furniture in the living room, bedroom and dining room that I had in the house six years ago. I love the way this vintage furniture looks in the house and the scale is perfect.

The Schoenhut shower is so cute.

The wooden furniture in the nursery and bathroom was made by Schoenhut in the 1920s, but the chaise lounge is Wisconsin furniture.

 I made the leafy plants out of masking tape over floral wire and then painted the leaves. That was fun. I plan to make more.

I am very pleased with my upgraded house. I think it looks great now and I had such fun doing it!