The Pinn Family Comes to Call

My friend has had these dolls since she was a girl. She thought they were from her Indiana relatives, but until yesterday knew little else about them.




After we took these photos she did some searching and found more information at the Minnesota History Center website.





Following are comments from Objects Curator Linda McShannock on the Pinn Family dolls.




"The Pinn Family dolls, simple dolls made from common household clothespins, come straight out of the Great Depression and the imagination of a Minnesota designer. Not only do they represent the simplicity and make-do attitude of the era, but they also give us a glimpse of an imagined family growing up in Minnesota. Their names reflect some clever double meanings: father, “Ty Pinn,” mother, “Hattie Pinn,” daughters, “Beauty Pinn,” and “Clo Pinn,” son, “Harry Pinn,” and “Baby Pinn.”




The original Schoenhut Company and its dolls didn’t survive the Depression. Reorganized in 1935, the Otto Schoenhut Company of Philadelphia added Emily Myers’s Pinn Family dolls to its product line and brought Myers, a Minnesota designer, to Philadelphia to teach employees how to paint the features and accessorize the dolls. In the late 1930s, Myers ended her contract with Schoenhut and manufactured the dolls herself from her home in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.




Emily T. Myers (1886-1971) produced and sold individual collegiate dolls and Pinn Family dolls by mail order and at the Minnesota State Fair through the 1940s." - Linda McShannock, Objects Curator

After learning this background information my friend now believes the dolls probably came from her granny in St. Paul who was an avid Minnesota State Fair-goer.



Do you know anything more about the story of the Pinn family and their friends?