Mechanical Musings; Early Automatons and Mechanical Dolls
When I wrote With Love from Tin Lizzie: A History of Metal Dolls . . . I said that the history of mechanical dolls went as far back as Ancient Egypt. Yet, the history of all things mechanical, including dolls, toys and robots, really dates back around 3.3 million years. That’s how old the first tools allegedly are. Fire, discovered later , led to making better, stronger tools. Somewhere along the line, the invention of the wheel made it possible to invent even better tools and machines. Our automatons, robots, Mamma dolls and mechanical babies share this Stone Age heritage.
This thought came to me as I was working in our new, permanent museum building. Many of the objects in the museum collection are mechanical. The thing about hard, physical labor is that it gets one thinking. I felt like an automaton myself most of this week, driving car loads of dolls, toys, books, and seasonal items to the new museum. We had a terrible storm last Monday with 100 mph winds that lead to power outages, some still going on.
I spent most of the week working in darkness in the new building, with no AC, either. We had power and AC in the old museum. It was cool enough, and there was enough light coming through the windows. The important job of moving and sorting is taking precedence over everything else. Today there was a break, and we drove to the nearest university town, my husband to work, and me to wander.
We hope to be open by Halloween in our new, final location. Barring that, I’m going for another Small Business Saturday Grand Opening.
One important object is a shadow box of a miniature doll museum, a box meant to make our wish come true. Margaret Grace addresses the tradition in one of her miniature murder series, great reads one and all. I hope there will be many more in the series.
So, we go on. If you don’t hear from me, it is because I’m working very hard on the museum, and on my aunt’s estate. We lost her suddenly in June, and nothing has been easy since.
Be safe, and to those affected by last week’s storms, I hope you are save, your property is intact, the tree limbs are cleared, and your power and cell phones are working again.
