Arrow Novelty composition Skookum dolls

Native American Indian Family

Arrow Novelty Skookum Dolls 1920-1950s

The Arrow Novelty Company of New York was founded in 1920, they are best known for their souvenir or tourist Skookum Native American Indian dolls (1914-1962) designed by Mary McAboy who was from Montana. 

The history of the earliest Skookum dolls is they had dried apple heads with a wood frame body wrapped with an Indian blanket.  Later the heads were made from composition, then hard plastic.  The dolls costumes represent various tribes in native outfits; males, women, children and papooses (babies), in sizes of a few inches to 36" tall. 

Paper identification tags were often affixed to the bottom of the dolls feet, tags from the 1940s to early 1950s read in an oval circle; Trademark Registered - Patented, inside circle, Skookum (Bully Good) Indian U.S.A.