James Scholly Taft or Ernst Reinhardt Antique Bisque Dolls USA

1910 James Scholly Taft bisque socket head doll 23" — 1910 James Scholly Taft bisque socket head doll 23″, doll mark **D Taft 1910**

James Scholly Taft Dolls 1910+ USA

Very little is known about the James Scholly Taft doll Pottery factory in Keene, New Hampshire, USA. Bisque head dolls have the mark 1910, so we assume that was the date they began making these beautiful German like antique dolls.

Taft dolls have a bisque socket head with sleep eyes, an open mouth with teeth on a wood and composition jointed body and can easily be mistaken as an antique German made doll. All the dolls we have found were about 23″ tall.

James Scholly Taft appears to have made bisque socket head dolls before and after World War I, perhaps to fill the need for German dolls that were not available during that time period. Taft operations appear to have ceased after the war, when German doll imports were again available in the USA.

James Scholly Taft Dolls, Marks Identified

James Scholly Taft bisque head composition jointed body 23″, doll mark D Taft 1910

James Scholly Taft doll mark D Taft 1910

1910 James Scholly Taft bisque socket head doll 23″ marked DA6

1910 James Scholly Taft bisque socket head composition jointed doll body 23″, marked DA6

James Scholly Taft doll mark DA6

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ca. 1914 Ernst Reinhardt bisque socket head doll 24" tall — ca. 1914 Ernst Reinhardt bisque socket head doll 24″ tall

Ernst Reinhardt Antique Bisque Dolls 1909-1922 USA

Ernst Reinhardt was born in 1875 near Hildburghausen, Thüringia, Germany. Ernst began assembling dolls when he was in his early 20’s in Germany along with employees, neighbors and wife Laura Reinhardt who designed the dolls clothing, these first dolls were tiny, miniature four inches tall jointed at the shoulders and hips only and were dressed in German provincial costumes.

By 1909 the Ernst Reinhardt family immigrated to Philadelphia, USA and established a doll making factory for bisque heads with papier-mache and wood bodies. Ernst was granted a patent in 1914 for the easy changing of the dolls stamped celluloid eyes.

Ernst Reinhardt is believed to be the first to commercially manufacture bisque doll heads in the United States with domestic American clay. Reinhardt designed his own unique doll head molds to make both socket or shoulder head dolls with sleep or painted eyes, molded hair or wigged on composition ball jointed bodies.

In 1916 Ernst moved his porcelain factory, now named Bisc Novelty Manufacturing Company and family to East Liverpool, Ohio. Due to the war, doll production was a non-essential product, so around 1918 the family moved to Irvington, New Jersey. Doll heads marked Mesa and Perth Amboy are from this later period 1918 to 1922. With the end of the war in 1922, inexpensive German bisque dolls again were available in the USA, thus ending Ernst doll making business.

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Ernst Reinhardt Doll Marks Identified

Ernst Reinhardt doll mark intertwined ER initials

Ernst Reinhardt doll mark Reinhardt East Liverpool Ohio

Ernst Reinhardt doll mark USA Augusta Perth Amboy, NJ ER intertwined

Ernst Reinhardt doll mark Made in, U.S.A., ER, Pat. Sep., 1914, Reinhardt

The Collector’s Encyclopedia of Dolls books, books, vol. I (1800-1925) in 1968, vol. II (1800-1930) in 1986 by Dorothy S., Elizabeth A. and Evelyn J. Coleman and continued research across the Internet since 1999 which we share with you.