
Shindana Hispanic little girl doll
plaid dress, mid 1960s |
Shindana
Dolls with a Difference -
from the mid-1960s through part of the 1980s, a South Central Los Angeles
cooperative venture sponsored several projects to assist people living in the inner-city,
toward self-sufficiency. Operation Bootstrap businesses included the Shindana
Toy Company, where assembly-line workers made ethnically correct black dolls.
For a period
of time Shindana continued to broaden its doll line and pioneered the
making of multicultural dolls before they were trendy. The Chase
Manhattan Bank Corporation, as well as Mattel Toy Company financed a
portion of their business.
Shindana prided itself in capturing ethnic realism in its dolls. The
Little Friends Collection consisted of Asian, Black, Hispanic, White, boy
or girl dolls, that are about 12 inches tall, all soft quality vinyl,
designed to drink and wet. Dolls are fully jointed, with painted
features and either molded or rooted hair. Shindana also made
Celebrity dolls.
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