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EMMA LOUISA CHITTY : 1871 - 1883 ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT JOURNAL OF SOUTHERN POETRY AND LITERARY MUSINGS SOME PRO CONFEDERATE BY A NOTED SOUTH CAROLINA TEACHER AND DOLL MAKING PIONEER

8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. On offer is a super, charming relic of southern literary musings and reflections dated 1871 through 1883 handwritten by noted and beloved teacher who taught Latin, mathematics and needlework at the Salem Female Academy in Old Salem, North Carolina, Emma Louisa Chitty (1848-1919). The 23 year old Moravian woman from the enclave in Old Salem she is best remembered as a pioneering doll maker and creator of the rare cloth doll known as "Miss Chitty". Additionally, Emma Chitty was instrumental in the design of the original "Maggie Bessie doll", an iconic doll named after Old Salem Moravian sisters Margaret Gertrude Pfohl (Maggie) and Caroline Elizabeth Pfohl (Bessie). The approximately 60 page 8.5 x 6.5 book features about 27 poems and other literary musings written by Emma including Colonel Henry T. Thompson's famous poem, "Lee to the Rear". Known as the poet laureate of the Confederacy, Thompson's verse memorializes the Civil War Confederate hero Robert E. Lee. Ms. Chitty's inclusion of Thompson's poem reflects the Pro-Confederate sentiment still very much in evidence then throughout the South. Miss Chitty's writings here were also penned during the time of her now legendary doll making endeavors. HISTORICAL NOTES: 1. Originally founded in 1772 as the "Little Girls School", the institution changed its name in 1866 to the Salem Female Academy. The school began awarding college diplomas in 1890 and in 1907 the name was officially changed to Salem Academy and College. To this day, both Salem Academy and Salem College share the campus in adjacent Old Salem. Notably, Salem College is the oldest female educational establishment that is still a women's college and the oldest female institution in the Southern U.S. 2. "Emma Chitty made cloth dolls and soon taught her methods to her friends Maggie and Bessie Pfohl, who added their own touches. Maggie began the dolls in the 1890s, starting with an old German pattern of her mother's. She painted the heads with house paint, sanded them, then applied the features and hair with oil paints and varnished them. The dolls had molded features, and carefully stitched fingers and toes 'and a backbone' she recalled. 'You have to have a backbone. If you don't they nod.' The sisters made dolls for 40 years, selling them and giving them away" (see Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood by Miriam Formanek-Brunell, 1998, p. 75). The bound in original leather-backed marbled boards has moderate wear, mild toning, tearing to a few blank pages near the back, but overall G.. Manuscript. Book Condition: Good

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