BLISS DOLLS HOUSES
The R. Bliss Manufacturing Company was located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA. Over a 100 year period the company made a variety of products. The first known Bliss dollhouse was made in 1889.
"The 1911 catalog, reprinted in the book edited by Blair Whitton, "Bliss Toys and Dollhouses", pictures three buildings in my collection: No.200 dollhouse, No. 570 dollhouse, and No. 100 stable. Although they are still shown in the 1911 catalogue, some had been shown in earlier catalogues, as well. One thing they all have in common is the same red lithographed paper "roof shingles".
NO. 200 BLISS HOUSE circa1890s
My No. 200 Bliss House* is brightly lithographed paper over wood.
A similar house is pictured in Theriault's "This Old House" catalogue, lot #171. It was advertised in the 1911 cataloguess as a "Folding Dollhouse", with cloth hinges at the joints. Apparently this house was made in different ways, over the years. Mine has no signs of ever having had cloth hinges.
  
There are no turnings or cut out windows. Everything is just an illusion of depth and angles. Even though the first known Bliss dollhouse was made in 1889, the patent date of 26 June 1888 is embossed inside the back roof of this house. The house measures 9.75 inches high x 7.75 wide x 4.25 deep, including the base. The back has a pencil marking of 25 cents.
 
The wallpapers in both rooms are the same, with floor paper only in the upstairs. The same house, with a different interior, is shown on pages 14 and 15 of "Antique and Collectible Dollhouses and Their Furnishings" by Dian Zillner & Patty Cooper.
 
The heavy iron furniture, with the exception of the fireplace, is the smaller of three sizes made by Kilgore Manufacturing Co. of Westerville, Ohio, USA, during the 1920' and 1930's.
 
The rug is a tobacco premium that was given with tobacco products as early as before WWI. The back of the rug is stamped with the factory number, NY.
NO. 570 BLISS HOUSE circa 1901
Can be seen in "Furnished Dollhouses 1880's-1980's" by Dian Zillner with Patty Cooper, page 47.
  
The No. 570 Bliss House is also brightly lithographed paper over wood. The outside front paper that wraps around at the hinges shows the number and lettering "570.A FRONT" just below the bottom hinge on the inside.
As with other Bliss houses there were some differences in the same house. This same house is shown by Wendy Gater in Collection 8 with a porch roof over the door, where mine has never had one. Wendy's roof is blue, mine red. My little house measures only 9.25 inches high x 7 wide x 4 deep, including the base. (This same upstairs paper is shown in an 1889 Bliss house, pictured on page 212, of "Dolls and Dolls' Houses" by Constance Eileen King.)
  
The back walls of the two floors have one continuous piece of paper from top to bottom. The upstairs shows the top of a bed with three little girls, sound asleep. The downstairs shows the foot of the bed with boy toys strewn over the floor. Are these little girls having "visions of sugar plums dance through their heads"? Their dreams are probably of having Santa bring them dolls and other girls toys.
The side walls, up and down, have the same blue and white flowered paper. The upstairs only has floor paper. The downstairs appears to have had a blue stained floor.
The furnishings are a mixture of old and new.
NO. 100 BLISS STABLE circa 1911
 
The No.100 Bliss Stable is also covered with brightly lithographed paper over wood. The designs that appear to be cut in the posts are illusion, as the posts are square cut wood with the paper covering the front only. The front edge of the left side paper is marked "cut 1/16th apart". There are only two stalls. The inside is stained red, as is the base. The measurements of this small stable are 9.25 inches high x 8 wide x 4.5 deep. (Mentioned in Whitton's 1911 catalog reprint book, page 7, are also three similar, larger, sizes of this same stable).
As it appears to be Christmas time in the No.570 house, the stable seems the perfect place for a creche.
Craft Pattern House circa Late 1950s
This house was a flea market find. It caught my eye the minute I saw it, as it looked like the house where we lived when my children were in school, so I HAD to have it.
My plans were to make the interior just like we had our house, as the rooms were similarly arranged. No matter that the base was 69 inches long and 29 inches wide! (It looked a lot bigger after I got it into our house.)
 
After looking at it a couple weeks, realizing the original "everything" was still in good condition, including the large lawn with green carpet grass and plastic and paper flower shrubs, I had second thoughts about making it into "our" house.
  
There was a 1964 Petite Princess end table and picture, as well as a 1980 Tomy bathroom sink in the house when I bought it. The color scheme of the rooms are of the 1960's-70's period, so I decided to furnish it pretty much that way, while I made up my mind what to do.
  
The pictures I have included are ones of the house, the way I had it furnished, with Petite Princes, Princess Patti, Tomy, plus a few other pieces including Renwal, Thomas and Acme from the 40's-50's in the children's room.
The playground and swimming pool are Marx circa 1959.
While browsing eBay, a "Craft Patterns Doll House Packet" came up for auction, and it was my house! After buying the pattern, my decision was made for me. The pattern had an address, so I contacted the museum in Elmhurst, Illinois, and the rest is history.
The house now resides at their Historical Museum in the section of their famous architect, Albert Neely Hall, 1883-1959. His first pattern for this house was printed in 1958 and there were several subsequent printings of the patten of the house, breezeway, and garage, as well as patterns for furniture. The brick paper, paper to cover the shutters, and plastic windows were included in the pattern packet.
Dunham's Cocoanut House circa 1890's
The "Dunham Cocoanut House" is actually a 29 inch high crate that was used to ship shredded "cocoanut" to the grocer in the 1890's. The two outside walls are lithographed and incised directly onto the wood, to look like brick with four windows on each side (some houses have paper with the same design, instead). After the grocer unpacked the "cocoanut", who was the lucky child to get the house? How many houses remain today?
The house is four rooms high, with each room papered with lithographed paper showing the highly decorated and lavishly furnished rooms of the time period. As the back of the crate has separated over the years, there is a split in the paper on the back wall of each room. This has happened to all of the Cocoanut Houses that I have seen pictured.
 
 
 
 
If you wanted more furniture than the wall papers showed, you needed to send a trade mark from a "Dunham's Cake Cocoanut" package to an address in New York to receive a piece of paper furniture. Needless to say, I believe a house was seldom completely furnished with the paper premium furniture.
As I don't have any of the paper furniture, and don't have enough furniture of the correct time period, I have filled in with what I have, older and later, in order to furnish the rooms. Though the house is American made, the furnishings are American, French, English and German pieces. I like to pretend that my house was most likely furnished by immigrants to America.
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