ELLA SMITH, A WOMAN AHEAD OF HER TIME
Ella Louise Gaunt Smith was born April 12, 1868 in Troup County, GA. She was raised in the Langdale community (present day Valley, AL) and attended Lagrange College where she got a degree in art. Growing up, Ella’s mother, Mary Gaunt, worked as an artist and her father, Levi Gaunt, was an inventor and a poet. She moved to Roanoke, Alabama in the 1880s and got a job teaching art at the Roanoke Normal College. After marrying S.S. “Bud” Smith, she gave up her teaching job because teachers were not allowed to be married. Ella was known as an interesting character in the Roanoke community; she always wore a long black dress with a matching cloak and even had a hymn-singing parrot that traveled with her on her shoulder.
In March 1909, Bud and Ella adopted a baby girl named Mary Louis Dixon, who they later renamed Macie Louis Smith. They adopted Macie while at the train station, where they saw her mother and five siblings waiting to be taken to an orphanage. Macie was going to reside in an institution with her mother, until Ella adopted her on the spot. The Smiths never told Macie of her other biological siblings, but Ella donated dolls every Christmas to orphanages in the area with the hopes that they would reach the other children. Later, the Smiths unofficially adopted several other children including their nephew, Carey Gauntt.
The “Alabama Indestructible Baby,” Ella Smith’s claim to fame, was invented by accident in 1897 when one of Ella’s neighbors, Verna Pittman, broke her china doll. She asked Ella if she could repair the doll, so Ella tried to mend the doll’s cracked head by filling it with a mixture of plaster and fibers (commonly known as Plaster of Paris.) She found that this mixture made fragile dolls much sturdier, which gave her the idea of making her own “indestructible” babies. She received the first patent for the dolls somewhere between 1900 and 1905 under her husband’s name because women were not allowed to hold patents at the time. She made the dolls’ heads with plaster and stuffed the bodies with cotton, then hand painted the features on the arms, legs, and faces. The first dolls she made lacked ears, but as her dolls grew more sophisticated, they could even be outfitted with lace dresses and wigs made of real human hair. Prices ranged from $1.15 to $5.25 according to size and materials used to create the doll. Besides the dolls, she also made bunnies, easter eggs, and artificial fruit. She held sixteen patents by 1916. Smith won the grand prize for innovation with her dolls in 1904 at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
Ella’s business grew so much that her husband, Bud, built her a factory behind their house in Roanoke. Her work force included twelve women, including Ella, that handmade each doll. Because of her large girth, Mrs. Smith had a special curved table to assist with her manufacturing. There was also a mysterious “goat room” in the building where it was said Ella put together her special, secret ingredients for the dolls. No one else was allowed in this room except Mrs. Smith herself. She would spend hours alone in this space, possibly testing new formulas. At the factory’s peak, it produced around 8,000 babies in one year to sell for a variety of prices. As of today, the factory still stands but is in poor condition.
The dolls grew in popularity very quickly; boys and girls from all over wanted one of the “Alabama Indestructible Babies.” With such a high demand and everything being handmade, Ella Smith was persuaded by W.E. McIntosh and B.O. Driver to expand to a bigger factory and upgrade to modern machinery to make production more efficient. After the upgrade, the two men went on a business trip to New York to acquire more orders for the dolls.
On the return trip to Roanoke, a wheel on the train car Ella’s workers were riding on suddenly burst, sending them and five other people plunging fifty feet down into Camp Creek. There were no survivors. After this horrible incident Ella found out that the doll orders hadn’t been placed resulting in a catastrophic loss of profit. Mr. McIntosh’s wife also sued the company for his death and received a large settlement. These two events caused Mrs. Ella to become even more in debt and forced her to move back in the old doll factory. She reportedly never recovered from the ruin of her business, and lived out the rest of her life depressed and isolated from the community. Ella Smith, devastated by the loss of her business and fortune, died on April 2, 1932, from complications of diabetes and kidney disease.
Ella Smith’s dolls were more than a toy. They were, and still are, an icon of Roanoke, Alabama, where the dolls were made. The dolls are considered such an integral part of the town, that they have been incorporated into many pieces of Roanoke, such as the cornerstone of the First United Methodist Church where a doll was located. Ella Smith Dolls were groundbreaking, not only because they were basically indestructible, but because this doll company was the first to incorporate an African American doll, which accounted for 10% of the dolls produced. The surviving dolls today are very collectible and rare, many of them being found in museums and in the homes of the original owners. Those that are located in museums were, for the most part, donated by those who saw the importance and value of the dolls and wanted the dolls to be preserved and displayed for individuals to study. The legacy of Ella Smith still lives on through her dolls still in existence, many years after her death.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Cipperly, Ann. Opelika-Auburn News. October 1980
Herren, Dianne S. Randolph County Alabama Roots. November 1994
Stevenson, Edgar. The Roanoke Leader. 1956
Sorrell, Vanessa. The Randolph Leader. April 1996
Smith, Virginia Brannan. “Miss Ella Smith and Her Famous Roanoke Dolls,” Randolph County Historical Society. April 1980
The Roanoke Leader. History Of Roanoke. December 1957
In March 1909, Bud and Ella adopted a baby girl named Mary Louis Dixon, who they later renamed Macie Louis Smith. They adopted Macie while at the train station, where they saw her mother and five siblings waiting to be taken to an orphanage. Macie was going to reside in an institution with her mother, until Ella adopted her on the spot. The Smiths never told Macie of her other biological siblings, but Ella donated dolls every Christmas to orphanages in the area with the hopes that they would reach the other children. Later, the Smiths unofficially adopted several other children including their nephew, Carey Gauntt.
The “Alabama Indestructible Baby,” Ella Smith’s claim to fame, was invented by accident in 1897 when one of Ella’s neighbors, Verna Pittman, broke her china doll. She asked Ella if she could repair the doll, so Ella tried to mend the doll’s cracked head by filling it with a mixture of plaster and fibers (commonly known as Plaster of Paris.) She found that this mixture made fragile dolls much sturdier, which gave her the idea of making her own “indestructible” babies. She received the first patent for the dolls somewhere between 1900 and 1905 under her husband’s name because women were not allowed to hold patents at the time. She made the dolls’ heads with plaster and stuffed the bodies with cotton, then hand painted the features on the arms, legs, and faces. The first dolls she made lacked ears, but as her dolls grew more sophisticated, they could even be outfitted with lace dresses and wigs made of real human hair. Prices ranged from $1.15 to $5.25 according to size and materials used to create the doll. Besides the dolls, she also made bunnies, easter eggs, and artificial fruit. She held sixteen patents by 1916. Smith won the grand prize for innovation with her dolls in 1904 at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
Ella’s business grew so much that her husband, Bud, built her a factory behind their house in Roanoke. Her work force included twelve women, including Ella, that handmade each doll. Because of her large girth, Mrs. Smith had a special curved table to assist with her manufacturing. There was also a mysterious “goat room” in the building where it was said Ella put together her special, secret ingredients for the dolls. No one else was allowed in this room except Mrs. Smith herself. She would spend hours alone in this space, possibly testing new formulas. At the factory’s peak, it produced around 8,000 babies in one year to sell for a variety of prices. As of today, the factory still stands but is in poor condition.
The dolls grew in popularity very quickly; boys and girls from all over wanted one of the “Alabama Indestructible Babies.” With such a high demand and everything being handmade, Ella Smith was persuaded by W.E. McIntosh and B.O. Driver to expand to a bigger factory and upgrade to modern machinery to make production more efficient. After the upgrade, the two men went on a business trip to New York to acquire more orders for the dolls.
On the return trip to Roanoke, a wheel on the train car Ella’s workers were riding on suddenly burst, sending them and five other people plunging fifty feet down into Camp Creek. There were no survivors. After this horrible incident Ella found out that the doll orders hadn’t been placed resulting in a catastrophic loss of profit. Mr. McIntosh’s wife also sued the company for his death and received a large settlement. These two events caused Mrs. Ella to become even more in debt and forced her to move back in the old doll factory. She reportedly never recovered from the ruin of her business, and lived out the rest of her life depressed and isolated from the community. Ella Smith, devastated by the loss of her business and fortune, died on April 2, 1932, from complications of diabetes and kidney disease.
Ella Smith’s dolls were more than a toy. They were, and still are, an icon of Roanoke, Alabama, where the dolls were made. The dolls are considered such an integral part of the town, that they have been incorporated into many pieces of Roanoke, such as the cornerstone of the First United Methodist Church where a doll was located. Ella Smith Dolls were groundbreaking, not only because they were basically indestructible, but because this doll company was the first to incorporate an African American doll, which accounted for 10% of the dolls produced. The surviving dolls today are very collectible and rare, many of them being found in museums and in the homes of the original owners. Those that are located in museums were, for the most part, donated by those who saw the importance and value of the dolls and wanted the dolls to be preserved and displayed for individuals to study. The legacy of Ella Smith still lives on through her dolls still in existence, many years after her death.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Cipperly, Ann. Opelika-Auburn News. October 1980
Herren, Dianne S. Randolph County Alabama Roots. November 1994
Stevenson, Edgar. The Roanoke Leader. 1956
Sorrell, Vanessa. The Randolph Leader. April 1996
Smith, Virginia Brannan. “Miss Ella Smith and Her Famous Roanoke Dolls,” Randolph County Historical Society. April 1980
The Roanoke Leader. History Of Roanoke. December 1957
Photos from Jacquelyn Shafer from the Randolph Leader & a U.S. Postage Stamp