South Bend, Victorian New York and Barbie widen the imagination in dollhouse exhibit
Dec. 23, 2024
SOUTH BEND — Designing dollhouses was a creative outlet-turned-hobby for former accountant Mo Miller.
Now, multiple pieces of hers are on display in The History Museum’s "Lifting the Roof: The World of Dollhouses" exhibit through July 20.
The more than 20 dollhouses and miniatures on display differ in purpose — from art to play to education. The exhibit includes over five displays from Miller’s personal collection, a dollhouse from School City of Mishawaka's former Hannah Lindahl Children’s Museum and a dollhouse built for J.M. Studebaker III for his daughters, Mary and Lillian.
The topic of curating an exhibit around dollhouses has come up a bit over the past few years, but Miller’s involvement got the project off the ground, History Museum Curator Kristie Erickson says.
The criteria for dollhouses in the exhibit meant they needed to include a miniature version of a house. Dolls or characters didn’t need to be included in it.
The History Museum decided against incorporating Legos into the exhibit because “you have to draw the line somewhere,” Erickson says. The staff questioned if they had the room for them, but the museum also doesn’t have any in its current collection, she says.
Dollhouses haven’t been an active hobby of Miller’s for long. Her passion started 10 years ago, she says.
She says she infused parts of her own family and style into the craft of building dollhouses for “Mouse Mansion.” Grandma and grandpa are on the first floor, depicting herself, grandpa and their four grandchildren. Each person in her family is represented by a different mouse. She added a tiny Mickey Mouse figurine in a bedroom. Her son had taken a trip to Disney World and brought her that figurine as a gift. She also put miniatures of her favorite records in an upstairs bedroom: Carole King's "Tapestry" and “The Sound of Music.”
Miller says her grandchildren ask her: Is this a playing house or a looking house? They know, she says.
More of Miller’s work in the exhibit includes an Airbnb ski lodge, an abandoned room and a “crazy Christmas” lodge. She creates two to three dollhouses a year and has 15 total, she says. Her very first piece — started 30 years ago — still isn’t finished. She plans to work on it this winter, but her idea of what looks nice has changed, she says.
“Do I think it has to be perfect?” she asks. “ … When I first started putting things together for it, it was 30 years ago. … Each house I work on, I stretch myself a little bit in my own craftiness.”
From ancient to modern
Some of the oldest displays of house models in the world are models from ancient Egyptian tombs, Erickson says.
Placed in Meketre’s tomb are miniature representations of the necessities of life: bread, beer, servants, scribes and gardens. It was believed these necessities of life would accompany Meketre — the chancellor and high steward to at least three pharaohs in the 11th and 12th Dynasties — into the afterlife. Photographs of the models are in the exhibit, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One of the oldest dollhouses in The History Museum’s collection is a 1920s construction that belonged to Mary Fink White.
A 2024 Barbie Dreamhouse stands three stories tall with a kitchen, living room, an elevator, a spiral slide and a pool. Modern dollhouses are more commercialized with simple designs and attractive colors, museum materials say.
Educating through history
Homes included in the collection are used to educate, whether about fire safety — through former Mishawaka Fire Chief Louis David Ludwig Sr.’s fire safety “House of Hazards” — or studying forensic evidence in Frances Glessner Lee’s miniature models, called “nutshell studies,” for crime scenes. Lee’s "studies" were used to train homicide detectives, clear the innocent and find the truth, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
In Europe, dollhouses were used to teach girls how to keep house, Erickson says.
The exhibit was curated with the intent of teaching. It’s the heart of what The History Museum does, she says.
“You want people to come away with having learned something,” Erickson says. “ … What I really like to do is help people understand why it should matter to them (and), hopefully, learn something about their community. … As it turned out, dollhouses were a really interesting way to do that."
Interacting with the exhibit
Kids are invited to play with a dollhouse, on loan from Miller, as well as construct their own dollhouse by taking photographs of rooms and attaching them to a wall with Velcro.
A South Bend collection
After acquiring the Hannah Lindahl Children’s Museum’s collection, The History Museum plans to incorporate the Lindahl collection into what it does. But, for this exhibit, a former centerpiece at Lindahl, a replica of a 1904 New York Victorian home built by David Guske, stands in the center of the gallery.
Guske, of Lowell, Ind., built the dollhouse in 1975 for his daughter, Nicole. Among other features, its exhibit card says, the house has leaded glass light fixtures, two leaded stained-glass windows, two porches and a copper roof.
In a July 2006 Tribune article, Mishawaka resident Tom McLaughlin, who restored the Guske house for the Lindahl museum, said that calling it a dollhouse "is, in a true sense, a misnomer, because this is a model house."
“We were really glad to be able to have it as a highlight in here for people … to be able to see that the legacy of that museum continues," Erickson says.
She pointed out the tiny detail of a football stuck in a rain gutter of the home.
Other dollhouses in the exhibit show the familiar landscape of South Bend.
A dollhouse made by Joseph C. Matafin for his daughter Sandy, for example, is an exact replica of Sandy’s home on West Marquette Street in South Bend. Matafin built the dollhouse shortly after Sandy got married and moved into her home in 1970, the museum says.
Miller points out the size of the house and that the furniture wasn’t the right scale for the building.
“This was normal,” she says. “Older pieces, they just put together with whatever you have. In earlier times … dollhouses were a sign of aristocracy because you would have real miniaturists carve things … the way that the lady of the house would show off that she had a lot.”
But not all dollhouses are fabulous and grandiose.
With now-mismatched curtains, paint chipping and knobs missing, the Studebaker Family Dollhouse was once a toy barn for J.M. Studebaker III in 1910 before he had it remodeled for his daughters’ use around 1935, the museum says. The house has six rooms, a staircase, a mix of wood and tiled floors, and electric lighting.
“There’s some just for looking,” Erickson says. “Fantastic displays of craftsmanship and artwork. … So many of these are made by fathers for their children to play with. … Some are also to teach you how to do something or how to identify something.”
On exhibit
■ What: "Lifting the Roof: The World of Dollhouses"
■ Where: The History Museum, 897 Thomas St., South Bend
■ When: through July 20, 2025
■ Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays
■ Cost: $11-$7; free for members and ages 5 and younger
■ For more information: Call 574-235-9664 visit historymuseumsb.org.