Hush-a-Bye doll's head with patent wooden eyes : Laurie Cohen

Hollow plaster doll's head with painted outer latex coating. Features a 'sleeping eyes' mechanism made with painted wooden eyes, rather than the usual glass. The rear of the neck is impressed with a map of Australia, within which are contained the words 'HUSH-A-BYE / 6'. The doll's base flesh coat, red cheeks and brown hair have been spray painted, while the eyebrows, lashes and lips have been hand painted.

Patented 'sleeping eyes' doll's head made by Laurie Cohen Pty Ltd of Sydney during the Second World War. Cohen had joined his father's giftware importing and wholesaling company (L C Cohen Pty Ltd) in the late 1920s, travelling to Germany in 1927 to source bisque porcelain doll's heads with the concept of assembling the dolls locally using cheaper celluloid limbs imported from Japan and soft cloth-filled bodies made in his factory. So successful was this notion that the company's entire focus soon switched to doll making and distributing. The trademark 'Hush-a-bye' was originally patented by Cohen on 31 May 1934, by which time the company was producing a line of almost 300 dolls of varying quality and size. In 1935 the company moved to larger premises on the corner of Day & Druitt Streets, Darling Harbour with its factory in Paddington.
The company continued importing and assembling until the outbreak of the Second World War, when all imports from Germany (and later Japan) ceased. Cohen managed to source composition heads from Canada for a time, but by 1940 all stocks were exhausted, manpower provisions had pulled many staff from the company and Cohen was forced to either rethink his strategy or cease production. He recalled country salesman Roy Buxton from the road, who assisted in redesigning and manufacturing an all-Australian made doll, using moulds taken from German heads and limbs, from which castings were made in a mixture of plaster-of-Paris and latex.
Further problems arose when rationing of glass prohibited the manufacture of the popular glass eye 'sleeping' doll and this particular doll's head illustrates the solution, developed by Roy Buxton, of employing wooden balls mounted on a square bar mechanism (patent 11,273/40), which Cohen patented on 14 March 1940. Through these means, and by convincing authorities that dolls were essential for children's morale, Cohen continued production throughout the war. Cohen's factory featured in the December 1941 edition of the 'Australian Women's Mirror', which commented "The war had taught the manufacturer that Australia was able to make good dolls and no longer needed to rely on imported parts. ... by the end of 1941 [the factory] were making five thousand of these heads a year."

• Cotton austerity doll's body