Apple doll

In colonial America, white settlers and enslaved people fashioned children's toys from utilitarian objects and materials on hand such as corn husks, clothes-pins and rags, using ingenuity and imagination.

[1] The use of apples as doll heads was a Native American practice and may have originated among the Iroquois[2] or Seneca people.

To make the head, an apple is peeled, then the flesh is carved or pressed using a spoon and paring knife to create the facial features of the doll.

In some early examples, the facial features and expressions were produced by pinching the apple as it began to shrink.

The finished head is positioned on the top of a wire armature which is shaped into the rest of the doll's body, and padded using rags, paper or wadding.