Hitty is a small wooden doll, about 6-1/2", who presently lives in the Stockbridge Library, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She is believed to have been about 100 years old when she was found in an antique shop by Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop in about 1929. Rachel and Dorothy wrote and illustrated (respectively) such a charming story of the way they imagined Hitty's life, that not only did the book, Hitty ~ Her First Hundred Years, win the Newbery Medal for children's literature (1929), but Hitty became beloved by all from that time to this. The book has been republished many times (it is still available and I highly recommend it) and there has developed an enormous following for Hitty and all of her things. Many people make Hittys, most of wood, some of cloth, some porcelain. I chose papier mache to be in keeping with her sculpted look (especially her hair), but I wanted to make a kit of Hitty, so it seemed ideal to draw upon my many years of mold making, and make a doll that not only was my Hitty, but one that others could make too and still be recognized for who she is.

My Hitty Series began in 2004 with, of course, the doll and some basic outfits. By January, 2005 the rest of the many items that were to be part of this series came along one piece at at time. The series includes: clothes, hats and bonnets, a four-poster bed and quilt, a chair, a secretary, her memoirs and other small books, a sampler, a rug, a bench, travel boxes, even her own peg wooden Hitty doll and other items and is added to as time goes by. Wooden Hittys were added in the fall of 2010 and a new cloth bodied Hitty (still my favorite) with carved wooden arms and legs became available fall of 2015. The size of Hitty and how she feels in your hand will win your heart. The various Hitty Kits come with everything you need to make your own Hitty. Or, there are clubs to join for both the finished Hitty and all her things as finished pieces, or clubs to receive all of the series as kits.

The real story of Hitty begins long before she was brought to life by Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop, who wrote and illustrated (respectively), Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (published 1929). What they created was the make-believe life of Hitty, a small wooden doll of unknown origins, before she came to the antique shop window where she won their hearts (in real life). Legend has it that Hitty was about 100 years old at the time the story is written.
The story of Hitty, who is carved by an itinerant peddler for Phoebe Preble, a little girl of seven, while he winters with the Preble family on the coast of Maine (Phoebe's father is a sea captain), is filled with her misadventures which begin almost immediately once she is carved, painted, and clothing made. The story is delightfully conceived so as to be Hitty's own memoirs quite philosophically written of her accounts on being lost many times and taken on adventures far from her beloved home. The story travels through one hundred years of adventures until she at last ends up in the antique shop. In real life, Hitty was frequently admired, but not purchased (until almost too late), by Rachel Field and Dorothy Lathrop who begin to fabricate Hitty's life. They knew her name was Hitty, for pinned to her little brown dress is a paper so marked. This detail is written into the story in a new version in which Hitty, first named Mehitabel, but shortened by Phoebe Preble to a more reasonable "Hitty", has her name cross-stitched on her chemise. Eventually, after a fright of believing Hitty has been sold, they do buy her and take her off to Maine where the story is brought to life and then published as the book we all know. Over time, Hitty acquired more possessions, including furniture and other clothing and quilts, eventually having a wooden "bookcase apartment" to travel in, for she did do some real traveling once the book was published and won the Newbery Medal for the most distinguished contribution to American Literature for Children of the year 1930. I actually did not read the book, though I found one right away when it was clear I was going to make this doll, feeling with some smugness that I already knew the story, but I have to say that once read, I dearly loved Rachel Field's Hitty and felt it was so charmingly written that it stood on its own with or without a real doll on which to be based.