Throwback Thursday review: Star-Spangled Dolls Southern belle

WARNING:  This week's doll represents pre-Civil War Mississippi and has a bio that is controversial by today's standards.  If you're uncomfortable about that, feel free to skip this post.  Don't read it, get your panties in a twist, and post something stupid.  All stupid comments will be deleted.  You've been warned.

This week's doll is related to the Sunshine Family, enough so that I could've lumped her in with their review...but since she's from a different line I decided against it.  God only knows when I'll get that Sunshine Family review done, as I don't yet have the father.  Anyway, this young lady comes from a line of dolls that Mattel released during the seventies called Star-Spangled Dolls, which commemorated various eras of American history.  I assume that this sudden wash of patriotism was done in preparation for the upcoming bicentennial, but that's beside the point.  There was apparently a decent-sized line of these; I love the jazz-themed couple, but to twit the ever-growing legion of south-haters out there I chose the little Southern belle, Rosa Lee Linden.

Yeah, she's a Southern belle, and her bio...well, here's what the side of her box says.

POLITICAL SOAPBOX ALERT!!!  Don't worry, I'm not going to try and defend the part about Rosa Lee living on a plantation, other than the fact that it's historically accurate.  Slavery unfortunately did happen, and no amount of monument-toppling or flag-burning is going to change that...NOR DOES IT SOLVE ANYTHING!!!  With that out of the way, I'm going to come to the defense of the crop Rosa Lee's father is growing:  cotton.  Lately cotton has become politically incorrect, and that is ticking me major league.  Cotton is extremely important; it was back in Rosa Lee's time, and it still is today.  It was once such a big deal here in the Missouri Bootheel that school used to let out for two weeks in the fall so that kids could help pick cotton.  It was called a cotton vacation, and children of all races participated.  Children could opt out if they wanted to (or needed to, if the child was allergic to the cotton), and those who did work were paid a little bit, which they usually spent on clothing or other necessities for school.  Cotton vacations are a thing of the past now, as far as I know; Malden definitely doesn't turn school out to pick cotton, and none of the surrounding towns do either.  Most folks today, black and white alike, don't know Thing One about getting filthy, sweaty, thorn-jabbed, mosquito-bitten, et cetera while caring for a cotton field, including Yours Truly.  Most of the work is now done by farmers with combines, which is a thankless job itself at times.  But that's for another soapbox session.

Should I also mention that every single one of us probably still uses cotton in our daily lives???  Shirts, cosmetics, paper money, food for our pet fish, cigarettes, you name it.  Plus, a healthy field of cotton is a sight to behold.  The fields below are just outside of Malden's city limits.

That last one is actually a soybean field, but it's a beautiful crop too so I threw it in.  I wish now that the milo hadn't been picked, because it too is a lovely crop when it comes to head.  I knew that the fields would not be photogenic for long (indeed, all the fields above have since been harvested), so I sneaked back to one field after dark one evening and photographed Rosa Lee with a couple of bolls.

I will allow one gripe, that being the chemicals that farmers spray on the cotton to make the bolls open up.  I hate defoliant; it smells bad and it always gives me a sore throat.  Defoliant is one of two things I hate about living here in the Bootheel (the fault line, which has been active lately, is the other).  The sore throat I get from defoliant seems like a small price to pay, though.

Okay, I'm done ranting, I promise.  I've grown up among and around farmers and I get defensive when they're under attack, but I'm done ranting. The picture I got of the back of Rosa Lee's box is a little washed out, but it shows the other single dolls in this set.  In addition to the Southern belle, there's the Native American, the colonist, and the pioneer. There's also some ominous-looking stains, probably from stuff leaking out of the vinyl over time. 

Also noteworthy is this, visible on the front of Rosa Lee's package.

When's the last time any of y'all saw a sticker like this???  Kmart isn't a thing of the past yet, but it's getting there!  Kind of a shame too; I can remember (just barely) when going to Kmart was a bit of a treat.  While Poplar Bluff's new Wal-Mart was big, cold, and hard to navigate, the Kmart was smaller and...well, in my child's eyes it seemed more homey.  Poplar Bluff still has their old Kmart, but it's slowly dying like the whole chain is.

One more brief story, then I'll get this show on the road.  Because Rosa Lee comes from an era where cotton is king, her story would likely be set in the 1830's.  She lists her hometown as Natchez, which can only mean Natchez, Mississippi.  This is significant to me as a disaster buff, for Natchez was the site of the second-deadliest tornado in U.S. history.  At least 317 people died (probably more), and that's the only the SECOND-highest death toll in a U.S. tornado!  This occurred in 1840, which means that Rosa Lee may very well have been there to see it if she'd been a real little person.  It's too bad that her bio didn't include some information about that.

As y'all probably noticed, Rosa Lee came in her box, and it looks like it been through...well, it looks like it went through a tornado!  The eBay seller was very honest about this, and I had no intention to keep the doll in the package anyway, so no biggie.  Here she is without raw cotton and mangled cardboard backing her up.

Rosa Lee is nine inches tall and thus would fall into the "small doll" category.  She's shorter than Midge, Sindy, and Jenny (Sindy does not look thrilled to have Midge propping her up).

Licca-chan is even taller than Rosa Lee, albeit by a tiny bit.  I wasn't expecting that.

Whimzee is quite a bit smaller, unsurprisingly.  Whimzee and Rosa Lee make a cute pair though, sort of a Hotaru and Rini sort of pairing.

Rosa Lee and her star-spangled cronies used the same body and head molds as Stephie Sunshine (and less often Steve, as this line only had three males), thus why I listed the two lines as "related."

Notice that Rosa Lee's head is smaller than Stephie's; I'm unsure if this was intentional or if Rosa Lee's head shrank over time, but having looked over pictures of other folks' Star-Spangled Dolls I suspect the former.  The molds are clearly the same despite the size difference, but their hair and eye color makes the two their own selves.  Stephie is a blue-eyed blonde, while Rosa Lee is a redhead.  She may look blonde in my pictures, but she's a redhead in real life.  Notice that she's got two shades of red mixed in there, light red with copper strands mixed in.

She has two portions of hair pulled back in a "Pollyanna" sort of style, and the rest of her hair forms several big sausage curls, a style that I've only reviewed one other time.

There are no bangs (again, historically accurate), but a side part is present.

The eyes are inset beads of blue and black plastic, with brown painted eyebrows and eyelashes, and a thin band of blue eyeliner.  Did Southern belles wear eyeliner?

I've read that these inset eyes can melt and look glazed as time passes.  Rosa Lee has dodged this bullet thus far, but one of my Sunshine Family dolls has not so I'll be watching these eyes closely.  Dolls and toys from the 1970's are odd like that, having plastic parts that melt together with time...yeah.  More on that in a bit.

The rest of Rosa Lee's face is appropriately minimalist.  She has a little button nose and a small, peachy, smiling mouth.

I'm not sure if it's the difference in head size or the difference in paint jobs, but Rosa Lee has a more focused, intense look in the eye than Stephie does.  Stephie looks a little like she smoked one too many doobs and went on a permanent trip.

I ran into a few problems when I disrobed Rosa Lee for the body and clothing reviews, the least of which was the trim on her hat.  The flower fell off and the ribbon is coming undone!

I'll have to get some thread together and sew that back in place.  Anywho, the hat is just your simple straw hat with the aforementioned green velveteen ribbon and the orange cloth flower.

The hat is lined with...with SOMETHING that helps it keep its shape.  It looks a lot like a thin layer of plastic, and it doesn't photograph very well.

The brim is wide but the crown is shallow, so if I want this to stay on Rosa Lee's head I have to pin it to her hair.  Hence the straight pins sticking out of the crown.

Now to the dress.

The design is simple but clever, and the fabric pieces are skillfully placed.  Each panel is set at a diagonal, so that when Rosa Lee wears the dress she looks like she's wrapped in chains of yellow flowers.  But let's start at the top.  Like many Antibellum-era dresses, Rosa Lee's is small on top and big at the bottom.  She's got short, very full cap sleeves and a ruffled neckline.

The bodice is trimmed with an orange cloth flower and a green velour ribbon, both of which tie the hat to the dress.  Thankfully, this flower is sewn on more securely than the one on the hat was.

The skirt has three tiers of equal length, each one being wider than the other.

To my surprise, these tiers are not hemmed, even though the sleeves are.

Also surprising was the presence of seams here and there in the design.

I don't know what that's about, but it doesn't detract from the dress so I'm not complaining.  The hems on the sleeve are fairly nicely done; there are plenty of loose threads, but none of them hang out yet.

The interior of the dress is not pretty, though the hems are soundly executed.  The bodice has loose threads galore, but strangely the skirt does not, despite there being more seams there.

The back closes with two snaps, par for the course back in the seventies.  I really miss this method of closing doll clothes.

Lastly, these shoes.  Simple bone-colored vinyl flats, with a very slight heel and a flat sole.

The shoes are the last thing I'd expect a doll like Rosa Lee to wear.  I don't know what Southern belles usually wore on their feet, but I doubt it was shoes like this.  Plus, look what these shoes did to Rosa Lee's feet!

Yeah...THIS is the worst part about this doll.  When her hard-plastic parts touch anything vinyl, over time they will melt.  Rosa Lee's feet are merely disfigured from the vinyl shoes, but check out her neck joint.

From what I understand, this is commonplace for dolls from the sixties and seventies.  Stephie Sunshine avoided this problem for reasons I'll never know, but one of my other dolls did not.  Sindy has melt marks too, on the hip joints.

The worst part is that as far as I know, there's no way to stop this.  I can prevent these joints from freezing up as they age further by moving them on a regular basis, but I don't know how to stop it completely.  With that joyous thought, let's move on.  I think Rosa Lee will have the same body as Stephie, but having seen their different heads I wasn't sure what to expect.

At first glance Rosa Lee does have the same body as Stephie.  Same shape, same knee joints, same flat torso, same ol', same ol'.  Interestingly, Rosa Lee's hard plastic torso and legs have yellowed while Stephie is still peachy all over, but that's more of a head-scratcher than a problem.  I think Rosa Lee's arms may be thicker too, but that again is just an observation.  Look closely at Rosa Lee's shoulders though.

Yep, her joints melted, just like Sindy's.  I got her hips freed up without much fuss, but it took a considerable amount of force to move her shoulders.  The left shoulder looks worse, but the right one was actually the harder one to deal with; I pulled hard enough that I was afraid I'd break the arm off, but that fortunately did not happen.  Rosa Lee's hips were frozen too, which I found odd since all involved pieces there are made of hard plastic.  Maybe all those years of being NRFP are what did the damage.

Rosa Lee's arm shape surprises me a bit, by the way.  I'm so used to having dolls with fully extended or fully bent elbows that this half-bent style looks a little weird.

Her soft vinyl arms took to molding well, though; check out her hands!

Despite the melting, Rosa Lee's feet still have five little toes apiece.  The molding is about equal to that of the hands, neither better nor worse.

Now that Rosa Lee's joints are freed up she has pretty good posing.  She has the prerequisite neck, shoulder, and hip joints, plus hinged knees.

I'm grateful for those hinged knees because without them Rosa Lee has a hard time standing, despite those flat feet.  This is how I have to stand her in order to keep her upright.

If I prop Rosa Lee against the wall or something else she can strike a walking pose...

...and she can also sit, both with her legs out straight or with her knees bent, like so.

I can't do much else with these legs though, because the joints are too floppy.  Yes, the hips that were once so tight are now very loose.  If Rosa Lee were a ball-jointed doll I'd pop her head off and tighten her strings, but she's not strung so there's that possibility out.  She CAN lift her arms and move them about, though this is tricky due to that gummy melted plastic.

Side splits are among the poses that Rosa Lee CAN'T strike, as her hips have no lateral movement.  She can do front-to-back splits though, thanks in part to her loose knees.

It's an unusual set of joints.  The shoulders and neck are prone to getting gummy and frozen up over time, while the knees and hips are very loose.  These things combine to make Rosa Lee largely a display doll, capable only of standing tentatively or sitting solidly.

Regarding clothes, the only doll I can name outright that can share clothes with Rosa Lee is Stephie.  There's a possibility that Barbie's sister Stacie can also pull it off, but I'm not betting on it.  Stacie is buried too deeply in storage to try that anyway, so that's that.  Time to sum it up.

BAD
*Melting badly; one of the shoulder sockets eventually did give way, so now I've got a doll with loose AND sticky shoulders.
*Hair is in a style that I can't recreate if it gets mussed
*Trim came off of the hat; I'll have to mend that
*Can only share clothes with one, count 'em, ONE of my dolls

GOOD
*Concept is fairly original, particularly by today's standards
*Cute face
*Eyes are not melted
*Jointed; can strike a few more poses than the average doll
*Can share clothes with the Sunshine Family

In the increasingly PC modern world a doll like Rosa Lee is a breath of fresh air.  I think the last time I saw a Southern belle for sale in a toy store was clean back in 1995, and even she wasn't really a toy.  Rosa Lee is not without her problems of course, the least of which is her bio.  No, she's melting badly enough that she's beginning to fall apart in places, and I'm not really sure how to fix that outside of a rebody.  I'm willing to bet that this problem is fairly widespread with these dolls, so beware of that when seeking one of these out.  The trim is also falling off of Rosa Lee's hat, but that's an easy fix.  So if y'all like the Sunshine Family these Star-Spangled Dolls might be worth a looksie.  Just watch out for that melting!

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987