This is just the beginning! Our collection holds over 300 years of history, including rare newspapers, obituaries, marriage records, birth records, and so much more—most of which you won’t find anywhere else!
Lost art of porcelain dolls at Shower Springs home
Mrs. Spradling, a 68-year-old former French milliner living on a 400 acre farm near Hope, preserves a dying craft. She explains doll parts are porcelain slip poured into plaster molds, dried, fired at 2900 degrees for 12 hours, then painted and assembled. Each doll is unique, never identical, with buyers mainly souvenir shops and individuals. Spradling began ceramics over 25 years ago, largely self-taught after studies at the University of Chicago.
MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Procelain
William T. Spradling
Shower Springs
Hope
Mrs. Spradling
Spradling
University of Chicago