Golliwog

A rag doll, his face a caricature of a black person, in a toy store, holding copies of himself in his lap and more copies in a basket.

Golliwogs for sale, in 2008, in the United Kingdom

The "Golliwogg" (later "Golliwog", "golly doll") was a character in children's books in the late 19th century and depicted as a type of rag doll. It was reproduced, both by commercial and hobby toy-makers as a children's toy called the "golliwog", and had great popularity in North America, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, into the 1960s. The doll has very black skin, eyes rimmed in white, clown lips, and frizzy hair, and it has been described as the least known of the major anti-black caricatures in the United States. While home-made golliwogs were sometimes female, the golliwog was generally male. For this reason, in the period following World War II, the golliwog was seen, along with the teddy bear, as a suitable soft toy for a young boy.

The image of the doll has become the subject of heated debate. One aspect of the debate in its favour argues that it should be preserved and passed on as a cherished cultural artifact and childhood tradition, while opponents argue it should be retired as a relic of an earlier time when racism against those of African descent was blatant. The perception of racism has reduced the popularity and sale of golliwogs as toys. Manufacturers who have used golliwogs as a motif have either withdrawn them as an icon, or changed the name. There has been wide press coverage of incidents in which the term "golliwog" has been applied to a well-known personality. The association with the also-abusive "wog" has resulted in many extant Golliwogs not being referred to as such, or being simply "Golly". Later it became popular as the "golly doll".

History

Florence Kate Upton's Golliwogg in formal minstrel attire in Golliwogg and Friends in 1895.

There are differing versions of how the word "Golliwog" came into existence. One story is when the British soldiers were in Egypt in the 19th century, the Egyptian labourers working for the British Army were required to wear armbands with the letters W.O.G.S. indicating they were Working On Government Service and these labourers were called Ghuls (غول), an Arabic word for ghost, by the British soldiers. Children of the Egyptians played with rag dolls of black stuffed material and the British (soldiers) bought them as gifts and took them back to England with them. The dolls were called Ghuliwogs and this word later became Golliwog.

Another version, with some similarities but one difference is also of the Egyptian labourers wearing the armbands with the letters W.O.G.S. The British soldiers in hilarity began calling them "wogs;" they (the Egyptian labourers) in turn then called the soldiers "Ghuls" and from these two words came the word "ghulwog" which in turn became ghuliwog, golliwog.

Perhaps it was this that gave both Florence Upton and Enid Blyton the idea for the "Golliwog" character in their books.

Florence Kate Upton was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York, the daughter of English parents who had emigrated to the United States three years previously. Following the death of her father, she moved back to England with her mother and sisters when she was fourteen. There she spent several years drawing and developing her artistic skills. In order to afford tuition to art school, she illustrated a children's book entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. The 1895 book included a character named the "Golliwogg," who was first described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome", but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later attributed with a "kind face." A product of the blackface minstrel tradition, the character was classic "darkie" iconography. The Golliwogg had jet black skin; bright, red lips; and wild, woolly hair. He wore red trousers, a shirt with a stiff collar, red bow-tie, and a blue jacket with tails — all traditional minstrel attire.

Upton's book and its many sequels were extremely successful in England, largely because of the popularity of the Golliwogg. Upton did not trademark her character, and its name, spelt "golliwog", became the generic name for dolls and images of a similar type. The golliwog doll became a popular children's toy throughout most of the 20th century, and was incorporated into many aspects of British commerce and culture; for instance, some of Enid Blyton's books feature them, often as a villain and sometimes as heroes. Upton's Golliwogg was jovial, friendly and gallant, but some later golliwogs were sinister or menacing characters.

The golliwog contributed enormously to the spread of 'darky' iconography in Europe. It also made its way back across the Atlantic in the form of children's literature, dolls, children's china and other toys, ladies' perfume, and jewellery.

A 1920s Golliwog Perfume bottle

British jam manufacturer James Robertson & Sons used a golliwog called Golly as its mascot from 1910, after John Robertson apparently saw children playing with golliwog dolls in America. Robertson's started producing promotional Golliwog badges in the 1920s, which could be obtained in exchange for tokens gained from their products. In 1983, the company's products were boycotted by the Greater London Council as offensive, and in 1988 the character ceased to be used in television advertising. The company used to give away golliwog badges playing musical instruments or sports and other such themes. The badge collection scheme was withdrawn in 2001.

In a statement reported by the BBC, Virginia (Ginny) C. Knox, previously brand director for Robertson's and now Chief Operating Officer of the Culinary Brands Division of RHM, told the Herald Newspaper in Scotland in 2001 that the decision to remove the Golly (Golliwogg) symbol from Robertson's jam and marmalade jars was taken after research found that children were not familiar with the character, although it still appealed to the older generations. "We sell 45 million jars of jam and marmalade each year and they have pretty much all got Golly on them," said Ms Knox. "We also sell 250,000 Golly badges to collectors and only get 10 letters a year from people who don't like the Golliwogg image." Today, Robertson's Golliwog badges remain highly collectible, with the very rarest sometimes selling for more than £1,000, and even comparatively common and recent badges being worth £2.00–£3.00.

Golliwog as racist insult

After the publication of Upton's first book, the term "golliwog" was used both as a reference to the children's toy and as a generic, racist term for Black people. In the UK and the Commonwealth, "golliwog" perhaps became "wog," a racial slur applied to dark-skinned people worldwide, especially those from the Middle East or Far East. In Australia many young people of Greek, Lebanese, Syrian and other Mediterranean descent have reclaimed the name "wog" as a humorous identifier. An example of this from popular Australian culture is the 2000 movie The Wog Boy starring the actor Nick Giannopoulos.

In the early 1980s, revised editions of Enid Blyton's Noddy books replaced Mr. Golly, the golliwog proprietor of the Toytown garage, with Mr. Sparks.

In March 2007, Greater Manchester Police seized two golliwogs from a shop after a complaint that the dolls were offensive. In September, 2007, retail chain Zara put a T-shirt on sale in its UK stores with a Golliwog-looking little girl printed in the front. The design spurred controversy, coming only weeks after the company had been forced to pull a swastika-emblazoned handbag from its shelves, although the swastika is also a religious symbol for Hindus and Buddhists.

In September 2008, Amanda Schofield from Stockport claimed she was arrested for keeping a "golly doll" in her window. Greater Manchester Police denied this and said she was arrested after a series of complaints of alleged racially-aggravated behaviour were made against her.

In February 2009, Carol Thatcher, in an off-air conversation at the BBC, referred to the black French tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, competing in the Australian Open, as looking like a golliwog. The comment was considered by the BBC as "wholly unacceptable" and Thatcher was informed that unless she apologised she would no longer be a reporter on BBC's The One Show. Thatcher stated that it was a silly joke and declined to make an "unconditional apology". Thatcher claimed that her comment was a reference to the golliwog motifs that she saw in her childhood on "jars of jam" (Robertson's Marmalade). In April 2009 she appeared on the BBC in an interview on The Andrew Marr Show for the first time since the scandal, defending her use of the word. The French publication Sportsweek' claimed that Thatcher, in talking about a previous competition, referred to another player as "the one who was defeated by the golliwog in the previous tour." The French publication, which showed a picture of Tsonga above a picture of a toy golliwog, claimed that Thatcher was "mortified" and that her comment was about the similarity of Tsonga's appearance to the doll that she had as a child.

Other meanings and in popular culture

• "Golliwog" was World War II British naval slang for a Gauloises cigarette, which had tobacco that was nearly black in colour. It is also however possible that the etymology came from a mispronounciation of "Gauloises" -> "golwas" -> "golleys", with the last syllable retrofitted by way of a folk etymology.
• Golliwog is the former name of a popular line of cocoa biscuits in Australia, released by Arnott's in the 1960s. as they were made in the shape of a popular toy. Arnott's changed the name in the mid-1990s. The new name was chosen by the three year old daughter of one of the product developers. When her father asked her what she thought the biscuit should be called, she said Scalliwag, and the name has stuck.
• "Golliwog" is a solo-single by ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog from 1974.
• A Golliwog features heavily in the pseudo-biographical novel Caucasia, by American author Danzy Senna.
• Golliwogg's Cakewalk is Part 6 of Children's Corner (L. 113), a piano suite by Claude Debussy.
• The Golliwogs was the original name of American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival.
• "The Galley-Wag", modeled after Upton's Golliwogg, is a pivotal character at the end of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier. This graphic novel imagines a world inhabited by a wide variety of fictional characters, especially from Victorian England. The Galley-Wag is portrayed as an extra-dimensional creature made of dark matter and a captain of a balloon airship. His crew consists of two female Dutch puppets, who are heavily sexualized versions of the characters from Upton's book.
• Golliwog is a female-fronted Slovenian punk rock band that formed in 1998.
• Exact woollen replicas of Golliwogs are widely available in Australia and New Zealand marketed as Golly Mollys.
• Various Golliwog-like images appear on rap group KMD's albums Black Bastards (2001) and Best of KMD (2003), and most recently in (2010) where the Golliwogg image appears splattered across the face of rapper Kanye West.
• In the British comedy series "Extras," Maggie brings her date, a black man, to her apartment then realizes there is a golliwog on her shelf and tries to hide it.

See also

• Black dolls
• Golly Bar
• Little Black Sambo
• Sambo's Restaurant Chain
• Zwarte Piet
• Papa Lazarou

External links

• "The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg" by Bertha Upton 1895 at Project Gutenberg
• "Golliwogg.co.uk" An independent guide to Golliwogs
• "The Golliwog Caricature," Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia Article by David Pilgrim, Ferris State University, Michigan
• "Gollydownunder.com" A brief history of Golliwogs
• "Gollyworld" Information on Robertsons Golly Badges
• Clean plates GOLIWOG license plate
• BBC News – Row erupts over golly exhibition 13/01/07
• "Gollies". Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood. Retrieved 2009-01-11.
• The Daily Mirror – Carol Thatcher's (Golliwog) slurs on (tennis player) Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 2009-07-02