HELENA — The Montana Historical Society has a visitor from Japan to help restore its Japanese friendship doll, one of only 58 created and 46 that are still intact.
These dolls were presented to the people of America by the people of Japan in November 1927, in response to a similar gift from the United States earlier that year.
“I feel really lucky that we have her in the collection," said Amanda Trum, the Montana Historical Society's curator of collections. "She is a beautiful doll and a beautiful story.”
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The doll exchange occurred just three years after the United States passed the Immigration Act of 1924, which prohibited immigration from Japan based on an established quota system.
The U.S. sent around twelve thousand dolls, and the Japanese government commissioned the fifty-eight friendship dolls, each named for a Japanese city to act as diplomatic ambassadors.
The doll at the historical society is named Miss Ishikawa and is being restored by Masaru Aoki who flew all the way over from Japan to bring her back to life.
Aoki shadowed the doll's original artists and uses the century-old techniques to repair the dolls today.
“He sees the fact that even 100 years later, the American institutions are still focusing on their dolls and using their dolls," Alan Pate, a specialist in the Japanese dolls, says. "He takes it as a positive sign, that is what needs to go forward. She has been conserved and should last another 100 years."
The dolls will be turning 100 years old in 2027, and the historical society’s doll will be exhibited alongside the other dolls in Norfolk, Virginia.
