Originally published in Pearson's Weekly (C. Arthur Pearson Ltd.) vol.2 #65 (17 Oct 1891).
Dolls are made nowadays that can say long sentences, or sing songs, with the aid of the phonographs which are concealed in their bodies. Every little girl who reads Pearson's Weekly will be interested to know how these clever dollies are made.
In a big room, where there are a dozen great steam-hammers, some of them weighing five tons, the tin is taken in long sheets. When the sheets come from under the hammers they are stamped and cut into the proper shapes. Next they go into the soldering-room, where they are put together. A little door in the back of each body, which swings on hinges, opens and shuts. Through this aperture the phonograph is set in place, so that it can be taken out again when it happens to get out of order, which is not very often.
In other rooms the brass cylinders are stamped out and the steel pinions and needles, diaphragms and frame-works, are fashioned and polished by machinery.
In still another room, which is divided into small apartments, there are six big phonographs. Inside of these, on a steel rod, are strung fifty little doll cylinders. At each of the machines sits a young woman, and next to the inventor, whose genius devised the doll, and the agents who sell it, there is no one about the factory whose work is more important than hers. She furnishes the dolls with their voices.
There is a big funnel, shaped like a letter V, before her, and as the cylinder begins to revolve she shouts into the hole a verse from "Mother Goose." She must know exactly how loud to pitch her voice and precisely how long to make her lines. A little clicking noise tells her when the first cylinder has received its message end then she begins on the second one, and so on until the entire row is ended.
This is not easy work. The girl's voice must be clear and strong, and she must know how to pronounce her words clearly and correctly. In a little while she becomes tired, and then another trained girl takes her place. There are eighteen of these girls in the factory, and only six can work at a time; the others relieve them when they are tired.
After the cylinders on which these verses have been cut have been taken out of the recording machine they are given to a skilful machinist who puts the little phonographs together, and then they are fitted into the dolls.
Now comes the inspection. The inspector tries each doll by itself and those that are faulty are rejected. Perhaps the girl's voice was a little husky, and the doll talks as though it had a bad cold, or maybe the girl pitched her voice too high, and the doll squeaks out its lines as no well-mannered dolly ever does.
These defective dolls are sent back and new cylinders are put into them. All in all, about twenty men and girls do some work on each doll before it goes into the packing room, and is put into a box to be shipped.