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Amazing Africana
Black History Facts


Who Founded a Doll Museum in Harlem?

Lenon Holder Hoyte (1905-1999) spent a professional career as an art teacher at Clarke Junior High School in the Bronx. She exhibited her remarkable collection of over 5000 dolls for the benefit of Harlem Hospital and her church, St. Phillip’s Episcopal.

Perhaps the success of these exhibits inspired Hoyte, popularly known as Aunt Len, to turn her Harlem brownstone in 1974 into a doll museum.

Hoyte’s dolls are of all shapes and sizes, made of all kinds of material, and ranging from centuries old dolls to modern Barbie dolls. Two of the most interesting dolls are a black brother and sister pair made of papier-mâché by an African American handyman in Atlanta in the nineteenth century. Their names are Lillian and Leo, and each has a tear running down its cheek. It is thought they represent children who have been separated from their mother through a slave sale.

Mrs. Hoyt was forced to sell her collection through Sotheby’s auction house. Prices ran as high as $8,000. Her museum closed when she could no longer care for it. While it existed, it entertained and educated thousands of Harlem children.