Frozen Charlotte

Late nineteenth century Americans apparently had a courser sense of humor than even we do, debatable as that may seem. Take Frozen Charlottes, unjointed porcelain dolls that cost about a  penny, and would sometimes be baked into birthday cakes for children to find as presents.

The Charlotte in question comes from this popular folk ballad about a young woman who set off in a sleigh one freezing night with too little clothing and wound up, well, frozen. Today the one-inch dolls seem to be pretty valuable, at least on E-Bay where prime examples might fetch up to $1,500.

Why bring this up? I just found out that the archeologists excavating Austin’s Guytown redlight district in the summer of 2001 (before the appropriate construction there of the new City Hall) found at least one Frozen Charlotte, broken, and tossed into a privy. There’s a story for you. Make of it what you will.