Scheduled to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Friendship Doll exchange, Dolls and Diplomacy is intended as a rigorous scholarly assessment of this extraordinary initiative within the frameworks of Japanese craft and international diplomacy. Organized through the Committee on World Friendship Among Children, in partnership with Dr. Sidney Gulick and the Federal Council of Churches in America, the Friendship Doll program responded to rising tensions between the United States and Japan in the wake of the restrictive Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, which banned immigration from East Asia. Believing that children were instrumental to the cultivation of world peace, Dr. Gulick invited American children to purchase and send dolls to Japanese children as an act of friendship, with more than 12,000 dolls shipped to Japan in the spring of 1927. Japan reciprocated in November 1927 with 58 large dolls made by specialized craftsmen from Tokyo and Kyoto. Each doll represented a prefecture or major city in Japan, as well as the Imperial family, and more than 40 Friendship Dolls are known to still exist. A century later, the Japanese Friendship Doll exchange and its message of international peace remains as relevant as ever. Dolls and Diplomacy is a historically significant exhibition that will represent the largest concentration of extant Japanese Friendship Dolls since their arrival in the United States in 1927, with 34 dolls currently planned to appear in the exhibition. To document the exhibition and the Friendship Doll initiative, the Museum will produce an illustrated catalog with scholarly essays. Alan Scott Pate, the lead curator, is the foremost scholar on the history and culture of ningyô (Japanese dolls) outside of Japan, producing numerous publications and exhibitions on Japanese dolls over his 30-year career.
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