The History Of The Dolls House
A dollhouse is either a toy or collectors home, made in miniature. For the last century,
dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and crafting
h
ave also fascinated a large number of adults. The very same dollhouses often appeal
to both groups but very young children (age 3 years and under) should be restricted
from access to the great majority of these domestic replicas because of choking hazards.
A dollhouse is either a toy or collectors home, made in miniature. For the last century, dollhouses have primarily been the domain of children but their collection and crafting have also fascinated a large number of adults. The very same dollhouses often appeal to both groups but very young children (age 3 years and under) should be restricted from access to the great majority of these domestic replicas because of choking hazards.
Today's doll's house traces its history directly back about four hundred years to the "baby houses" of Europe. The baby houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the toy dollhouses of the nineteenth and early twentieth century rarely had uniform scales, even for the features or contents of any one individual house. Although a number of manufacturers made lines of miniature toy furniture in the Nineteenth Century, these products were not to a strict scale.
The earliest known European dollhouses are from the
Sixteenth Century. These baby or cabinet houses
showed idealized interiors complete with extremely detailed furnishings and accessories (mostly hand made).
The early European dollhouses were each unique, constructed on a custom
basis by
individual craftsmen. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, factories began
mass producing toys, including dollhouses and miniatures suitable for furnishing
them.
The baby houses were cabinet display cases made up of rooms. The cabinets were built with architectural details and filled with miniature household items and were solely the playthings of adults. They were off-limits to children, not because of safety concerns for the child but for the dollhouse. Such cabinet houses were trophy collections owned by the few matrons living in the cities of Holland, England and Germany who were wealthy enough to afford them, and, fully furnished, were worth the price of a modest full-size house's construction.As time went on, smaller doll houses with more realistic exteriors became evident in Europe.
Miniature homes, furnished with domestic articles and resident inhabitants (both
people and animals), have been made for thousands of years. The earliest known examples
were found in the Egyptian Tombs of the Old Kingdom, created nearly five thousand
years ago. These wooden models of servants, furnishings, boats, livestock and pets
placed in the Pyramids almost certainly were made for religious purposes.
German companies noted for their dollhouses included Christian Hacker, Moritz Gottschalk, Elastolin, and Moritz Reichel.
The list of important English companies includes Siber & Fleming, Evans & Cartwright and Lines Brothers (which became Tri-ang).By the end of the Nineteenth Century American dollhouses were being made in the United States by The Bliss Manufacturing Company.
Germany was the producer of the most prized dollhouses and doll house miniatures up until The Great War.
Notable German miniature companies included Marklin, Rock and Garner
and others.
Their products were not only avidly collected in Central Europe, but regularly exported
to Britain and North America.
Germany's involvement in WWI seriously impeded both production and export. New manufacturers in other countries arose.
Other American companies of the early Twentieth Century were Roger Williams Toys, Tootsietoy, Schoenhut, and the Wisconsin Toy Co. Dollhouse dolls and miniatures were also produced in Japan, mostly by copying original German designs.
The Toy Furniture Shop of Providence, Rhode Island (The TynieToy Company) made authentic
replicas of American antique houses and furniture in a uniform scale beginning in
about 1917.
Children's toy houses during most of the 20th century were three quarter scale (where 1 foot is represented by 3/4 of an inch), also known as 1:18 (1' equals 18"). Popular brands included Lundby (Sweden) (established in 1947 and still going strong), Renwal, Plasco,
Marx, Petite Princess, and T. Cohn (all American) and Caroline'sHome, Barton, Dol-Toi and Triang (English).
A few nominally 3/4-scale brands may run 
closer to 1:16 scale. With the exception
of
Lundby, 3/4-scale furniture was most often
made from plastic .Houses were made from
a variety of materials, including metal
(tin litho), fibreboard, plastic, and wood.
After WW II dollhouses became mass produced in factories on a much 
larger scale and
with less detailed craftsmanship, than ever before. By the
1950's the typical dollhouse sold commercially was painted sheet metal filled with plastic furniture. The cost of these houses was low enough to allow the great majority of girls from the developed western countries that were not struggling with rebuilding after WWII to own a dolls house.
In Germany during the middle part of the 20th century 1/10th scale became popular (based on a metric system
where 10 inches is represented by 1 inch). 
Toy like houses coming out of Germany
today remain closer in scale to 1:10 than to 1:12.In the 1970's, the standard for
adult collectors
became 1/12th (also called 1" or one inch scale, represented
in the U.S. as 1:12). There is also half inch scale or 1/24th (1 foot is represented by 1/2 an inch), quarter inch scale or 1/48th (1 foot is represented by 1/4 of an inch), and "dollhouse for a dollhouse" (1:144).
Half-inch scale was popular in Marx dollhouses in the 1950’s but only became widely
available in "collector" houses after 2002, about the same time that even smaller
scales became more 
popular. These smaller scales are much
more common in the U.S. than in Britain.
Contemporary kit and fully built houses
are typically made of plywood or medium
density fibreboard. Tab-and-slot kits use a
thinner plywood and are held together by
a system of tabs and slots (plus glue).
These houses are usually light-weight and lower cost but often require siding, shingles, or other exterior treatments to look their best. Kits made from heavier plywood or MDF are held together with screws and glue.
Famous Dolls Houses - Queen Mary’s Dolls House
One of the most famous and well planned dollhouses is Queen Mary's Dolls House which was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens in 1924. Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a magnificent dollhouse built in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V of the United Kingdom.
The idea for building the dollhouse originally came from the queen's cousin, Princess Marie Louise, who discussed her idea with one of the top architects of the time, Sir Edwin Lutyens at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1921. Sir Edwin agreed to construct the dollhouse and began preparations.
Princess Marie Louise had many connections in the arts and arranged for the top artists and craftsmen of the time to contribute their special abilities to the house.
As a result, the dollhouse has an amazing collection of miniature items that actually work. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as an historical document on how a royal family might live during that period in England.
There is for example a flushable toilet, complete right down to the lavatory paper.
The kitchen lacks the overall elegance of the rest of the house. Possibly because no one saw this room except the servants. While the cooks busy themselves getting the dinner ready for the evening meal to be served in the dining room. After a lovely repast the lady of the house descends in the lift to her study,
She chooses a book from her library, miniature in size but otherwise authentic, and reads some prose before beginning another long day.
The Queens Bedroom is where she retires from her long day of engagements. The gramophone plays comforting music and a glass of genuine vintage wine, from her wine cellar, awaits her on her night stand. The furniture and other contents were made by the leading manufacturers of the day.
After a lovely breakfast the lady of the house descends in the lift to her study,
The figurines in this room are exact duplicates of those found in Windsor Castle. The walls are covered in real silk and the desk rests on a hand made wool rug.
The pictures shown in this history are the actual rooms within Queen Mary's Doll House. and if you are visiting London it is a must see experience for any miniaturist.
