Collection of Tynietoy and LeClerc dollhouse furniture (002-05-01)

Historical note

The Tynietoy Company was founded by Marion I. Perkins (1872-1947) and Amey Vernon (1876-1940) in Providence, Rhode Island. Marion Perkins was born in Providence and attended Miss Abbott’s School, Mary C. Wheeler School and Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating, she worked as an interior decorator and began making miniature furniture in 1917. Perkins engaged her close friend Amey Vernon as a partner in the business and they worked out of a small studio in the Handicraft Club of which they were both members. The furniture was notable for its historically accurate designs including examples of Hepplewhite, Chippendale, Sheraton and Queen Anne styles. In 1920, the business, then called The Toy Furniture Shop, moved to 227 Benefit Street. In 1923, the artist Sydney Burleigh joined the firm and standardized the scale of the pieces and assisted in designs for furniture and dollhouses. They moved again in 1928 to 31 Market Street. Amey Vernon retired in 1933, Marion Perkins retired in 1941 and the company closed in 1953 after several management changes. George Henri LeClerc (1894-1972) was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts and attended Rhode Island School of Design in 1921. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1915 and served until 1919. He was employed as a draftsmen and production manager by the Tynietoy Company from 1920- 1938 after which he continued designing and making miniature furniture in New Bedford. In the 1940s, he exhibited a group of twenty miniature rooms at the Jordan Marsh department store in Boston, Massachusetts. Tynietoy pieces were marked with paper labels until 1925 at which point they began using a rubber stamp. In 1930, pieces were marked with a branding iron. Tynietoy did not trademark their designs until 1938. LeClerc continued using many of the pre-1938 Tynietoy designs in his private work after he left the company. Because of these factors, it can be difficult to definitively attribute some of the items in the collection to either Tynietoy or LeClerc.