The History Of Faceless Dolls - Updated February 2015 - Part XXII- A Very Famous Faceless Doll

Raggedy Ann meets Raggedy Andy for the first time; illustrated by Johnny Gruelle

As far as Raggedy Ann is concerned, one of the legends surrounding her creation is that a little girl was rummaging around her Grandmother's attic and finds a faceless, battered old doll. She brings the doll into her fathers art studio and tells him all about finding it in the attic. He looks at his daughter and the faceless doll and decides to draw a whimsical face on it and then tells her to see if her Grandmother would sew two button eyes on. And so Raggedy Ann was born.

According to Wikipedia.com Raggedy Ann was created by Johnny Gruelle (1880 - 1938) for his daughter, Marcella.   She died at the age of 13 after being vaccinated at school for smallpox without her parents consent.  Authorities blamed her death on a heart defect, but her parents blamed the vaccine.  As a result, Gruelle became a very vocal opponent of vaccination and by association Raggedy Ann became the symbol for the anti-vaccination movement.