Oral history interview with China Doll, 1980

Biographical Note

China Doll was born in Hawaii on August 15, 1919 to a Jamaican mother and Chinese father. She was brought to Seattle, WA, and around 1923 was adopted by a missionary and from there grew up in Detroit, MI. At seventeen years of age, before graduating from high school, China Doll ran away to join a carnival as a dancer. She danced with many carnivals, including the Hennie Brothers, Ringling Brothers, and Brownskin Models, and she performed in Japan for the USO. In 1945, China Doll moved to New York City and started singing jazz. By the age of twenty-eight, she was drinking heavily and working as a singer in clubs across New York City. In 1963, after an injury due to a domestic incident, a friend gave China Doll heroin to help with the pain. By 1966, she was also using cocaine. After a period of court ordered treatment, she began methadone maintenance. China Doll was interviewed for the project that led to the book Addicts Who Survived. The name is likely a pseudonym for the project

Scope and Contents

China Doll begins the interview by discussing her parents and early life in Hawaii, Seattle, and being adopted in 1923. She discusses her youth with a foster mother in Detroit. She describes her reasons for running away from home with a traveling carnival as a teenager. She describes her work as a dancer and travels around the country with various carnivals and shows including Hennie Brothers, Ringling Brothers, and Brownskin Models. She recalls performing for both white and black troops as part of a USO show in Japan. China Doll settled in New York in 1945; she describes working as a jazz singer there and some of the difficulties of the profession. She describes her introduction to heroin from a friend to help with pain from an injury. She describes her initial use patterns, needle maintenance, and eventual use of cocaine and speedball. She discusses how, by 1967, she began dealing and doing small singing gigs to sustain her heroin habit. China Doll also shares her experience at Middletown Mental Hospital as ordered by a judge, and describes her methadone maintenance and life at the time of the interview

Subjects

• Carnivals--Employees--United States
• Carnivals.
• China Doll--Interviews.
• Cocaine abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Connecticut State Hospital.
• Courtwright, David T., 1952- interviewer.
• Drug abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--United States.
• Drug addicts--United States.
• Heroin abuse--United States--History--20th century.
• Interviews.
• Jazz musicians.
• Joseph, Herman, 1931- interviewer.
• Methadone maintenance--United States--History--20th century.
• Oral histories (literary works)

Access Conditions

Copyright by David Courtwright