NEW ORLEANS — A room in Janice Kimble’s home is covered wall-to-wall, floor to ceiling in Mardi Gras mementos. They represent more than a century of her family’s history.
“I have history with the second line group, the Indian group and the Baby Dolls,” she said Wednesday. “Hey, only in New Orleans.” Kimble is a Baby Doll herself.
The first Baby Dolls appeared in New Orleans in the early 1900s. Historians believe they may have been sex workers from the then-segregated Storyville red-light district. At the time, Black women were excluded from Mardi Gras. The doll costumes and public dancing were seen as acts of defiance and self-expression…