A century on, search continues for Nagoya’s missing ‘blue-eyed dolls’

Next year will mark a century since Japan and the United States exchanged dolls under a project aimed at improving relations that had deteriorated at the time. Through the efforts of American missionary Sidney Lewis Gulick and Japanese industrialist Eiichi Shibusawa, about 12,000 American dolls were sent to Japan in 1927 as tokens of friendship, while Japan reciprocated by sending 58 traditional Japanese dolls to the United States the same year. The exchange took place amid worsening relations between the two countries following the passage of a revised U.S.

Immigration Act in 1924, which effectively barred immigration from Japan.