Friends of Polly Sumner is the non-profit that keeps Polly's story alive: cataloguing and answering her letters, and bringing her to classrooms and stages. Here is who we are, how to join, and who makes it happen.
Every letter I answer, I answer with a little help from my friends.
Polly is a real fashion doll, twelve inches tall, who arrived in Boston in 1773 on the Dartmouth — the same ship whose tea was thrown into the harbor. Her clothes and her wig are original; her glass eyes were replaced once, in 1864. She lives on permanent display at Revolutionary Spaces, and children have written to her for generations.
Her magic, in the author's words: she is an everyday object children can relate to, and she personifies a time period that is otherwise too abstract to be meaningful — the living manifestation of the history, bridging the long passage of time.
Read her letters & write your own →Friends of Polly Sumner is a non-profit project that keeps Polly's correspondence alive: cataloguing the letters, preserving the old ones, and answering the new ones — by hand, in Polly's voice. We also bring her story to classrooms and stages through the play Polly and the Colony.
Children from forty-three states write to Polly every year.
Join with a grown-up's email. We never share it.
Friend of Polly
est. 1773
Badge coming soon
Meet the team
Author of the play
Rob is a playwright and theatre-maker drawn to history that still has something to say to kids. He wrote Polly and the Colony to put young audiences inside the Revolution — close enough to feel the tea hit the water and the cannons climb the hill — and believes the best history lesson is the one that feels like an adventure.
Co-author of the play
Kim co-wrote Polly and the Colony, shaping its voice, its humor, and its heart. With a background in theatre and arts education, she is fascinated by how a story can travel from a script into a classroom and back again — and helped build Polly into a character kids genuinely want to write letters to.
Author of the book
Author of Polly Sumner: Witness to the Boston Tea Party and former Executive Director of The Bostonian Society (now Revolutionary Spaces). He has spent his career researching and writing about Revolutionary-era New England; his award-winning Embattled Farmers was published in 2013.
Illustrator
Illustrated Polly Sumner: Witness to the Boston Tea Party in rich gray, black, and white, drawn specifically for younger readers. The work earned IBPA Ben Franklin Award recognition.
Partner
Preserves and operates the Old State House and Old South Meeting House, the two Boston landmarks at the heart of the story, and cares for the original Polly Sumner doll on permanent display.
Polly on stage