Seventy years ago, in the summer of 1951, Sylvia Plath worked as a babysitter in Swampscott, Massachusetts, for the Mayo family. One of the children she minded was Frederick ("Freddie").   In her journal entry number 86, which I have dated to circa 12 July , she likens Freddie to a "Kewpie-doll". She says of Freddie, "A talkative Kewpie-doll faced boy of seven, with a Beau Brummel taste for socks and jerseys that match, and for shirts and bow ties - he appreciates more advanced stories, and is extremely clever" (71).  Interested to see what this doll might be and look like, I turned to my friend The Google. They are explained this way: "Kewpie is a brand of dolls and figurines that were conceived as comic strip characters by cartoonist Rose O'Neill." Next then on to Images where the following was found on eBay. Ok, that is capital-D Disturbing! Beau Brummel is a bit older than the Kewpie-doll. According to an online resource, "George Bry...

In October 1961, Sylvia Plath wrote the poem "The Babysitters." In it, she recalls her summer experience from 1951, being a live-in nanny for a well-to-do family in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Swampscott is a short drive from Winthrop. She did this with her great friend Marcia Brown, who nannied for a family a few houses away. Plath's journals from the summer of 1951 are wonderful reading, you can see Plath's identity developing, the creation of her self, the creation of an author. I have a few pictures of relevant Swampscott locales on my website (though not numbered, please see the 13th-17th photographs). The poem and some of the journal entries work together. For example, in the poem Plath writes, "I remember you playing 'Ja-Da' in a pink piqué dress / On the game-room piano, when the 'big people' were out, / And the maid smoked and shot pool under a green shaded lamp" ( Collected Poems 175). In the Journals, entry 96 read...