The Baby Doll tradition had been a fairly underground tradition in New Orleans for decades but recently become much more visible due to the research of women's studies scholar, Kim Vaz-Deville, a professor at Xavier University of Louisiana. Vaz-Deville authored the groundbreaking book The “Baby Dolls”: Breaking the Race and Gender Barriers of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Tradition (2013) and edited the anthology Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans (2018). She also curated the Louisiana State Museum’s 2013 exhibition at the Presbytere called “They Call me Baby Doll: A Mardi Gras Tradition”, "Contemporary Artists Respond to the Baby Dolls of New Orleans" at the Leah and George McKenna Museum of African American Art, 2015, "Mystery in Motion: African American Masking And Spirituality in Mardi Gras at Louisiana State Museum’s Presbytere in 2021 and "Black Indians from New Orleans" at the Musée du Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac in Paris, France, Fall 2022.
