Dolly Vardens was a recurring name used for a number of baseball teams throughout the United States in the early decades of base ball (1860s-1880s). Most were white, male squads, though there was an all-female, African-American team from Chester PA, assembled by barber-turned-sports entrepreneur John Lang in the 1880s. However, the latter team was considered a novelty, rather than a competitive organization, who played for the entertainment of spectators. (MLB official historian John Thorn notes, "Lang’s Dolly Vardens, created in the 1880s, are sometimes confused with several Philadelphia-area all-male clubs bearing that name as early as 1867.")
The name was taken from a character in the 1841 novel Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens.