The Woman Behind Barbie®

The Mattel toy company started in a garage as a picture frame manufacturing company. From scraps left over from making picture frames, they began making doll house furniture and discovered the toys sold better than the picture frames.

"They" were Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler, the founders of Mattel. The name of the company was used with the letters of their first names. Ruth Handler was married to Elliot Handler.

Once it was discovered that doll house furniture made from wood scraps was a big seller, the owners began focusing on making toys rather than picture frames. A "Uka-a-doodle" - a toy ukulele - was the first toy the company officially manufactured.

Handler noticed her pre-teen daughter, Barbara, playing with paper dolls; she had long left baby dolls behind. As she played with these paper dolls, Barbara tended to give them adult characteristics such as jobs and housework. Handler was struck with the idea of giving her daughter a more sophisticated doll to play with.

Handler visited Europe shortly after and saw a German doll in a shop. The Bild Lilli doll was taken from a character in a popular comic strip considered a bit risque. Unaware at that time of the adult nature of the doll, Handler purchased several and took them home.

The Lili doll had breasts but items such as earrings and shoes were molded onto the doll, limiting a girl's imagination for dressing and accessorizing her.

Handler suggested her doll idea to her husband and his partner but neither were impressed with the idea. Ironically, neither of them thought the doll would not be a big seller.

Handler took matters into her own hands and began working on a doll. The doll was molded with breasts but feet and ears were left bare for the accessories of shoes and earrings. The doll was named Barbie after Handler's daughter.

Barbie® debuted on at the New York Toy Fair in 1959. She sported a zebra-striped maillot, stiletto heels and a pearl-white smile.

An instant success, Barbie® catapulted Mattel, Inc. even further up the ladder of success. Mattel toy ads began appearing during the new "Mickey Mouse Club" show making them the first toy company to advertise all year long as opposed to advertising only during the Christmas season.

But controversy surrounded Barbie®. Feminists and others were quick to point out how unrealistic Barbie's® physique was, and how the expectations for body image affected young girls. It was speculated that, had Barbie® been five feet six inches tall, her measurements would be 39-21-33, an unrealistic possibility for any woman.

In response to these arguments, Mattel trimmed down Barbie's® measurements and gave the doll career accessories. In keeping with the times, Mattel implemented doctor, veterinarian and astronaut among the careers for the doll. She also got a boyfriend in the seventies in Ken®, named after Handler's son, and a host of other friends.

In her 1994 biography, "Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story," Handler wrote: ''My whole philosophy of Barbie was that through the doll, the little girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.'' [1]

A Barbie® doll was included in America's Time Capsule in 1976 for a Bicentennial celebration.

When Mattel stock fell in the seventies, the Handlers were accused of falsifying documents. This resulted in their leaving the company in 1975.

A radical mastectomy led Handler to a second career after leaving Mattel. In her search for a comfortable prosthetic after surgery, Handler found that most of the devices were made to be interchangeable, which wasn't very comfortable. She and Peyton Massey founded Ruthon Corp to manufacture "Nearly Me" more realistic versions of breast prosthetics.

Handler was known to quip about her two careers: "I've lived my life from breast to breast." [1]

Handler died April 27, 2002 at the age of 85.

[1] New York Times Obituary, Ruth Handler