1959 Year of Barbie
In 1956 Ruth Handler was in Europe with her daughter Barbara. Ruth, like many mothers of her time, gave her daughter dolls to play with so they could dress them and have them live their own lives. Marie Gullard, a writer for the Washington Examiner, states while in Germany Ruth discover a new doll by the name of Bild Lilli- a German adult toy doll (Barbie: Still a babe strutting her stuff). M.G. Lord, and Yale graduate and frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, wrote Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll. He states Lilli first came out onto the scene in June 1952 in cartoon created by Reinhard Beuthien by 1953 Lilli was being distributed across Germany. Because of Lilli’s outfits and lack of reservations on the topic of sex, she was bought as a gag gift from bars as a “sex doll” (Lord 9). Ruth bought a few of these dolls and brought them back to America. She modified some of their features such as rooting the hair and making the shoes in a separate mold (Lord 10). According to the BBC, a world-renowned news source, before her discovery of Lilli, Ruth had suggested to her husband Elliot- the co-founder of Mattel Toy Company- that they create a new adult-bodied doll for children (Vintage Barbie struts her Stuff). However, her idea was turned down (Vintage Barbie struts her Stuff). Yet after modifying her design on March 9, 1959 Barbie had her debut at the American International Toy Fair held in New York (Vintage Barbie struts her Stuff). This date from that day forth has been recognized as Barbie’s birthday. Since then Barbie has taken hold as one of the most well known house hold names in the history of the plant selling over three billion dolls sold in a 150 countries and staring in films and books (Vintage Barbie struts her Stuff) .
