History Of Barbie Doll Creation And How It Revolutionized The Industry

Ruth biography

The history of the emblematic Barbie is far from being a child's play. or at least that of its creator Ruth Handler. The woman who revolutionized the toy industry in the United States had a hard row to hoe. However, no wall was impossible to stop the visionary who broke the playful taboos, allowing girls to fantasize about being adults thanks to the new doll.

Ruth was born in 1916 in Colorado. She was the youngest of the ten siblings. Her parents were Polish immigrants who moved to America in search of a better future. Unfortunately, her mother would later pass away, leaving Ruth in the care of her sister, Sarah, and her husband. What seemed like a tragedy, positively marked the enterprising spirit of young Ruth. In fact, Ruth's sister shared a small business with her husband in which Ruth would occasionally help out and get to know the virtue of work from an early age. During adolescence, she would meet the one who would be her life partner for more than 60 years, Elliot Handler with whom she would later have her daughter Barbara and her son Kenneth. [1]

After getting married in 1938, the young couple moved to Los Angeles. The financial situation was very precarious, and they lived humbly in a room above a Chinese laundry; despite the circumstances, they worked with great enthusiasm. Elliot was a craftsman and made gift items that Ruth sold. They worked hard day after day until they managed to create their own company with a partner: Harold Mattson. Ruth merged the names of her husband and her partner, and Mattel was born. The company made frames for portraits, and with the leftover pieces of material, it made dollhouses.

Over time they realized that the toys generated better income, therefore they devoted themselves entirely to that. The partnership with Harold Mattson was however short-lived, and Elliot would be soon left as the only one in charge of the company with Ruth directing the company's course.[2]

The businesswoman soon realized that her daughter, Barbara, no longer had fun playing with baby-dolls. She, like so many other girls of her time, preferred to play make-believe with paper dolls[3]. those came in the shape of animals, babies, toddlers and families. of all the available choices, though, Ruth noticed that the girls focused their attention on one type of doll: grown-up women. they would fantasize about the distant adult period and mimic adult conversation.[4]

The great eureka moment, that would later lead to the invention of barbie arrived during a trip to Switzerland, when Ruth discovered a particular doll of small dimensions, never seen before in the United States. Apparently, the 27 cm doll was an article for adults, with silky hair, provocative eyes and pronounced curves. She originated in a comic strip in a gossip-sheet newspaper called Bild-Zeitung. Her name was Lilli.

After giving Lilli to her daughter and seeing how happy she was Ruth quickly realized a new and excellent business opportunity. She later presented her Idea to the other members of Mattel, all men, who rejected it, because the doll would be too expensive to produce and they also considered Lilli's adult aesthetic as an impediment for the little ones to identify with the doll and were not willing to promote a doll that they believed would horrify mothers because of its breasts and sexuality. They continued to stick to the obsolete premise that girls dreamed of being mothers; so they had to continue focusing on the 'safe market': the manufacture of strollers, baby bottles and plastic babies.[5]

Ruth had to fight for her Idea, and so with the support of her husband, they took the project forward by evaluating how Lilli could adapt to the daughters of the puritanical American society. they resolved the cost issue by having the doll produced in Japan. The result, after nearly three years of design work, was Barbie, named after Ruth and Elliot's daughter

The provocative article for adults underwent many modifications, such as breast reduction and the design of a more innocent look. During the creative process, a hairdresser and a fashion designer were hired to develop the first Barbie model with a full line of clothes.

Without the blessing of the other members of Mattel, the Japanese company Kokusai Boeki Company was entrusted with the manufacture of the first batch. Everything was perfectly detailed and specified, only that the Japanese would make an error in production. They had painted the eyes torn, and although it would be a very exotic feature, the girls needed a near referent of beauty. For this reason, Ruth returned the dolls to the factory to correct this error. The doll, officially named Barbie Teenage Fashion Model in the false hope that making her a teenager desexualized her, debuted at 1959's Toy Fair, becoming a resounding success. Barbie wore a black and white striped swimsuit, a pair of black stiletto shoes and the silky blond hair pulled back in her characteristic pigtail ponytail.[6]

Barbie dominated the market in such a way in the '60s that the factory was not enough to satisfy the demand. Even so, Ruth's entrepreneurial spirit continued to aspire to more, so she kept on devising ways to reach more girls who no longer thought about cars and babies, but about clothes, makeup and boyfriends. That's how the eternal love of Barbie was born: Ken, whom she named after her second son Kenneth.[7]

Despite her wise ideas, Ruth continued to face the challenge of being taken seriously as a leader despite being a woman, in a world dominated entirely by men. And although being a woman also implied a wall in her professional career, she would not be intimidated in that old world where men held the reins of the business. That is why her success and notoriety opened the way to the beginning of corporate feminism, which managed to integrate more and more women into the business world.

United States Historical, political and social context

The Sixties marked a turning point for America, from all points of view: at the White House the young democrat John Kennedy came to power, in the artistic field Pop art totally revolutionized the way of making art and this happened inside a society that by now had become consumerist. In addition to American industries, an important role was also played by advertisers, who continued to advertise a new mass-market with products that were newer, faster and better.

The period between 1960 and 1969 is one of the most complexes in American history. During those years, the United States embarked on a series of social, political and cultural processes that transformed American society. African-Americans demanded social and political equality, young people rebelled against social norms, a critical counterculture of conformity and the consumer society emerged, homosexuals organized themselves in defence of their rights, and Latinos questioned the marginalization of which they were subject.

The postwar society attended transformations whose repercussion is still noticeable today. In 1955, the contraceptive pill made its appearance, thanks to the work of Margaret Sanger, Katharine McCormick, and Gregory Pincus. Until 1960 it could not be commercialized, but in a short time, millions of women took control of their sexual life. The social movements of the sixties and their ideological confrontation made women visible as the subject of the changes. Thus was born the Second Wave of Feminism.

Women joined the wave of social dissatisfaction that characterized the 1960s, thus reviving the feminist movement. Several factors paid to that rebirth. First, in 1963, John Fitzgerald Kennedy appointed a presidential commission to study the situation of women in the United States. In its report, the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) documented that women faced the same injustices as racial minorities.

Women received lower pay than men for similar tasks and jobs and had less opportunity to access a professional or managerial career. According to the commission, only 7% of doctors were women and less than 4% were lawyers. The members of the Commission suggested, successfully, that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited gender discrimination. Despite this, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was reluctant to enforce the prohibition of discrimination based on sex, which caused a group of women to establish, in 1966, the National Organization for Woman (NOW). This group sought to change the situation of women through peer pressure, legal demands and the mobilization of public opinion in favour of their cause.

'Little by little I began to realize that the unnamed problem was shared by countless American women,' wrote Betty Friedan, one of the founders of NOW, in The Mysticism of Femininity, an essay that marked the history of the twentieth century. This book helped make the organization known. In her work, Friedan questioned suburban domesticity by criticizing the widespread idea that the greatest realization to which women could aspire was to be mothers and wives.

Released in the United States in 1963 (before the new feminist generation broke in). Friedan (1921-2006) did not make theoretical analyzes, nor did she suggest political solutions or collective struggle strategies to solve the problem she simply intended to give voice and face to the 'problem that has no name' that middle-class American woman experienced in the 1950s making them unhappy, depressed, and predisposed to alcohol abuse and drugs. According to Friedan, this problem is the result of a deception that is called the mystique of femininity, due to which millions of Americans have given up their dreams of professional fulfilment, to devote themselves exclusively to motherhood and home life.

The author wanted women to develop professional careers that allowed them to find their identity as human beings. The Feminine Mystique exerted great influence among the American women because it made many of them see that they were not alone, that their disagreement was shared by thousands of congeners and gave them a vocabulary to express their unease.

The Vietnam War and the struggle for civil rights also influenced the development of the American feminist movement. Thousands of young American women became involved in the movements against war and racial discrimination. This helped them gain confidence and develop an ideology against the oppression that they were victims. In other words, they developed an awareness of their status as second-class citizens and of the sexual exploitation of which they were subjected by a society controlled by men. In addition, they came into contact with protest strategies and tactics, which they then applied in their struggle for gender equality.

By 1968, militant feminists adopted an awareness strategy to change the image that women had of themselves and their society. For this, they resorted to holding small assemblies where women shared their experiences and presented their complaints, and understood that their dissatisfaction was shared by other women. In other words, women began to understand that what they considered personal problems were actually problems of their gender, which required social and political solutions. This awareness led many women to develop a sense of sisterhood and a commitment to fight against sexism. This is how women's liberation groups were developed throughout the United States. They adopted confrontation tactics that would attract public attention, such as breaking into the Miss America pageant in 1968 to denounce what these groups considered the degradation suffered by women in beauty pageants more than 100 women demonstrated against the false ways in which women must appear, dress and take action.

Protesters saw the contest and its symbols as oppressors of women. emphasizing an arbitrary beauty standard. They were against labelling, worship and exploitation of the 'most beautiful girl in America. Busts, high heels, curlers, bras, Playboy magazines and other 'female torture tools' were thrown into the freedom trash can.

The demonstration was largely responsible for bringing the women's liberation movement to the American national consciousness. The event marked the end of the darkness of the movement and made the issues of 'women's liberation' and beauty standards discussed at a national level. Similarly, they demanded equality in education and the workplace, created health programs and shelters for battered women and fought the image that the media reproduced of women.

On August 26, 1970, the largest feminist demonstration in history was commemorated in the fifties of the approval of the female vote. That day, thousands of women marched through the streets of various cities of the States in defence of equality in employment and the right to abortion.

By the early 1970s, feminists had made it possible for banks to grant credit to single women and on behalf of married women, and for many universities to increase the salaries of hundreds of university professors. Female pressure led the government to monitor labour discrimination in corporations that received federal funds.

Feminists also addressed the issue of female sexuality. For them, women had to have control over their reproductive capacity and hence they received with open arms the arrival of the contraceptive pill in 1960, as this allowed them greater sexual freedom without having to face the risk of pregnancy. Many women also pressed for the legalization of abortion as a means to avoid the risks associated with its illegal practice.

Ideal woman

Many of the 'traditional' roles that women are meant to play come from 1940's-1960's television shows. The ideal housewife who cooks, cleans, raises well-behaved children and pleases her husband no matter what all while keeping a pretty, neat appearance comes from shows like I Love Lucy or Leave it to Beaver. These shows defined the roles of men and women of the time, and still have a lasting impression to this day.

The American society in the 1950s was mainly founded on the ideology of the housewife, shaped by magazines and other media targeted to women. After the Second World War, marriage was the main goal for girls; family life was their major aspiration and the manifestation of a perfect existence. Maintain the house, prepare meals, take care of the children, help them with their homework, be the ideal wife, do the dishes and the laundry while remaining elegant; that made the day of most American women in the 1950s. One crucial difference between us, modern women of 2019, and the woman of the 1950s are that they did not have the choice. Their future was already defined: going to university to prepare for marriage or rather to while away their time, (especially between white middle-class women) meeting with a boy that would suit their family, get married, have children and a beautiful house.

Women's roles were limited, and they were often forced back into the kitchen. magazines and movies were the primary methods of which this model was transmitted to women. Women's magazines played an extremely important role in popularizing the domestic ideal because there was a significantly large readership. The 1950s, advertisements could in no mean now be described as ethically correct, being characterized by very explicit contents: racism, sexism, references to paedophilia, stereotypes. Most likely, looking at them with today's critical eye, an average audience would seize all these elements and be indignant. These commercials would not find space in any magazine or anywhere nowadays.

Let's look for example at this campaign dedicated to an electric appliance 'The chef does everything but cooking is the job of the wives', a clear reference to the fact that the place of women was exclusively in the kitchen. This other on racism: 'My skin is dark, but my heart is white for I also give to Canadian patriotic fund ' and sees an American Indian in the foreground.

The 1950s, more than any past decade were about being the perfect housewife. There was a strong focus on femininity. Influenced by the pin-up girl look, clothing was about creating the illusion of a narrow waist and a high, rounded bust. Corset-like undergarments became popular again. Women wore heels, not flats, even around the house.

Makeup was not used sparingly. Most women used cream, liquid or pancake foundation, flesh-toned setting powder, blush, eyeshadow, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, mascara, lip liner and lipstick. A pale complexion was trendy, and the idea was to create a mask-like base. Rouge usually soft peach or pink and was no used sparingly. Lipstick was often a bold or bright colour. Pink reds, true reds and corals were the most popular. The average woman used a lip liner to follow their natural lips but some actresses slightly overdrew their top lip. Women often matched their nail polish to their lipstick. The most common nail shape was oval, and long but not too long fingernails were considered classy and ladylike.

Eyebrows were thick to medium thick. They were groomed and generally highly arched, tapering at the ends. The 1950s hair was typically very 'done'–the opposite of today's desired beachy waves and bedhead looks. There were several popular looks. Shorter hair was most common. High ponytails, with the ends, often flipped out, were all the rage with teens.

Pageboy or brushed under bobs were considered classy. Chemical relaxers became more readily available in the 1950s, which popularized straight hair for African American women. Hollywood actresses continued to have a major influence on hair and makeup looks. Actresses like Audrey Hepburn and Marylyn Monroe predominated the big screen with blondes being the most popular and requested ones. Appearing feminine and flawless was a trend in the '40s and '50s and it was on full blast in the '60s as well. Marilyn Monroe was a perfect example with her Full makeup, glamorous hair, and a curvy body.

As a celebrity, it was and is easy to set a trend and that was the case for Marilyn Monroe. Monroe made her hair a trend. Women back then, in the 50s and the 60s, would bleach It to be like her.while Marylin Monroe set the beauty standard in Hollywood, twiggy a young British model predominated the fashion industry with her blonde short hair and thin body.

While the perfect housewife and ideal body were being portrayed on TV and women were made to feel inadequate, the reality of that time was that divorce rates doubled after the war and even though There were few career opportunities except in typically ‘female' professions such as teaching, nursing or secretarial work, more women were working outside the home than ever before.

Entered to replace men in extra-domestic work during the war, with the return of the men from the front the women were gradually returning to take care of the house, husband and children. This time, however, the invitation was accompanied by increasingly modern accessories: refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, carpet cleaners, as well as telephone, television and cars. Yet, listening to them, these women, who should have felt happy and gratified, revealed a sense of incompleteness.

Women who went out to work instead of getting married were treated with great suspicion by the rest of society. One book, Modern Women: the lost Sex, even blamed the social problems of the 1950s on career women. Defined as a revolutionary book. The feminine mystique is an essay with many flaws, some even serious. It focuses, for example, almost exclusively on white women of the middle class, as if African-Americans were not part of the post-war American generation, nor does it address the question of the male's role in a meaningful way.

Barbie´s evolution

Barbie underwent many changes during the years. From its year of creation, she went a long way full of new clothes, jobs, and friends.

First appeared in 1959 Barbie wore a black and white striped swimsuit, a pair of black stiletto shoes, black eyeliner, red lipstick and the silky blond hair pulled back in her characteristic pigtail ponytail. After starting 1959 as a fashion model she didn't stop and soon became in 1960 a fashion editor. She got a new bubble pink suit, the arched eyebrows were gone and the eye shape changed giving the doll a softer and less sophisticated appearance.

In 1961 barbie officially left the fashion industry and decided to follow more than one career path. this year was a year full of new experiences. She got the chance to try many new things such as being a professional singer, a ballerina, a Flight Attendant and last but not least a Registered Nurse. For the first time, Barbie became available with ‘Titian' red hair, bendable legs and eyes that opened and closed. While Barbie's physical transformation was striking, her lifestyle changes were no less distinct. Barbie had to deal with a change in her love life. After 2 years of being a single independent girl, she became the girlfriend of the new arrival in Mattel's industry, ken, her male counterpart.

In 1962 she began playing tennis and cut her hair. 1963 was also a big year for barbie. She graduated from college, became a career girl and independently moved into her Dream House. Her makeup became more natural and the red lipstick disappeared. With a new home and a new man, Barbie also found herself inundated with new friends and family, including her little sister Skipper and lifelong best friend Midge, which had a fuller gentler face and freckles.

Barbie's first major controversy came this year with the introduction of ‘Barbie Baby-Sits'. Wearing a long pink-striped skirt with ‘babysitter' emblazoned along the hem and thick-framed glasses, Barbie Baby-Sits came with several accessories, including a baby in a crib, a telephone, a few bottles of soda and a book. Unfortunately, the book was called How to Lose Weight and had only one page of advice, ‘Don't Eat'. The backlash from this bizarre nod to extreme dieting wasn't enough to deter Mattel from including the book in the accessories pack of another Barbie doll in 1965. ‘Slumber Party Barbie' wore pink silk pyjamas with a matching robe and came prepared for her sleepover with toiletries, a mirror, the same diet book and a set of scales permanently set at 110 pounds.

In 1965 barbie continued following her dreams and became an astronaut and a teacher. All this with her high heels and makeup always on. In 1967, Mattel debuted ‘Colored Francie' the first African-American doll to enter Barbie's network of friends. Both Francie and Christie, who followed just a year later, were manufactured with dark skin, but designers used the same mould as that used for the Caucasian Barbie, meaning all of the dolls had the exact same facial features.

In 1969 two more attempts were made that resulted in a more accurate representation of an Afro-American girl, but sill there was no barbie representing other minorities with Asian or native American features.

Barbie as a Reflection of the 1950's Culture

Barbie's image and the discourse about her representation took shape and changed within the social and political unrest of the 1960s and 1970s.

As she entered the social world as a cultural product in 1959, she conveyed a particular image representative of the ideal female at the time. She embodied the post-war ideals of social integration and identified as a traditional girl in white, middle-class American society. Barbie's debut as the 'teenage fashion model' mirrored the sophisticated glamour of 1950s stars like Marilyn Monroe, Rita Hayworth and Elizabeth Taylor, donning high arched brows, pursed red lips, a sassy ponytail with pale, ivory skin.

The initial emphasis was on Barbie's appearance, which reflected American society's attitude toward women. Barbie was used as a 'teaching tool for femininity' As the ideal western woman with long legs and arms, a small waist, and high round chest, Barbie represented every little girl's dream of the perfect mature body. Although there was a controversy over Barbie's breasts, Ruth Handler stated 'Barbie was originally created to project every little girl's dream of the future and that dream included a mature figure' Also, Barbie had freckle and blemish-free skin with just the proper amount of make-up on.

Influenced by the movie stars of the 1950s, the first Barbie doll was fully made up with red lips, black eyeliner and perfectly arched eyebrows and came with either blonde or brunette hair was done up in a cute Audrey Hepburn ponytail. by 1960, her fashion sense had moved away from sophisticated and glamorous styling of the 50s and had begun to embrace the playful and colourful look. She received a bubble hairstyle similar to the one worn by Jackie Kennedy, one of the many fashion icons back then that had short hair.

Other outfits of Barbie reflected American tradition and attitudes toward. A popular outfit of the first Barbie was the wedding dress. In the '50s, marriage was a sacred institution viewed as a necessary step in adulthood. She also owned clothing for safe recreational activities such as playing tennis and dancing ballet. These were accepted sports for women to participate in.

Fashion developments of the 1950s appeared in Barbie's wardrobes. Mattel used the latest fabric innovations such as nylon tricot, nylon tulle and sheer nylon, as materials for Barbie's clothing. As women were purchasing tights, Barbie was given her first pair in 1961 to keep up with current feminine trends. Society's emphasis was on a strong nuclear family, therefore in the '60s Barbie's parents were identified as Robert and Margarethe Roberts from Willows, Wisconsin Along with parents, Mattel developed a boyfriend and female friend for Barbie.

Because of Barbie's lack of a family, her first relation was a male companion named Ken. Barbie's boyfriend was given an image of innocence, cleanliness and shyness. Ken's development portrays one of the expectations of 1950's women. It was necessary to create Ken because women were considered no good enough without a male on their side.

Not only did barbie reflect the American ideals but It also reflected woman's accomplishments in the world. Such as going in the space for the first time in 1963. Indeed after only 2 years in 1965 barbie became an astronaut, a career path women in the united states could no follow until 1978. Yet she still didn't break free from the unwritten rules of the labour market. Even though she did work she mainly stuck with the typical jobs women were allowed to do without being judged or discriminated.

The doll then emerges as a Babysitting Barbie in 1963 and independently moves into her Dream House. refusing the structures of white, middle-class families of the 1950s and supports herself as a happily unmarried woman. This happened just as a similar statement emerged in feminist literature, Betty Friedan's 1963 Feminine Mystique, now considered the crucial piece that turned white, middle-class women away from the oppression of the domestic housewife world.

Aside from the above restraints placed on Barbie, she did have one quality that broke her away from the traditional female mould. Barbie was independent and showed little girls that they could be anything they could imagine. Through Barbie, all their dreams of adulthood could come true. Mattel used this as a marketing technique, and it has stood the test of time.