Happy Birthday, Doll!

I'm thinking that I'm going to do a "This Day In History" thing once a week, just for fun. On  March 9, 1959 Barbie made her debut. Barbie was the first doll to have adult features and be mass produced in the US. Ruth Handler, the woman behind the concept of Barbie, watched her daughter, Barbara, ignore her baby dolls to play with paper dolls of fully grown women. It was then that Handler realised there could be a market for a new type of doll.


The Barbie doll was originally based on the German Lilli doll. This doll had initially been sold in tabacco shops as a gag gift for adult men. However, it later became very popular with little girls. Handler's husband bought the rights to the Lilli doll and created the Barbie doll that we know and love (or hate) today.

Given Barbie's proportions, if she were an actual human woman, 36-18-38, some felt that she set an unrealistic and possibly unhealthy example to little girls. However, despite the controversy, Barbie remains as popular today as she was back in the day.