The story of Barbie doll Essay

Imagine the woman that is able to master 180 careers simultaneously (Fast Facts 3). This same phenom meets a new person every 2 minutes (Piche 6). She is the shortest woman in history at 11.5 inches (Fast Facts 3) Impossible? No. She exists, in plastic, as Barbie. (..)
Barbies future was discovered in the hands of a child when a mother saw her young daughter playing with an adult paper doll she had made instead of a baby doll and she realized that little girls are limited to what they can dream for their future. She thought that if there was an adult doll,on the toy market that served as a role model, girls would be able to decide for themselves what they could be rather than confined to the societal norm of wife and motherly duties. It would teach them to be independent (History 2). Not any woman could accomplish this though. It had to be a woman with connections and this woman just happened to be Ruth Handler, the co-owner of "Mattel Creations", the toy company (Lord 20). This toy company was the first to sponsor a television show, which later became a great way to advertise Barbie (Lord 21 Wolf 2).
Handler presented her idea to the team at Mattel, which were hesitant to pursue the idea due to manufacturing issues. Handler's concept and design would be too costly to manufacture in the United States (McDonough). Handler found her image of Barbie after seeing, Lilli, a European gag gift often handed out in bars to local patrons, while she was in Switzerland (McDonough). Mattel purchased the rights to Lilli and moved the, somewhat expensive, doll's manufacturing to Japan where they could make the product more affordable to their new customers based in the United States. Handler rebranded Lilli as Barbie, named after her daughter Barbra, to create distance from the controversial origins and to create a more child friendly product (Wolf 1). On March 9, 1959 Mattel introduced this new doll to the toy industry, which caused great commotion (Fast Facts 1 Wolf 1). Ruth had to now face the fact that parents believed Barbie was unrealistic and not appropriate for young girls to idolize (Wolf 1). They were right though, if Barbie
Ruth knew that children would love Barbie and made it her goal to see parents show the same appreciation for the doll (Wolf 2). Television would be the key to successful sales for Barbie, it provided a way to introduce her to adolescents and get past the adults. Coincidentally, Mattel was already sponsoring the Mickey Mouse Club which was a children show (Wolf 2). Sales for the doll went significantly up and was now becoming a success for Mattel. But as Barbie became more popular so did the critics and to make matters worse Ruth Handler had to resign from president of the company in 1973 because of loss in sales. 3 years later Jill Barad took her place and got Barbie back on the right track (McDonough).