Ruth Handler

American businessperson Ruth Handler (1916–2002) changed the face of the toy industry with her introduction of the Barbie doll in 1959. Co–founder of the Mattel toy company, Handler was also noted for her marketing innovations. She later went on to a successful second career in the prosthetic breast business. At the time of Handler's death, there had been over a billion Barbies sold in 150 countries.

Child of Immigrants

Handler was born on November 4, 1916, in Denver, Colorado. She was the youngest of ten children born to Jacob and Ida Mosko, Polish immigrants who had traveled to the United States on a steamship. Her father was a blacksmith who had fled Poland to avoid serving in the Russian army and her mother was in frail health, leaving much of her youngest's rearing to the child's older siblings. Interestingly, the young Handler did not like playing with dolls. She did, however, learn the benefits of a job well done as her parents fortunes improved and she earned tips working in their drugstore.

At 16, Handler met her future husband, Isadore Elliot Handler, at a B'nai B'rith dance in Denver. Three years later, she moved to Los Angeles, and he soon joined her there to attend the Art Center School of Design. The couple briefly returned to Denver to be married at the former Park Lane Hotel in 1938, but Southern California was home to them for the rest of their lives together.

Business Began

Handler first took a job as a secretary at Paramount Studios, while her husband studied and began designing household products such as bookends and candle holders. Before long, the couple's first company, Elzac (named for Elliot and a financial partner named Zachary), came into being. Elzac's line was expanded to include giftware and costume jewelry, and the company gradually became a $2 million business, but the Handlers were not satisfied.

In 1942, the Handlers joined forces with another designer, Harold "Matt" Matson, to manufacture picture frames. That business, started in the couple's garage, branched out to include doll house furniture made out of scraps from the picture frame enterprise. Using yet another merger of the name Elliot and a partner's name, the company was called Mattel. It turned a profit in 1945 and the Handlers found themselves in the toy business.

One of Mattel's first successful products was a toy ukulele called the Uke–A–Doodle. Its release in 1947 was also a learning experience for the Handlers, as they discovered ways to attain patent protection and thwart imitators. They played to their individual strengths as well, with Handler in charge of marketing and her husband heading up product design. (Matson was bought out very early in the game). Together, the talented couple managed a series of innovations that helped put Mattel on the map. For example, Mattel was the first company to make toys out of a mixture of materials. Additionally, the Handlers were quick to realize the advantages of recycling components in a variety of toys, such as placing a music box in a jack–in–the–box. Paul Lukas of Fortune Small Business quoted Handler from her 1994 autobiography, Dream Doll, "We'd developed a basic mechanism around which new products could be designed year after year." But it may be that Mattel's most revolutionary advancement was the use of television in its advertising.

In the 1950s, television was still in its infancy. The advertising of toys was still primarily through catalogs and trade shows, and generally focused on the Christmas season. The Handlers changed all that in 1955 when Mattel offered to buy a year's exclusive sponsorship of ABC's new program, The Mickey Mouse Club. The show was a hit, and sales of Mattel's Mouseguitar and Burp Gun went through the roof. A brand new toy advertising style was born, and Handler's later wry characterization of herself, cited by the Economist, was hardly an exaggeration. "I was a marketing genius," she said.

Barbie

Baby dolls had come into vogue in the late 19th century and remained in fashion in the 1950s. Handler, however, had noticed that her daughter had little interest in playing with them, preferring instead to dress up adult paper dolls and pretend to be grown up. Thus inspired, she pitched the idea of a manufacturing an adult doll to her company, but met repeated resistance from Mattel's predominately male sales force and executives. "Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her dream of her future," Handler said in a 1977 New York Times interview quoted by Sarah Kershaw in the same paper in 2002. "If she was going to do role playing of what she would be like when she was 16 or 17, it was a little stupid to play with a doll that had a flat chest." Then in 1956, she found a voluptuous German doll in Switzerland. Unbeknownst to Handler, the doll was intended for an adult male audience, but its original purpose was to be far overshadowed by its evolution at Mattel.

Using the German doll as a model, Mattel designers spent three years creating the doll of Handler's dreams. The finished product, an 11 and 1/2 inch blonde with an improbable figure and permanently high heels, made her debut at the American Toy Fair in New York City in 1959. Officially called "Barbie Teenage Fashion Model" (Barbie was the Handlers' daughter's name), the doll did not thrill the show's buyers. But Handler was vindicated by the delighted reception of little girls. 351,000 Barbie dolls were sold that first year, a sales record for Mattel, and it took the company a full three years to begin to keep up with demand. The fortunes of Barbie and Mattel had become inexorably entwined.

The success of Barbie soon led to the creation of her boyfriend, Ken (named after the Handlers' son). With time, other friends and family were produced, along with hundreds of outfits and accessories. The latter were no small part of the business, as Handler's husband pointed out in the Barbie Chronicles (cited by Lukas). "You get hooked on one, and you have to buy the other. Buy the doll, and then you buy the clothes. I know a lot of parents hate us for this, but it's going to be around a long time." And right he was. Barbie's popularity continued to grow so that by the year 2002, over a billion dolls had been sold in 150 countries. She had been showcased in the Smithsonian Institution and included in the official U.S. bicentennial time capsule. Fan clubs, magazines, and collectors obsessed about her. Yet, Barbie did have her detractors.

Handler's hit doll drew fire from feminists and others, who were concerned that Barbie's unlikely proportions sent the wrong message to young girls. Her measurements, if translated to a woman of 5–foot–6, would have been 39–21–33, an extremely rare occurrence in the natural world. But Handler maintained that Barbie, whose numerous "careers" had ranged from ballerina to surgeon to rock star, was all about giving girls options. The Times of London quoted her thoughts on the matter from her autobiography: "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." Whatever her faults, Barbie became an American icon.

Triumphed, Failured, and Challenged

Mattel continued to be a market leader throughout the 1960s. The company scored wins with such toys as 1960's Chatty Cathy, who talked, the educational toy series, See 'N Say, and the Hot Wheels miniature car line, introduced in 1968. Investors were pleased as the $10 share price of 1960 zoomed to $522.50 at the stock's pinnacle in 1971. Such heady times did not last, however.

Business woes began with the failure of a battery–powered miniature car line called Sizzlers. This was compounded by Mattel's expensive acquisitions of such diverse enterprises as a pet supply company and the Ringling Brothers–Barnum & Bailey Circus. Combined, the troubles caused the company to post its very first loss in 1971, and yet another the following year. The losses led to shareholder lawsuits and an SEC (Security and Exchange Commission) inquiry that revealed accounting irregularities. In 1975, the Handlers were forced out of the company they had founded, although they denied any knowledge of wrongdoing. Difficulties came to another peak in 1978, when Handler was indicted for fraud and false reporting to the SEC. Still maintaining her innocence, she pled no contest, and was fined and sentenced to community service. Disappointing as all the business upheaval undoubtedly was though, it paled against the parallel challenges facing Handler.

In 1970, just as Mattel was heading for problems, Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a modified radical mastectomy. She later blamed the worry and distractions of the disease on her trials at work. Luckily, Handler was able to turn even such a devastating experience as serious illness into a positive.

Second Career

After her mastectomy, Handler was frustrated in her efforts to find a suitable prosthetic breast. The unappealing and limited options ranged from rolled up gloves or stockings to shapeless blobs that bore little resemblance to the real thing. According to Veronica Horwell of the Guardian, Handler concluded that "the people in this business are men who don't have to wear these." So, she set about to change things.

With the help of expert craftsman Peyton Massey, Handler designed a line of realistic artificial breasts fashioned from foam and silicon. She called the product "Nearly Me" and formed the Ruthton Corporation to sell it. Intent on demystifying what was a taboo subject in the 1970s, Handler became an outspoken advocate for early detection of breast cancer and offered her prosthetics as a way for women to feel good about themselves again. One rather unorthodox method she used to get her point across was to open her blouse during interviews, demanding that the interviewer physically determine which of her breasts was real. She also arranged showings of Nearly Me at upscale department stores and made certain that sales staffs were properly trained in fitting the product. As Elaine Woo of the Newark Star–Ledger quoted, Handler's unabashed goal was to enable breast cancer survivors to ". . . wear a regular brassiere and blouse, stick her chest out(,) and be proud."

Handler made the business a successful one, counting former First Lady Betty Ford among her many customers, before selling it to a division of Kimberly–Clark in 1991. But profit was not really her motive in this second career. Horwell quoted her saying, "I didn't make a lot of money in it. It sure rebuilt my self–esteem, and I think I rebuilt the self–esteem of others." And she was not unaware of the ironic connection between Barbie and Nearly Me. As Lukas noted, Handler was fond of saying, "I've gone from breast to breast."

Handler spoke of her life's challenges at a luncheon for the Allied Jewish Federation Women's Department in her hometown in 1996. One of the things she said, according to Joanne Davidson of the Denver Post, was, "I like to think of my life as an impossible dream. We've had a lot of nightmares, but we've always been able to pick up and move on." Perhaps even more to the point was her husband's comment to People Weekly upon Handler's death on April 26, 2002. "She was brilliant and brave," he said.

Periodicals

Daily Telegraph (London, England), May 3, 2002.

Denver Post, February 5, 1996.

Economist, May 4, 2002.

Guardian (London, England), May 2, 2002.

Investor's Business Daily, December 27, 2001.

New York Times, April 29, 2002.

People Weekly, May 13, 2002.

Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), April 28, 2002.

Times (London, England), April 29, 2002.

Online

"Mattel: Toy Story," Fortune Small Business,http://www.fortune.com/fortune/smallbusiness/articles/0,15114,433766-1,00.html (November 30, 2004).

WOMEN'S ROLES IN THE 1950s

Standard Roles, But Changing

Housekeeping and raising a family were considered ideal female roles during the 1950s, although that standard was less rigid than in previous decades. With marriage and birthrates booming, women were becoming wives and mothers at unprecedented levels. But more women were entering the work-place as well. During World War II women by the millions took factory jobs to make up for the domestic manpower shortage. After the war the number of working women dropped, but by 1950 it was climbing again, at the rate of a million a year. By 1956, 35 percent of all adult women were members of the labor force, and nearly a quarter of all married women were working. As A. W. Zelomek, president of the International Statistical Bureau, reported in A Changing America (1959), two out of five women with husbands and school-age children worked outside the home. However, working women had yet to attain many positions of influence: in 1957 the overwhelming majority, more than 70 percent, held clerical, assembly-line, or service jobs. Only 12 percent practiced a profession, and 6 percent held management positions.

DIVORCE

As important as home and family were during the 1950s, failed marriages were becoming more prominent. The annual number or marriages actually declined over the course of the decade, as the wave of marriages following World War II began to subside. There were 1.66 million marriages in 1950 and 1.52 million in 1960. At the same time the divorce rate rose slightly, from 385,000 in 1950 to 393,000 in 1960. In 1950, 1 in every 4.3 marriages failed, and by the end of the decade that ratio had changed to 1 in every 3.8. In other words, despite the emphasis on domestic life that characterized the decade, the institution of marriage actually lost ground. One reason tor the higher divorce rate was the successful economy, which made it possible for more women to consider leaving their husbands.

THE TV DINNER

World War II caused TV dinners to be created. With so many men off fighting the war, women entered the workforce in large numbers for the first time to support the war effort. After the war many women kept their jobs. Thus, there was a need for quick, easy meals (which even workingwomen were usually responsible for preparing) for two-worker families at the end of the day.

Clarke and Gilbert Swanson of Omaha saw the need and began selling frozen potpies in 1951 on a national scale. Meanwhile, a lawyer named Cecil Johnson had trademarked the name "TV Dinner." The Swansons acquired Johnson's trademark and began preparing complete dinners in sectional aluminum trays in 1953. The first included one section of turkey with dressing and gravy, another section of flavored sweet potatoes, and a third section of buttered peas. The original packages were designed to show the dinners on a television screen.

In 1953 five thousand dinners were sent to super-market shelves in the first order. When Campbell Soup bought Swanson in 1955, twenty-five million dinners a year were being sold. These included fish, beef, and chicken varieties. The TV dinner trademark expired in 1973.

Two innovations were necessary to make mass-produced TV dinners a success story. One was the development of the supermarket chain store, which facilitated distribution. The other was the fast freezing techniques developed earlier by Clarence Birdseye that allowed frozen foods to retain their flavor.

Source:

Kenneth Morris, Marc Robinson, and Richard Kroll, eds., American Dreams: One-Hundred Years of Business Ideas and Innovation from the Wall Street Journal (New York: Light Bulb Press, 1990).

Rising Opportunities

Many women were torn between traditional expectations and the opportunities available to them. The percentage of women among college students dropped during the decade, to a low of 35 percent in 1958; during the war the majority of collegians had been women, but in the postwar years colleges preferred to accept veterans studying through the GI Bill. A 1959 study determined that 37 percent of female college students were leaving school before they graduated, most for marriage. Even those who stayed in school were not thought to be preparing for a career, the way their male counterparts were. Lynn White, Jr., president of Mills College, proposed in his Educating Our Daughters (1950) that the curriculum for female students should prepare women to "foster the intellectual and emotional life of her family and community." Female students taking liberal-arts and professional courses were also encouraged to take classes in interior decoration and family finance. Throughout the decade the male president of all-female Radcliffe College told his incoming freshmen students that their education would make them "splendid wives and mothers, and their reward might be to marry Harvard men."

Media Perceptions

The belief in a woman's destined social role was reinforced by the popular media of the day. Since women bought 65 to 80 percent of all goods sold in the United States, advertisements and product designs were frequently aimed at feminine concerns, at least as male advertising executives saw them. The magazines of the time were filled with images of dedicated housewives whose only pleasures were that their families were satisfied and their chores made easier. Ironically, as their household responsibilities consumed less of their time, women had more freedom to explore interests other than home and family. While advertisers continued to depict women as domestic servants, real women were finding fulfillment in jobs, volunteer work, and social organizations as well as homemaking.

Danger to Family

Women who spent too much time outside the home, social commentators were quick to warn, were endangering their families, neglecting their husbands and especially their children. Life magazine, in a special issue devoted to the American woman, deplored the "changing roles" of married couples and placed most of the blame on the increasingly aggressive wife: "They should use [their minds] in every conceivable way … so long as their primary focus of interest and activity is the home." The article continued: "If they are truly feminine women, with truly feminine attitudes, they will… accept their wifely functions with good humor and pleasure."

Changing Duties

Deplorable or not, the pressures of job, home, and family forced both husbands and wives to accept changing domestic duties. With a wife making most of the family's purchases, it made sense that she also controlled the family finances. But if a husband used the car to commute to work, he might buy groceries himself. Frequently, since the wife was at home more than her husband, she would perform much of the manual labor around the house and lawn, traditionally considered "man's work." Fathers might chauffeur the children or represent the couple at school meetings. Children were often obliged to help their busy parents. Experts on family life were not necessarily willing to say that these changes were positive, but American women were grateful for the new opportunities.

BARBIE

To the uninitiated, the development of the Barbie doll may not seem like a major technological breakthrough. During her first eight years Barbie brought in $500 million. This little moneymaker was the product of simple observation by a mother named Ruth Handler.

Ruth Handler and her husband were already accomplished toy designers. Her husband, Elliot, made his fortune in furniture making. Ruth suggested making furniture for dollhouses. This led to Matte1 Creations (from the names of the company's two partners, Harold MATson and ELliot Handler, Ruth's husband). After several successful toy inventions, Mattel was growing rapidly. Ruth Handler's observational powers led to the 1959 invention of the Barbie doll and the astounding rise of Mattel in the corporate world.

Ruth Handler was watching her daughter, named Barbara (Barbie), playing with dolls. Barbara had lots of baby dolls to play with. Instead of playing with the baby dolls, though, Barbara would prefer paper dolls of teenagers. These had paper clothing and other articles to accompany them. Ruth Handler had the idea of making a real doll that looked like a teenager. The doll would also have clothes, jewelry, purses, and so forth—" Each sold separately," of course. Furniture for the new doll's house was also available. Ruth Handler had Mattel technicians build the doll to her specifications. Naming it was easy, also. Barbie was named after the Handler's daughter, Barbara. Mattel named the male doll after the Handler's son Ken.

As is often true, ingenuity went unrecognized. The Handlers gave the Barbie doll a debut at a toy show in New York in 1959. The reaction from the others who attended the show was immediate. They told the Handlers that the doll would never sell. Eight years later Ruth Handler had made $500 million from the sale of Barbie.

It is interesting that Ruth Handler later made another observation that turned tragedy into good fortune. During the 1970s she retired from Mattel after removal of her left breast for cancer. Trying to look and feel like a normal woman, she sought a breast prosthesis. None was adequate. Handler began working with designers and technicians to fill the needs of cancer victims. The result was the Nearly Me products produced by Ruthton, Inc.

Public Power

In the realm of public policy women made few significant gains during the decade. Women had secured suffrage only recently, when the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1920. By the 1950s only a few women held national office: out of the 531 members of Congress in 1956, 16 were women. And in the upper house, the Senate, Margaret Chase Smith, a Republican from Maine, was the only female member. Women had made some inroads, however, in diplomatic and cabinet-level positions. Eugenie Anderson, the first woman U.S. ambassador, served as chief diplomat to Denmark from 1949 to 1953. Anna Rosenberg was assistant secretary of defense during the Harry S Truman administration, and President Eisenhower appointed Oveta Culp Hobby, the World War II director of the Women's Army Corps, as his first secretary of health, education, and welfare.

Sources:

Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: Norton, 1963);

Brett Harvey, The Fifties: A Women's Oral History (New York: HarperCollins, 1993).