Background

Ethnicity: Ruth Handler was born in the family of Polish Jewish immigrants.

Ruth Handler was born on November 4, 1916, in Denver, Colorado, the United States, to Ida Mosko (née Rubenstein) and Jacob Mosko. Ruth's Jewish father, Jacob Moskowicz, arrived in America via Ellis Island in 1907 where his name was shortened to Mosko. Informing immigration officials that he was a blacksmith, he was sent to Denver, the center of the railroad industry. In 1908, Ida Mosko arrived in America with their six children and joined her husband in Colorado.

Ruth was the youngest of ten children. Ida Mosko was 40 and in ill health when Ruth was born, and she became ill soon after. At the age of six months, Ruth was sent to live with her older sister Sarah and Sarah’s husband, Louis Greenwald, and stayed with them until she was nineteen.

It was in Sarah’s drugstore and soda fountain that Ruth first developed her enthusiasm for business. Ruth preferred work to play and grew up in a family where the idea of women working outside of the home was not unusual, although it was not a common belief of that era.

Education

Ruth attended public school in Denver and graduated from East High School. During her sophomore year at the University of Denver, Ruth vacationed in Los Angeles and landed a job at Paramount Studios.

Career

Ruth 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 dollhouse 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.

In its first full year of operation, 1945, Mattel showed sales of $100,000, mostly in dollhouse furniture. Their second year in business was not as good, since a competitor was able to undercut their price with doll-house furniture made from molded plastic. Ruth continued to run the marketing department. Due to his poor health, Matt soon sold his share to Elliot.

The company had its first hit toy in 1947 with a ukulele called Uke-A-Doodle. That proved such a success that Mattel switched to making nothing but toys. Ruth drove Mattel’s business decisions, while her husband nurtured new toys. The ukulele rapidly lost market share due to a cheaper imitation from a competitor, and Mattel took a $60,000 loss on the piano because of excessive breakage during shipping.

In 1955 the Handlers pioneered a new way to market products directly to children by buying a year's worth of advertising on the new Mickey Mouse Club television show for which they created Mouseguitar. Still, it was the Barbie doll that would be their most successful product.

During a trip to Europe Ruth bought a German doll, Lilli, for her daughter, Barbara. Handler's daughter was at this point too old to play with baby dolls, but Handler had noticed that she enjoyed playing with dolls modeling teenagers and adults. At that time the only adult dolls available in the United States were two-dimensional paper dolls, and Handler realized that she had found a niche market. Mattel introduced its own adult doll, Barbie, in 1959, and the company's sales quickly skyrocketed.

Named after the Handlers' daughter, Barbie was 12 inches tall, with breasts and a curvaceous figure. Clothes and accessories had to be purchased separately. In subsequent years, additional dolls were added, including a boyfriend, the Ken doll, named after the Handlers' son. The next season, Mattel entered the competitive large doll market with another winner, the first talking doll. That year, Mattel made its first public stock offering. Sales continued to soar, from $26 million in 1963 to more than $100 million in 1965. In 1968 another spectacular hit was introduced: Hot Wheels miniature model cars.

Over the years, Barbie changed jobs more than 75 times, becoming a dentist, a paleontologist, an Air Force fighter pilot, a World Cup soccer competitor, a firefighter, and a candidate for president. Even in demanding positions, though, Barbie retained her fashion sense. She was joined by friends and family over the years, including Ken, Midge, Skipper, and Christie. Barbie kept up with current trends in hairstyles, makeup, and clothing. She is a reflection of the history of fashion since her introduction to the toy market.

There has been some controversy over Barbie's figure ever since it was realized that if the doll were a real person, her measurements would be an impossible 36-18-38. Barbie's "real" measurements are 5 inches (bust), 3 1/4 inches (waist), and 5 3/16 inches (hips). Her weight is 7 ¼ ounces, and her height is 11.5 inches. In 1965, Barbie had bendable legs and eyes that opened and shut. In 1967, a Twist 'N Turn Barbie was released that had a movable body that twisted at the waist. The best-selling Barbie doll of all time was the Totally Hair Barbie of 1992, which had hair from the top of her head to her toes.

In 1970, Ruth Handler was diagnosed with breast cancer. A modified radical mastectomy was performed to save her life, but Ruth was not content to live with the new deformation. At the time, there were very few options for breast prosthesis. Being a motivated and inventive woman, Ruth decided to build her own. Disappointed by the options available, she set about designing a replacement breast that was more similar to a natural one. In 1975, Handler received a patent for Nearly Me, a prosthesis made of material close in weight and density to that of natural breasts.

In 1978 Mrs. Handler and several other former officers of Mattel were indicted on charges of fraud and false reporting to the Securities and Exchange Commission. She pleaded no contest to the charges, which investigators said resulted from attempts to influence stock prices, and was fined and sentenced to community service.

Ruth Handler died in 2002, at the age of 85, due to a complication during surgery to treat colon cancer, but her legacy has lived on. The Barbie doll is still one of the most famous and profitable toys for young girls in America and around the world.

Achievements

• Ruth Handler created one of the world's most successful toy companies, Mattel. Her Barbie doll is one of the most popular and iconic toys in the world. In 2016, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris had a Barbie show featuring hundreds of dolls alongside artworks inspired by Barbie. More than 1 billion Barbies have been sold since 1959.
  
  Handler has received numerous awards for her accomplishments in business and philanthropy. Among her honors, she has been named Woman of the Year in Business (Los Angeles Times), been inducted into the Toy Industry Hall of Fame (Toy Manufacturers of America), received the Volunteer Achievement Award (American Cancer Society), and was the first Woman of Distinction of the United Jewish Appeal.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Dream Doll: The Ruth Handler Story

    (The author recounts how she and her husband founded the M...)

    1994

Views

After developing a line of artificial breasts made of foam and silicon that she called ''Nearly Me,'' Ruth Handler became a well-traveled advocate for early detection of breast cancer, at a time when there was little public discussion of the disease.

Quotations: "Every little girl needed a doll through which to project herself into her dream of her future. 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. So I gave it beautiful breasts."

"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."

"When I conceived Barbie, I believed it was important to a little girl's self-esteem to play with a doll that has breasts."

Personality

Handler grew up a tomboy and enjoyed the company of rough and tumble boys rather than girls. The idea of women working outside the home was not unusual for the family. In impoverished Poland, everyone worked to make ends meet. That work ethic traveled with the family to America.

Handler was a dogged businessperson who trusted her instincts. Despite the naysayers in her own company, she was convinced her new doll, named after her daughter, Barbara, would be the hit of the show.

Connections

At age 16, Ruth fell in love with a poor art student named Izzy Handler after meeting him at a high school dance. During her sophomore year at the University of Denver, Ruth vacationed in Los Angeles and landed a job at Paramount Studios. Izzy soon joined Ruth in California, and in 1938 the two returned to Denver and got married.

The Handlers went back to California, where Izzy, (now going by Elliot after Ruth convinced him to use his middle name), studied at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Their daughter Barbara was born in 1941, and their son Ken was born in 1944.

Father:

Jacob Mosko

Mother:

Ida Mosko

Spouse:

Elliot Handler

Ruth met Elliot Handler at a dance when she was 16. He was an aspiring artist. The family didn’t approve of the idea of Ruth’s future chained to the fortunes of a starving artist. Elliot began Mattel in 1945 with his wife, Ruth.

Sister:

Sarah Greenwald

brother-in-law:

Louis Greenwald

Daughter:

Barbara Handler

Barbara was the inspiration for the original Mattel Barbie in 1959.

Son:

Kenneth Handler

References

• Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll
  1994