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<\/a><\/div>\nFeeling playful? To dovetail our February case display theme\u2014vintage toys\u2014Langsdale has some particularly juicy reads in its collection about invention and the business of playthings. The books Barbie and Ruth<\/a> <\/i><\/span>by Robin Gerber, and Toy Monster<\/a><\/i> by Jerry Oppenheimer are specifically about Mattel, Inc., the California-based powerhouse responsible for such iconic toys as the Barbie doll and Hot Wheels miniature cars. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Barbie and Ruth<\/i> is a biography focusing on the life of Ruth Mosko Handler, who, along with her husband Elliott Handler, founded Mattel in the late 1940s. She is most famous worldwide for her creation of Barbie, a perennially popular fashion doll that debuted on the market in 1959. While Elliott Handler was a gifted artist, designer, and toy developer, business-savvy, hard-charging Ruth provided the impetus that got Mattel\u2014the entire company, mind you, not just Barbie<\/span><\/span>\u2014<\/span><\/span>off the ground. Mattel stepped into the toy biz at just the right time, as baby boomers became Mattel\u2019s primary demographic, and children and their parents were clamoring for a never-ending supply of new and novel playthings. Eventually Ruth took a gamble on buying year-round advertising (unheard of at the time\u2014previously, most toy advertising was confined to the holiday season only) on the Mickey Mouse Club, which debuted in 1955. Genius move: Mattel\u2019s sales skyrocketed. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
A few years later, despite a nearly unanimous chorus of (mostly male) colleagues and experts advising Handler against marketing the busty Barbie doll (most dolls on the market were baby dolls, encouraging girls in traditional wife-and-mother role-play), Ruth forged ahead with Barbie. She was convinced that the tiny \u201cteen fashion model\u201d reflected the aspirations of little girls everywhere, and that the doll provided a blank screen upon which they could project their fantasies of adulthood. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Gerber\u2019s book doesn\u2019t shy away from discussing the competitively-charged ruthlessness of the toy business and even of Ruth Handler herself, but Oppenheimer\u2019s Toy Monster<\/i>goes one step further, pitting Handler against Barbie\u2019s other alleged creator, eccentric engineer and inventor Jack Ryan, in a high-stakes game of corporate one-upmanship. Ryan, the designer of the Sparrow and Hawk missiles for his former employer Raytheon, was hired by Mattel for his design savvy and facility with space-age materials. He retooled the German Bild-Lilli doll into Barbie (Bild-Lilli was the blueprint on which Barbie was based, which resulted in some litigation between the doll\u2019s German makers and Mattel), made revolutionary talking mechanisms for dolls such as Chatty Cathy, and improved upon the designs of Mattel\u2019s largest toy car competitor with the invention of the Hot Wheels line of miniature cars. Mattel was so reliant on Ryan\u2019s many patents that Ruth became uncomfortable with the power he wielded, as well as and the vast sums that Mattel had to pay him. Eventually Handler found a way to make Ryan\u2019s patents obsolete so that the company wouldn\u2019t have to compensate him. Handler\u2019s reign at Mattel ended in 1974, after she was charged with securities fraud and nearly bankrupted the company.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
Both of these books are a fascinating glimpse into the inner workings of the toy biz. Even if you aren\u2019t a fan of Barbie, it\u2019s fun to read about the art and business of invention\u2014particularly when the protagonists have a reputation for playing dirty. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Feeling playful? To dovetail our February case display theme\u2014vintage toys\u2014Langsdale has some particularly juicy reads in its collection about invention and the business of playthings. The books Barbie and Ruth by Robin Gerber, and Toy Monster by Jerry Oppenheimer are Continue reading Tomes About Toys<\/span>