Ruth Handler

Barbie still looks great for being 57. The one thing most people know about Ruth Handler and Mattel Inc. is that they created Barbie. Ruth Handler married the Mattel Inc. founder, Elliot Handler, together the Handlers worked on turning a garage furniture shop into an ongoing successful company. They had two children, Barbara and Kenneth Handler and in the 1970’s Ruth was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She later died in 2002 from complications from colon surgery. Ruth Handler has changed the way companies have been functioning and adding her own contributions to Mattel Inc. such as Barbie, to make it the largest toy company in the world as of 2014. Mattel Inc. began as a furniture shop in a garage ran by Elliot Handler. Mattel Inc. stated "Handler started out designing light fixtures but soon began making furniture to sell out of his garage." Elliot wanted to soon change that into something bigger that was "competitive in the fast-changing postwar world (Mattel, Inc.)." Elliot was the one who built while Ruth Handler organized the way of selling. "Mattel first entered the picture frame business using scrap plastic and wood. With the leftover wood slats and plastic Elliot designed dollhouse furniture…

A leader can have many different meanings and definitions. One can look at a leader differently than someone else. Leaders have a variety of qualities that leads to women becoming a great and successful leader. Maybe one think that it important for a leader to be more confidence while another person thinks it more important to be social. People have their own way of defining leadership. All leaders adapt their own special and unique qualities like being outgoing and organize in their own unique…

The Good the Bad and the Barbie shows the creation of the Barbie, and how it changed and how it reflects from what time it is from. Showing each Barbie from its time and how and why it was created, such as how each style and job occupations Barbie had was based on the views and standards of that time. This book, set in today, and the Barbie today. Though it does show the past of Barbie, and even Ruth Handler (the creator of Barbie) it is as an informative of its past or compared to today’s…

Introduction The Mattel Toy Company began in 1945 by Elliot and Ruth Handler along with Harold Matson. The partnership Mattel Creations started off in Southern California in a garage workshop. They started with picture frames and dollhouse furniture. Now Mattel is the world’s largest toy company and creators of Barbie, Hot Wheels and various other toys and products. Mattel is now a global company and their mission statement reflects that. Mattel Inc.’s slogan is “The World’s Mattel.”…

Mattel’s Barbie was first introduced to the world in 1959 by Ruth Handler. Ruth came up with the idea of Barbie by watching her daughter and friends play with paper dolls that mimicked adults. She thought to herself that there were no teenage and adult dolls on the market, she then took her idea to husband Elliot Handler who was one of the co-founders of Mattel Toys. He was skeptical at the idea because there were lots of baby and toddler dolls on the market but there were no adult dolls. Even…

reality, he expresses the comfort he feels playing with the dolls even when knowing the negative views others might have. These cases are all evidence of the negative effect Barbie dolls have had on children and adults throughout time. The ideas and images presented to us exert a powerful influence over our lives and greatly influence how we think about gender. Today, two Barbie’s are being sold every 30 seconds worldwide and instead of comforting children to fit into the societal norm, society…

With the introduction of the original Barbie in 1959, Mattel began to market the doll as a “Teen-age Fashion Model” for young adults (Jewish Women’s Archive). Ruth Handler, the creator of the Barbie doll, thought a distinctly adult appearance was essential for the doll, while pre-release market research showed that parents disliked the doll’s chest, which had defined breasts. Standard Barbie dolls are 11.5 inches tall, which translates to a height of 5’ 9” at 1/6 scale, also known as playscale.…

She continues to say, “Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” Handler got the inspiration for her iconic fashion doll, by watching her daughter Barbra play with her paper dolls. Barbra often used these paper dolls to play adult or teenage make believe. Handler believed that experimenting with the future, through pretend play, was an essential part of a child’s development. During this time, most children’s dolls were representations of infants. Realizing a gap in the…

There is no doubt that Barbie has become a natural part of our nation and the significance that Barbie literally has had on our society has shaped the values of women in general. Ruth Handler, the co - founder of Barbie herself describes Barbie as a "cult". Initially her intent was to create a more adult like doll that would ease a girl's self-esteem as she’s growing up. Due to the fact that this dates back to the 1950's, there were no adult like dolls at the time. The only dolls on the market…

to be the definition of beauty; craving to be blonde, tall, and skinny as well. Instead of striving to mold themselves, children should be shown that there are several different forms of beauty. For the sake of young girls and their developing confidence, Barbies should either be discontinued or made readily available in multiple shapes, sizes, and ethnicities. Barbie was the first of its kind; prior to Barbie, most dolls were representations of infants. As a matter of fact, this uniqueness…