Dolls Of The Century

Your Guide Picks THE dolls that define the 20th Century

There have been many lists in the last few weeks in magazines and on the Internet that profess to be the "Top 10" or "Top 100 Dolls" of the Century, or the Millennium.  MY dolls of the century have not been picked by poll or by any scientific method.  Instead, I have carefully and at length considered which dolls I think have had (and will continue to have) the biggest impact on the world of dolls.  Well, here it is, December 30, 1999, and I am down to the wire--if I had continued to whittle my list down to the top  10, I think it would have been published NEXT century, so here,  for your consideration, are my top 12 Dolls of the 20th Century, in reverse order, followed by the dolls that ALMOST made the list in the Runners-Up installment of the article:

12. American Girl Dolls:    The American Girl dolls by Pleasant Company (now owned by Mattel) were a late-20th century breakthrough in play dolls. By the 1990s, most dolls were either play dolls of very low quality, or "special occasion" dolls like Madame Alexanders.    American Girl dolls filled a void in the market, by providing dolls that were meant for play, but of a very high-quality.   The dolls and their extensive wardrobes, books, and accessories are, as a bonus, educational and teach various periods in American history.  I think these dolls will endure well into the 21st Century.

11. Gene:  OK, I can already hear the disagreement with this one!  But...when Gene came onto the scene in the mid 1990s, the ONLY serious fashion doll was Barbie.  Gene started a renaissance in fashion dolls for collectors!  Thanks to Gene, doll manufacturers saw that there was a market for top-quality fashion dolls with changeable clothing.  I believe that Gene is the catalyst for the revival of the Madame Alexander Cissy, and for the development of the new fashion dolls such as Sommers and Field, Tyler Wentworth, Brenda Starr, the new 16' Madame Alexander to be unveiled at Toy Fair in 2000, and countless others!  Gene has even created some glamour in the Barbie Collectibles line--have you seen the Gene-inspired Fabulous 40s Barbie?  I think that Gene's influence on fashion dolls will also endure for a long time.

10. Mama Dolls These are the dolls that ended the lock on the doll market that German Bisque dolls enjoyed for the first 20 years of this century.  The dolls were primarily manufactured in America and they literally swept the nation in 1922-23; they can be considered the first "doll craze!"  The dolls were far less breakable than their bisque forerunners (they were made out of composition with cloth bodies) and tended to be little toddlers which said "mama"  The dolls reigned until the early 1930s.

9. Ginny An enduring doll, created over 50 years ago and selling once again in the late 1990s. Ginny is the often-copied epitome of the small toddler doll.  Ginny is also notable for her quality in a mass-produced, affordable package, both the doll and the outfits.  This was THE doll for many of the children growing up in the 1950s. 

8. Cissy: Madame Alexander's Cissy is the adult-shaped, high-heeled glamorous fashion doll that paved the way for modern fashion dolls as we know them!  Without Cissy, which was first sold in 1955, Barbie, Miss Revlon, Tammy and all of the other fashion dolls which have followed might not have been.  Cissy was considered quite scandalous by many in her time.

7. Shirley Temple:    The start of the cult of celebrity!  There were other celebrity dolls made before Shirley in 1934, but none that captured (and continue to capture!) the imaginations of the doll buying public the way Shirley has. 

Next pages  > Don't miss my Top Six Doll Picks  > Page 1, 2, 3

and, just added 1/5/2000, my List of Runners Up

Don' forget to visit the Dolls Forum and tell me how wrong (or right!) you think I have gotten the dolls in my Dolls of the Century List!

And, don't miss: Greatest Toys of the Millennium

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