1950's Pre-Barbie Teen Fashion Dolls |
Barbie was not the first teen fashion doll! | PMA Teen Walker
photo: EBay | Woolworth's Little Miss Marie
photo: EBay | Virga High-heeled Teen
photo: EBay |
| | The PMA and Virga teens were marketed under various names, and for various labels. "Suzie Shopper" was one. |
photo: EBay
Little Miss Ginger (Cosmopolitan) Cosmopolitan tried to meet the budding teenaged doll fad with Little Miss Ginger - the same size as regular Ginger, but more grown-up. | 
photo: EBay
Little Miss Nancy Ann Nancy Ann similarly created Miss Nancy Ann, as well as Muffie's 10-inch big sister, Debbie. Nancy Ann also made a much taller "Nancy Ann Style Show" teen doll. | 
Richwood Sandra Sue pre-dates Barbie by over a decade, and still has a loyal following
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About.com has some very interesting articles and links to other websites that really give these gals their due! - Also lots of Barbie. Zendelle Bouchard's FASHIONABLE LADIES site is a great website that focuses on the teen fashion/costume dolls |
Vogue Jill
(10-inches tall)
ebay listing photo
Vogue entered the teenaged doll fad with Jan & Jill, Ginny's older and taller teen-aged sisters.
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Reliable of Canada produced this moveable-legged fashion doll. | 
PMA made a doll in the early 1950's that had moveable legs, but was otherwise like the fixed-legged costume/character dolls. |
Barbie, of course, eventually beat out all of these dolls. |
American doll-makers experimented with teen dolls during the 1950's, but the real action was in Europe. |
Germany and France had popular teen fashion dolls as far back as the 1920's. These were quite the rage in Europe during the 1950's. Barbie probably drew more inspiration from these than from the sweet, gentle American dolls like Sandra Sue and Jill. |
The European dolls were flat-out vamps. American manufacturers knew their potential, but deemed them too sexy for the American market. Mattel created a slightly less come-hither doll in Barbie, who was nevertheless a quantum leap in attitude from Vogue Jill or Richwood Sandra Sue. Due to consumer pressure, Barbie has gradually become more and more wholesome-looking over the years. Today Barbie looks a lot like Sandra Sue, and is marketed as a positive role model for young girls. |
I always hated Barbie, and really have never liked the teen dolls much. |
Being a Boomer kid - pre-women's movement - I felt intuitively that childhood was my last chance at being authentic: Once puberty set in, it was all over. The last thing I dreamed about was becoming a teen or a woman, which, at that time, seemed limited to being a sex object/kitchen slave - in other words, a Barbie! (It would be at least 10 more years before this attitude gained any credence or validity - at the time this was a sign that I was not altogether "well adjusted." I was told that, with the magic of puberty, I would see the light and snap out of it...) But reading some of these articles have helped me come to a more tolerant appreciation of her. At the very least, she is a cultural Icon, with lots to say about us! And, Barbie has evolved with the times, now serving as a role model to young children showing them that girls can do ANYTHING!
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| I discovered these three Barbie books on About.com. If you're into Barbie, check them out. Even if you hate Barbie, but are interested in sociology or the history of popular culture, the Billy Boy and Weissman books are interesting. |
