Hey! I make my living selling baby dolls, so as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t get any better than this!
The ‘baby doll’ is being added to The Strong National Museum of Play’s “National Toy Hall of Fame!
Strong Museum Rochester
From the press release:
Cradle it, feed it, take it for a stroll. The Baby Doll, with its newborn features and realistic qualities, brings out the nurturing side of pretend moms and dads. Loved by children (especially little girls) since the late eighteenth century, manufacturers have made such dolls ever-more lifelike. Most early baby dolls were made of papier-mâché or wood, followed in the mid-1800s by wax, porcelain, and composition, and in the 1950s by plastic and vinyl. In the mid-1850s, a patented German device allowed dolls to say “mama”; and an 1879 patented design made way for a drinking doll that could hold water in her head and then return it to the bottle. In 1933, Effanbee released its Dy-Dee doll, which could drink and wet. The Betsy Wetsy doll soon followed. Today’s dolls can crawl, cry, eat, dirty a diaper, and—thanks to 1990s microchip technology—talk back via voice-activated commands! While the baby doll comes in hundreds of different styles, it continues to inspire children to imitate parental roles and foster their own sense of identity.
Assuming you are like me, you’ll want to know what else is on the list…
To date, the following 41 toys have made it into the National Toy Hall of Fame®: Alphabet Blocks, Atari® 2600 Game System, Barbie®, Baby Doll, Bicycle, Candy Land®, Cardboard Box, Checkers, Crayola® Crayons, Duncan® Yo-Yo, Easy-Bake® Oven, Erector® Set, Etch A Sketch®, Frisbee®, G.I. Joe™, Hula Hoop®, Jack-in-the-Box, Jacks, Jigsaw Puzzle, Jump Rope, Kite, LEGO®, Lincoln Logs®, Lionel® Trains, Marbles, Monopoly®, Mr. Potato Head®, Play-Doh®, Radio Flyer® Wagon, Raggedy Ann & Andy™, Rocking Horse, Roller Skates, Scrabble®, Silly Putty®, Skateboard, Slinky®, Stick, Teddy Bear, Tinkertoy®, Tonka® Trucks, and View-Master®.