More than one billion Barbie dolls have been sold since 1959, building Mattel, Inc., the company co-founded in 1945 by Handler, her husband Elliot and Harold Matson, an early partner, into an industry powerhouse and making Ruth’s creation – named after her own daughter – the best-selling toy in history.

Handler got the idea for an adult fashion doll in the early 1950s while watching her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls. She guessed correctly that there was a market for a three-dimensional doll through which little girls could act out their dreams of growing up. It wasn’t until the late-50s that she was able to convince others in the company to giver her idea a try. The first Barbie doll was introduced in 1959 and has since grown into a $1.5 billion a year business for Mattel, Inc., which is the world’s largest toy maker.

In 1945, Ruth and Elliot started Mattel Creations, a small business enterprise in Hawthorne, Calif., headquartered in their garage. They began with three pieces of shop equipment purchased on installment from Sears. The first Mattel products were picture frames, which Elliot made and Ruth sold. Elliot soon developed a side business in dollhouse furniture made from picture frame scraps. This led the company to focus on toys. Ruth Handler’s outstanding marketing skills complemented her husband’s product development talents, and the company made money its first year. The Uke-A-Doodle, a child-size ukulele, was the first in a line of musical toys produced by Mattel.

Ruth Handler played an integral role in the success of Mattel. From 1948 to 1967 she served as Executive Vice President of the company. In 1967, she became the company’s President, and in 1973 she was named Chairman of the Board, along with her husband. During those years, the Handlers steadily expanded the company and its product line until Mattel, Inc. grew to become one of the largest toy companies in the world. Ruth Handler was one of the most successful pioneers of women in business, forging a path to the top of the corporate ladder at a time when few women dared to attempt a career as a top-level business executive.

While small in stature, she was an aggressive, hard-driving businesswoman known for getting things done, and both Ruth and Elliot were held in high esteem by their employees. As a team, they were appreciated for their thoughtfulness and their ability to make every employee feel that his or her contribution to the organization was important. They insisted that all of their employees call them by their first names at a time when such informality was unheard of. Further, the Urban League honored the Handlers in 1951 for Mattel’s nondiscriminatory hiring practices.

The Handlers were responsible for a number of “firsts” in the toy industry. They revolutionized the industry and the process of marketing toys directly to children and their parents when, in 1955, they decided to invest $500,000 to advertise their toys for 52 weeks on a new children’s television program called “The Mickey Mouse Club.” Never before had toys been advertised on television on a year-round basis. The gamble was remarkably successful for Mattel.

By advertising on a children’s television show, Mattel proved that both a toy and its brand name could be sold directly to the consumer – the child. In the past, parents bought toys by asking a salesperson for suggestions, and the toy or the manufacturer were rarely mentioned by name. By advertising every week, Mattel also created a year-round consumer demand for toys. Before the advent of television advertising, consumers purchased 80 percent of all toys six weeks before Christmas. Year-round advertising forced retailers and wholesalers to carry and display toys prominently all year long. The toy industry was changed forever, and Mattel was transformed from a profitable business into a corporate giant.

When the Barbie doll was introduced at the 1959 Toy Fair in New York City, it received a cool reception from the primarily middle-aged, male buyers, and few ordered the product. The reaction from little girls and their mothers was, however, entirely different. They loved the Barbie doll from the start. Retailers who did order the doll had empty shelves within days, and Mattel was swamped with orders. As other retailers heard the news, they too ordered the Barbie doll, but it took several years for the company to catch up with overwhelming consumer demand.

In the years to follow, as sales of the doll consistently grew, the Barbie doll took on many aspirational roles. Other dolls joined the Barbie line through the years, several of which were named after Handler family members and friends, such as Ken – named for the Handlers’ son – in 1961, followed by Midge in 1963, Skipper in 1965 and Christie – an African American doll – in 1968.

The Barbie doll became Mattel’s best-selling product and remains so today. Other well-known Mattel products include Hot Wheels miniature die-cast vehicles, developed by Elliot Handler and introduced in 1968; See ’N Say talking toys, launched in 1965; and Chatty Cathy, one of the first talking dolls, which was popular in the 1960s.

Ruth Handler left Mattel in 1975 and the following year established “Nearly Me,” a company that manufactured realistic-looking breast prostheses. Her own experience provided the impetus for the founding of Nearly Me. She lost her left breast to cancer in 1970, and the ordeals she endured in her quest for an adequate breast prosthesis later inspired her to design a new and improved line of breast prostheses. She served as the company’s president until it was sold to Spenco Medical, a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark, in 1991.

Handler was involved in a wide variety of community service organizations, including the Los Angeles Music Center, the American Cancer Society and the United Negro College Fund. She received numerous awards, including the Los Angeles Times’ “Woman of the Year in Business” award in 1968; the Ladies Home Journal “75 Outstanding Women in America” award in 1971; the Doll of the Year Awards’ “Lifetime Achievement” honor in 1986; and she became the first living inductee, with husband Elliot, to the Toy Manufacturers Hall of Fame. Junior Achievement also inducted her into the National Business Hall of Fame in 1996 for her work with the Junior Achievement organization.

Handler was born Ruth Mosko, the tenth and final child of Polish immigrants, in Denver, Colo., on Nov. 4, 1916. She met Elliot Handler at a charity dance in 1932. Shortly thereafter, Ruth moved to California and took a job at Paramount Studios. Elliot Handler later followed, and they were married on June 26, 1938.

She is survived by Elliot Handler, her husband of 63 years; her daughter, Barbara Segal; one brother, Aaron Mosko of Denver; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Her son Ken died of a brain tumor in 1994.

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