Lesson 12 Be different types of Barbie dolls for sale, there was just a single Barbie. Actually, her name was Barbara. • Barbara Handler was the daughter of Elliot and Ruth Handler, co-founders of the Mattel Toy Company.In the 1950s, Ruth noticed that her daughter, Barbara, preferred to play with dolls that looked like adults rather than babies. At that time, however, most 3-D dolls were made to look like babies or small children. Realizing that there was a hole in the marketplace, Ruth suggested the idea of a 3D adult -like doll to her husband, but the idea was laughed at. Mattel’s directors told her that it would be impossible to create such a doll.
• 7.How many Lily dolls did Ruth buy? • 8.How many Barbie dolls does an average American girl own? • 9.When was Lily introduced to American market? • 10.How many Barbie dolls are sold in the world every second?
Ask and answer
• • • • 1.Who was Barbara Handler? 2.What kind of dolls did Barbara like ? 3.What did the dolls look like in the 1950s? 4.Where did Ruth and her daughter go for a trip? • 5.Where did Ruth find lily? • 6.How did lily look?
• After watching her daughter play so interestedly with adult-like paper dolls, however, Ruth stuck to her idea. During a trip to Germany with her daughter, Ruth discovered a German doll named lily in a shop window. The adult-like lily doll was exactly what Ruth had in mind, so she bought three of them. She gave one to her daughter and took the others back to Mattel. • The Lily doll was based on a popular character in a newspaper comic strip. Mattel re-made the doll into a decent, all- American version. Since her introduction in 1959,Barbie has become the queen of the dolls. Mattel says the average American girl owns ten Barbie dolls, and two are sold somewhere in the world every second.