Raggedy Ann
Though Raggedy Ann
is a perennial favorite for kids and collectors, this wildly successful
and well-loved doll wasn’t dreamed up in any toy company’s R&D
department. According to the lore that surrounds her, Ann's modest and
poignant beginnings took place on a rainy day, when a little girl
plucked her out of the damp cold in her grandmother’s attic, and then
showed off her new toy to her cartoonist father. Of course, lore tends
to get soaked in melodrama and stretches-of-the-truth—nowadays, the
story’s rainy weather is in question, and the location of said attic is
in question. Heck, even the identity of who really found the doll in said attic is in question…but let’s not get caught up in the technicalities.
The cartoonist father was Johnny Gruelle, who had been a political
cartoonist and a freelance illustrator for other writers’ cartoon
strips. When, as the story goes, his daughter Marcella burst into his
art studio carrying the soiled, faceless rag doll she had found,
Gruelle picked up a pen and drew in her facial features and suggested
that Marcella’s grandma might be able to sew on buttons as eyes. Then,
he opened a nearby book of James Whitcomb Riley’s poetry and concocted
the doll’s name from two poems: “The Raggedy Man” and “Little Orphan
Annie.” Sadly, a few years later, Marcella died of an infected smallpox
vaccination—she was thirteen. Gruelle, who was working on several
versions of illustrated fairy tales and playtime yarns already, now
focused on his nascent “Raggedy Ann” stories—the very stories that some
say he told to his little girl in the last days of her illness.
When Gruelle’s stories were published as the Raggedy Ann Stories
in 1918, the book’s protagonist was named after his late daughter, and
she would be a reoccurring character in the twenty-five books that
followed. Gruelle believed that children’s books “should contain
nothing to cause fright, suggest fear, glorify mischief, excuse malice
or condone cruelty.” The folksy and wholesome Raggedy Ann, with her
candy heart and her brother named Andy, became a spokesdoll for trust
and kindness, for always doing the moral thing. The two dolls'
caregiver, Beloved Belindy, Camel with the Wrinkled Knees, Quacky
Doodles and Danny Doodles—characters just as cheerful and kindly as the
Ann and Andy—later joined the rag doll duo.
Another part of Raggedy Ann legend is that Gruelle and his family
manufactured the first dolls—to accompany the new book’s release.
Whether the family actually made the doll’s first prototypes or just
held (and continue to hold onto today) the first Raggedy Ann patent is
a detail that’s up for grabs—to be determined by whoever is telling the
Raggedy Ann story. The first toy company, and now we’re back to fact,
to make the dolls was called P.F. Volland. Exposition Doll and Toy
Manufacturing had a go in 1935, and then Knickerbocker after that.
Today, Simon and Schuster retain Raggedy Ann and Andy literary rights,
and Hasbro-Playskool and Applause Toy Company hold the license to the
characters for toys and merchandise.
The Knickerbocker dolls, which were introduced in the 1960’s, were
dressed in nostalgic gingham and calico fabrics, had cloth bodies, red
and white striped legs, and an “I love you” message printed over their
hearts. The Applause Toy Company started as a division of Knickerbocker
in 1979, and the bulk of their dolls had embroidered faces, though
there was one version with button eyes—just like Marcella’s original
doll. The Ideal Company made a set of 18" porcelain dolls in 1978, to
coincide with the release of the animated Raggedy Ann and Andy musical movie.
This was the dolls’ least soft and cuddly phase—renowned, as they are,
for their huggable, all-cloth bodies. Hug some of the dolls hard
enough, in fact, and you might be able to feel Ann’s magic pebble or
Andy’s wishing stick inside, which were both ornaments from the duo’s
storybook days.
Raggedy Anns and Andys are widely, widely collected, and though
they’re steeped in old-time Americana, they have legions of adoring
fans in other countries. Aside from the books and the dolls, Raggedy
products range from wallpaper to tea sets to comics to doll house
miniatures. There aren’t many toy personalities this durable, and there
certainly aren’t many toys with such a frequently retold and
refashioned legacy.
