June 25
KEWPIE DAY
How many of you remember ... or ever heard of ... the Kewpie Doll? Are we dating you? The Kewpie Doll was created by Rose O’Neill, who was born on this day in 1874. Rose was raised in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and had a rather successful career as an illustrator and author. In fact, her paintings, drawings, and sculptures of, what Rose called her “Sweet Monsters” (mythical creatures such as centaurs, fauns, satyrs), were exhibited in New York and Paris. But then, she began to design dolls, specifically, the Kewpie Doll.
Although her patent for the dolls wasn’t registered until March 4, 1913, a 1910 issue of Ladies Home Journal printed a full page of Ms. O’Neill’s doll designs, catapulting the Kewpie Doll into a marketing success in the toy industry for more than three decades.
The Kewpie Doll was a small, cupid-like, plump figure with a top-knot. Made of plaster or celluloid, the doll was produced in nine different sizes.
Rose O’Neill spent her years between Paris -- where she studied with the masters including the artist, Rodin, and the author, Kahil Gibran, and Greenwich Village, New York. She was so popular in this New York City community, helping out struggling artists and supporting the suffragette movement, that she was the inspiration for a popular song of the times, Rose of Washington Square.
Although Rose was a famous illustrator (she produced more than 700 illustrations for the magazine Puck), it was the little doll with the top-knot hairdo that earned her the most fame and by far the most fortune -- Kewpie filled Rose’s purse with an estimated $1.4 million.
Rose O’Neill died on April 6, 1944.
Those Were the Days, the Today in History service from 440 International
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