Dolls have been fascinating children (and adults) for decades. Many of us loved, pampered and cared for our life-like playmates and were attached to these things more than our tattered blankie and big fat thumb. While the variety and types of dolls are almost endless, here we handpick some of the most popular dolls that were featured in a recent issue of ReMIND magazine themed around our favorite Toys & Games. Leave a comment below on your favorite doll and where it might be today (we plan on doing another follow up issue)! And if you have any images we’d love to see them – email us at [email protected]

Dating back to the 1910s, the chubby-cheeked, large-eyed, elfin-like characters were created by illustrator and businesswoman Rose O’Neill via her comic strip. It was a logical and profitable next step to replicate her characters into bisque porcelain dolls (authentic dolls have star-shaped hands), which hit shelves in 1912. O’Neill was also a leader in women’s rights, using her dolls to advocate for racial and gender equality — one of her campaigns in 1914 involved dropping Kewpie dolls, adorned with “Votes for Women” sashes, out of a plane at a women’s suffrage rally in Nashville.

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These little soft-sculpture baby dolls by Appalachian artist Xavier Roberts caused quite the frenzy when they first debuted in 1982, as you couldn’t just buy the doll, you needed to adopt it. Unlike other dolls, each Cabbage Patch doll came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. Some avid consumers were trampled trying to buy one during that year’s holiday shopping season (now referred to as the Cabbage Patch Riots of 1983), and the demand was so high that people began making counterfeit dolls stuffed with industrial rags; consumers were told to avoid Kids that smelled like kerosene. Eventually, supply caught up to demand, and the dolls still remain a popular collectible today.

Madame Alexander Dolls

New Yorker Madame Beatrice Alexander Behrman was just 28 when she founded the Alexander Doll Company in 1923, where she believed in compassion, empathy and meaningful relationships through doll play and creativity. She’s credited for replacing typical porcelain with cloth to encourage play, and also created the first toys with officially licensed tie-ins to Alice in Wonderland, Gone With the Wind and Little Women, as well as in 1955 introducing Cissy, the first fashion doll in America.

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Raggedy Ann’s origin story is one of a bit of heartbreak, horror and lots of folklore as there are various permutations to it. American political cartoonist and author Johnny Gruelle is the creator of the beloved red-yarned, button-eyed Raggedy Ann & Andy. A ragdoll once owned by his mother and found in the attic was his starting place, where Gruelle drew a smile and a nose on the doll’s featureless face, named her Raggedy Ann and gave it to his only daughter, Marcella.

His daughter adored the doll, and that inspired Gruelle to pen countless stories of the doll’s warm and kind-hearted adventures. While Marcella died at age 13, a heartbroken Gruelle went on to patent the design of the Raggedy Ann doll in 1915, followed by Raggedy Andy in 1920, and the dolls were paired with book sales, both ultimately becoming massive successes. Gruelle maintained the copyright for the doll, regardless of who was manufacturing it, and in 1937 won a legal battle over trademark infringement, only to die of a heart attack the following month. While production of the dolls would change ownership numerous times, the books and the dolls have remained popular for the past century.

Many fans hate that the doll took a darker path in 2014 with the theatrical film Annabelle and its sequels, which are allegedly based on a 1968 tale about a nursing student who was gifted a Raggedy Ann doll that was deemed to be “demonically possessed.” The alleged doll would be obtained by Ed and Lorraine Warren and was part of their Occult Museum in Connecticut, but is now with the New England Society for Psychic Research.

The megastar doll was first introduced in the 1966-71 sitcom Family Affair and has been a hit ever since. The blue-polka-dot-dressed granny with horizontal glasses had a pull-string talker that would deliver one of several memorable lines. Here are a few: “Long ago, I was a little girl just like you.” “Gracious me! You’re getting to be such a big girl.” “I do think you’re the nicest little friend I ever had.” Today, the Ashton Drake company offers a replica doll that says all of her classic phrases.

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One of the world’s largest toy manufacturers, Mattel, was established in 1945 and is responsible for creating so many famous dolls and toys, but nothing — absolutely nothing — compares to Barbie, the undisputed queen of the toy aisle. The picture-perfect original Barbie doll was released in 1959 for an affordable $3. She dazzled in her black-and-white knit swimsuit, high heels and tight ponytail (you could get her as either a blonde or brunette; red hair wasn’t introduced until 1961). Mattel sold 350,000 dolls in her first year and could barely keep inventory on shelves.

Barbie has had countless firsts with her continuous evolution: In 1961, Barbie got her first companion, Ken (the doll was named after Kenneth Carson, the son of Barbie’s inventor Ruth Handler). In 1964, Miss Barbie was introduced with bendable legs and three interchangeable wigs. Color Magic Barbie (that’s a rare one) in 1966 allowed owners to change her hair color. Talking Barbie (“What shall I wear to the prom?” was one of her lines) came in 1968. Malibu Barbie, another icon, came in 1971 with her infamous tanned look, yellow towel and aqua one-piece. SuperStar Barbie was released in 1977 and marked the start of a softer and friendlier face and more glamorous fashions. It wasn’t until 1980 that we finally saw the first Black and Latina Barbies — while Barbie had her Black friend Christie, there was never an actually Black Barbie until then. Barbie ran for president for the first time in 1992, her waistline was finally expanded in 1997, she made the cover of Time magazine in 2016 and got her own movie in 2023. As she generates over $1 billion a year in sales, this doll’s dream life is far from over.

Introduced by Mattel in 1960, Chatty Cathy was America’s first successful talking doll and quickly became second only to Barbie in little girls’ hearts. Modeled after a real 5-year-old girl, the doll could blink her eyes and say one of 11 phrases — from “ Tell me a story” to “I love you” — when kids pulled her drawstring. Mattel stopped making the doll in 1965 because Chatty Cathy’s talking mechanism proved too fragile for long-term play. But her popularity endured. JCPenney offered a reproduction in 1998 that sold for almost $100, and the doll still has avid online fan clubs and collector clubs.

Baby Alive

Per the jingle, Baby Alive was soft and sweet. She could drink and she could eat. Introduced by Kenner in 1973, Baby Alive had realistic features, including a mouth that really moved and special powdered food packets that could be mixed with water and “fed” to the doll. Specifically created to mimic the care of a real baby, the doll also drank from her bottle and needed diaper changes after she was fed. By 1980, up to 1 million Baby Alive dolls were sold every year. A talking version was released in the early ’90s, and revised again in 2006 when Hasbro took over production of Baby Alive, making the look of the doll more cartoonish and less realistic than the original, which is prized by collectors.

American Girl

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Part toy, part history lesson and part status symbol, American Girl dolls were created by Wisconsin educator and philanthropist Pleasant Rowland in 1986. Inspired by a trip to Colonial Williamsburg, Rowland hoped that spotlighting strong women throughout history would inspire young girls to make their own mark in the world. Priced at $65, each lifelike, 18-inch doll represented a particular time in America’s past and featured a book series that further explored her story. Though they were prized by tweens and young teens, their hefty price point and collectability often ruled out serious play and inspired plenty of knockoffs. Rowland sold Pleasant Company to Mattel in 1998, and the toymaker expanded the line to include contemporary versions of the classic dolls, a line of ragdolls and baby dolls for younger children, and added accessories for more imaginative play. Prized for their high quality, American Girl dolls have enjoyed renewed popularity in recent years as their original owners become moms.

Baby Nancy

Baby Nancy

A true groundbreaker in the toy genre, Baby Nancy was the unlikely brainchild of civil rights activists Louis S. Smith II and Robert Hall in the wake of the 1965 Watts Riots in South Central Los Angeles. The pair cofounded Operation Bootstrap, a co-op intent on enhancing residents’ educational and professional skills and supporting entrepreneurship in the Watts community, which was located near the Mattel headquarters.

To support their neighbors, Mattel offered to back a toy company owned and run by local residents, and Shindana Toys was born. Shindana’s first project was Baby Nancy, a Black baby doll Smith and Hall thought children of all races would love. Created by Black sculptor Jim Toatley, Baby Nancy’s facial mold accurately reflected Afrocentric features and bone structure, breaking from the industry’s long-standing practice of using the same mold as white dolls, but darker vinyl. Baby Nancy debuted in Los Angeles in 1969, and demand was so strong that she quickly went national. Shindana folded in 1983, but authentic Baby Nancy and other dolls can still be found on resale sites.

Holly Hobbie

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In the late 1960s, artist Denise Holly Hobbie sketched a bouquet-clutching little girl wearing a floral dress and patchwork apron, bright blue bloomers and a matching sunbonnet that obscured her face. Hobbie sold the character, then known as “blue girl,” to American Greetings and America fell in love. The character was so beloved that American Greetings designer Robert Childers suggested she be turned into a doll. He designed the prototype himself and the company partnered with Knickerbocker Toy Company to launch a line of rag dolls featuring Holly, her brunette friend Heather and her buddy Amy.

Here’s where it got complicated for parents: Knickerbocker released the dolls in various sizes — a 9-inch version which could be easily shlepped to the grocery store or grandma’s, a 14-inch version great for pretend play and a whopper 27-inch version perfect for TV time or bedtime snuggles, as well as others. Plenty of girls wanted all of these dolls, which could cost a pretty penny. The line got a fourth member called Carrie in 1976, but Knickerbocker stopped making the dolls when its licensing agreement with American Greetings ended. But plenty of “Hollies” can still be found on eBay.

For moms and dads fresh off the flower child scene, rural families who found Barbie and Ken just too hoity-toity, and Little House on the Prairie obsessives, 1974 was a banner year. Courtesy of Mattel, doll aisles now included The Sunshine Family, a trio of countrified dolls that included brunette papa Steve, mama Stephie (a Melissa Sue Anderson lookalike who wore simple sandals if she wore shoes at all), and their towheaded baby girl Sweets, who came clothed in a rustic cloth diaper. Unlike Barbie in her towering townhouse, The Sunshine Family lived in a simple, one-story home and ran a craft store, which they filled with macramé goodies and stuff they created with their potter’s wheel, spinning wheel and repurposed items — “homey family activities” according to the ad. The sets encouraged kids to be crafty too, turning fast-food boxes, tuna cans and toothpaste boxes into furniture for the family. The dolls were an instant hit, and additional play sets, family members and friends soon followed. But by 1978, yuppies were popping the collars of their Izod polos, disco ruled the airwaves and the sun had set on The Sunshine Family.

What favorite doll of yours didn’t make the cut? Let us know below so we can consider for our follow up issue!