Ginny wearing an example of the beautiful outfits that made Vogue famous. Photo courtesy of Nancy McKee. Visit Nancy's shop .	Jill shows off her polka dotted pajamas.

Jennie Graves of Somerville, MA, began her career in the doll business in 1925 by buying nude dolls, dressing them, and selling them through department stores in the Boston area. She soon hired neighborhood women as home sewers to keep up with demand, and opened her own store, the Vogue Doll Shoppe. Throughout the twenties, thirties and forties, Mrs. Graves purchased dolls from other companies to dress. She began with German bisque head dolls, but soon added celluloid dolls as well as American-made composition, rubber, and even cloth dolls to her lineup. The composition dolls dressed by Vogue were made by Ideal, Arranbee and Madame Alexander.

In 1937, Mrs. Graves introduced a doll of her own. It was Toddles, a 7.5" composition doll sculpted by the world famous doll designer Bernard Lipfert. Toddles continued to be made until 1948, when it was replaced with a very similar 8" doll in hard plastic. This was the precursor to Ginny, who became the most popular doll of the 1950s. In 1950 the dolls began to be made with sleep eyes. During this period, the dolls were sold with individual names, but by the end of 1952, the dolls had become universally known as Ginny. Also in 1952, Ginny began to be sold as a basic doll in her underwear, with outfits available separately. Since Mrs. Graves' main focus from the beginning had been on Vogue's beautiful, well made clothing, this was a stroke of genius. Little mothers could now dress their doll for all occasions in everything from day dresses to formal wear to blue jeans.

Vogue had produced a baby doll called Velva from 1948 to 1951, with a composition head and stuffed latex rubber body. The doll was discontinued when it became apparent that the latex would begin to deteriorate after a few years, and in any case, the company wanted to concentrate all its resources on Ginny. But by 1955 they were ready to add more dolls to the lineup, and Ginnette, an 8" vinyl baby doll was introduced. She was promoted as "Ginny's baby sister" and was joined in 1957 by "Ginny's big sister," Jill, 10.5" all hard plastic high-heeled fashion doll. In 1958, Vogue purchased the Arranbee Doll Co. and further expanded their line with dolls such as Littlest Angel and Brikette.

Mrs. Graves retired in 1960 and her daughter Virginia Carlson took over the company. She in turn retired six years later and her brother-in-law, Edwin Nelson became president of Vogue. In 1972, Vogue was sold to the Tonka Corporation. The company changed hands several more times until it was purchased by the present owners in 1995, and re-launched under the name Vogue Doll Co. Today, the company focuses solely on Ginny dolls, in classic and contemporary styles, for children as well as collectors. Visit their website at www.voguedolls.com.

If you are interested in learning more about Jill, Jan and Jeff, visit Vicki Broadhurst's Vogue Jill website.

Sources for this page include:

• "Collector's Encyclopedia of Vogue Dolls" by Judith Izen and Carol Stover

Copyright 2006-7 by Zendelle Bouchard.