Ruth Handler

Ruth Handler co-founded Mattel in 1945, later served as its president, and created the Barbie doll, launched in 1959.

Ruth Handler co-founded Mattel in 1945 with her husband Elliot Handler and Harold Matson in a Los Angeles garage. She ran much of the business side and pushed Mattel into year-round television advertising on The Mickey Mouse Club in 1955. Inspired by her daughter Barbara's play with paper dolls of adult women, she developed Barbie, launched in March 1959 despite doubts from colleagues. She named the doll after Barbara and the Ken doll (1961) after her son Kenneth. The Handlers left Mattel in the mid-1970s, and Ruth later founded Nearly Me, a maker of breast prostheses, after her own breast cancer surgery. She died in 2002.