A LONG HISTORY

Established in 1865, Horsman is the oldest doll name in America. No other company even comes close to its record of longevity.

For the first 40 years, it wasn't a doll manufacturer at all. Instead, Horsman imported and distributed German dolls, toys, games, novelties and sporting goods.

It wasn't until the early 20th Century that Horsman began making dolls. Or to be more accurate, have a subsidiary manufacture them. Dollmaking coincided with Horsman's son, Edward Jr., joining the family firm. Dad may have been the business brains of the firm, but it was Junior who had the artistic and design eye.

Soon Horsman was selling countless American-made composition dolls, totally unlike anything the Old World had produced. But Edward Jr. died young, in his 40s, in 1918. His father, already an elderly man, returned to run the company, but in 1927, he, too, died. Soon the doll company was in deep financial distress.

That's when something important happened, something that would be repeated several more times in Horseman's future. Ownership passed into new hands in 1933, and the company virtually reinvented itself to fit changing times.

The new owner was Regal Dolls, a smaller company with a large under-utilized factory in Trenton, NJ. Regal's leading lights were Harry Freedman and his chief salesman, later president, Lawrence Lipson. They acquired a near-bankrupt Horsman and revived it. For a time the company made dolls under both the Regal and Horsman names. But soon realizing which was the more potent brand, the firm changed its company name from Regal to Horsman.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Horsman was a success, focusing on a popularly priced but quality line of well-dressed baby dolls. No fancy names, no gimmicks, just beautiful babies that little girls could love.

Then came World War II. There were serious shortages of materials, kapok, used for stuffing doll bodies was unavailable. It came, mostly, from the Japanese-occupied Dutch East Indies. Mohair for wigs was hard to get. Metal for sleep eye mechanisms was in short supply. Most went to war industries. Little was available for toy factories.

Some companies began manufacturing products for the war effort. While Horsman was able to continue making some dolls, part of its factory reportedly was used to make medical supplies, soft vinyl prosethese, artificial hands for amputee veterans.

After the war, when toymakers were scrambling to get back into production of children's dolls, Horsman drew upon its wartime experience with vinyl. It was not the first doll firm to use plastic, but, in 1947, it was the first to use it on a large scale. Again, Horsman reinvented itself – this time as a manufacturer of vinyl dolls.