VINYL ERA BEGINS
The 20th Century marked its midpoint in 1950, and Horsman celebrated its 85th birthday. E.I. Horsman Sr, the founder, had been dead for nearly a quarter century. Freedman, board chairman, and Lawrence Lipson, president, had directed
Horsman Dolls, Inc., for nearly that long, steering it through the difficult Depression years and World War II that followed.
For a decade and a half, the doll manufacturer had followed a policy of making what it termed a People’s Doll…a fine doll at a moderate price! Horsman’s reputation in the 1930s and 40s was built on manufacturing a limited line of well-made composition dolls, particularly baby dolls with mama criers. The typical Horsman doll had a certain look, a familiar dolly face that changed little from year to year.
Finding a Horsman baby doll under the tree, or as a birthday present, was an experience almost every American girl knew. The company’s slogan, America’s Best Known and Best Loved Dolls, said it all. Though the company had switched from composition to vinyl, Horsman stuck to what it did best, making a stable, staple line of attractive dolls in wonderful outfits.
In 1952, Horsman began rooting Saran fibers in their soft vinyl doll heads. The next year – and for only that year – the company switched to another plastic hair fiber, Dynell, for its stylable-setable Shadow Wave doll. But in 1954, it returned to Saran because of its strength and resistance to abrasion when combed. Saran also had a better sheen and “hung” better than other man-made “hair.”
There were other important doll innovations in 1952. Walker dolls and a new, improved soft vinyl Fairy Skin were introduced. Fairy Skin, the company advertised, was softer, more realistic than the plastic previously used. Today, Fairy Skin is identifiable by the soft, almost
radiant glow of its doll faces.
Technologically, the late 1940s and early ‘50s had been a rather amazing time. And from a business sense, Horsman Dolls Inc. was riding high. In its three-story factory complex at the corner of Adeline Street and Chestnut Avenue in Trenton, the company was producing a million and a half dolls a year. 