ABSTRACT
In early 1964, everyone from Lady Bird Johnson to hundreds of thousands of college girls found the "Dammit" doll to be lovable. Newsweek noted that it was "fast replacing the rabbit's foot as the world's most popular good-luck charm". The doll originated around 1959 when a Danish woodcutter, Thomas Dam, who could not afford to purchase his teenage daughter a birthday gift, carved her his vision of a troll who, according to legend, scampered about the Nordic countryside, bestowing good fortune on humans fortunate enough to catch him. Dam's luck began its upward climb when his daughter dressed the doll and showed it about the village the following day, thereby attracting the attention of a Danish toy merchant. By 1964, Dam operated doll factories in Denmark, New Zealand, and Hialeah, Florida and had sold more than a million of his creations in the United States (US) alone.
